After the leak of the AR5 Second Order Draft, initial attention was directed at the IPCC's partial retreat on the solar influence on climate. However, the focus seems to have shifted overnight to weather extremes, with Pielke Jr tweeting up a storm.
1/2 Draft IPCC Ch2 bottom line on extremes: "generally low confidence that there have been discernable changes over the observed record"
2/2 con't ...on lack of trends in extremes, exceptions are trends seen in temperature extremes and regional precipitation (but not floods)
As Ryan Maue responded, the IPCC might have better expressed this as "we have high confidence that natural variability dominates any AGW influence in observed/historical TC records". Pielke continues...
IPCC AR5 draft shows almost complete reversal from AR4 on trends in drought, hurricanes, floods and is now consistent with scientific lit
Of course IPCC AR5 is a draft but the scientific literature it is reporting is available for all to see, and AR5 has it presented accurately
I have been critical of past IPCC assessments on the science of extremes. But after SREX and now IPCC AR5 SOD the IPCC is 2 for 2. Nice job!
So what happens now to those whose views on extremes run counter to IPCC? Are they now the new "deniers"? Somehow I doubt it ;-)
However, it's not all good news. Richard Tol notes that the WG2 first order draft was "unreconstituted alarmism". We will be kept busy.