Bishop Hill Leake on the temperature plateau
Feb 5, 2012 Climate: Surface Jonathan Leake has an excellent summary of the recent argy-bargy over the flatlining of global temperatures.
What were the rest of us meant to make of this? Some scientists appear to be warning we will fry, while other sources fear we will freeze. For the public the outcome is, increasingly, confusion. Where might the truth lie?
Perhaps the simplest first step is to put aside the arguments and get back to the data. Is it really true that global temperatures have not risen since 1997?
The simple answer is: they have risen, but not by very much. “Our records for the past 15 years suggest the world has warmed by about 0.051C over that period,” said the Met Office. In layman’s terms that is 51 thousandths of a degree.
It's paywalled, of course, but reproduced here.
Reader Comments (82)
"Fifteen years is just too short a period over which to measure climate change,” said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the Met Office"
But!
"Prescott’s terrifying warnings were backed by Britain’s leading climate scientists. Just before Kyoto a Met Office report warned that climate-related floods would put 50m people at risk of death from starvation in the coming decades. Whole island nations would disappear, it added, while the American Midwest, which helps to feed 100 nations, was likely to face drought and the North Pole might melt"
Not too short a period to propose armageddon.
Noise, warming and CO2, what is the human fingerprint, more importantly - can it be detected and no not at all is the answer.
The question that British scientists, MP's and wider public should ask themselves is, if Britain cuts emissions by 30%, or went for 50%......79.08876% [whatever] - will this make a ha'peth worth of difference on a global scale?
The answer is no, we cannot, do not, effect or affect world T's.
Thus, why are we committing to our ridiculous, unilateral, exhorbitantly expensive and suicidal emissions limitation climate ACT.
Or, have our politicians, just totally lost the plot like Phil Jones has.
pesadia - yes and James Hansen's original scare in the 80's was only based on a similar period.
All us old folk will remember the next ice age coming stuff in the 70's but this blog article about a 1970's book about it came as a bit of a revelation - amazing how the "cause" just changed horses - are we about to see that again???
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/01/31/the-coming-of-the-new-ice-age-end-of-the-global-warming-era/?singlepage=true
Not only does it look as though variation in solar output effects the climate - it gives doom-mongering a pole reversal kick as well !!!
An extraordinarily well balanced and measured article for a mainstream newspaper. Mr. Leake and his editors are to be congratulated.
I shall continue to look for something as thoughtful in the pages of the Guardian.
Jack Savage you will continue to be disappointed, The Guardian have made it clear their fully and totally committed to 'the cause ' , not becasue of the science but like the green groups becasue they think this is a horse that can be ridding all the way to achieve 'political goals '
'the world has warmed by about 0.051C ' so less than the margins of error , and in the terms of science that means its not if we are actual talking about a scientific not political statement.
I've just spent the last three hours playing with the kids down the local park. This will ensure that when Mann Made Global Warming (tm) makes snow a thing of the past that the kids will at least be able to tell their kids about how much fun snow was :)
Mailman
Good to see some questioning in the media, but I don't agree that this is an excellent article.
A third and very different data set is overseen by John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He gathers figures from three satellites that orbit the Earth 14 times a day. They measure the average temperature of the air from ground level to a height of 35,000ft, a method completely different from those of the Met Office and NCDC. Oddly, given his reputation as a climate sceptic, he found the biggest rise of all. (my emphasis).
This could be taken as as a slur against Dr Spencer and sceptics in general. On the other hand we know that the Met Office have recently adjusted the ocean data to make it seem warmer, and Hansen's GISS dataset has become an international joke.
So what would have happened if John Prescott in 1997 had said.
"The situation is serious, climate change is going to be the biggest challenge facing mankind, because over the next 15 years the global temperature will rise by 50 THOUSANDTHS of a degree."
Not a bad article overall. What I felt was missing was any discussion of the errors in the measurements. 0.051 +/- what? As I understand it, that's why any warming is not significant. By the way does anyone have error figures for the different temperature sets.
The activists who are climate scientists are trying to explain the lack of warming.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/candid-comments-from-global-warming-climate-scientists/
The obvious explanation is that climate modelers have over-weighted carbon dioxide and under-weighted natural variability.
Don B
"The obvious explanation is that climate modelers have over-weighted carbon dioxide and under-weighted natural variability."
Isn't a more obvious one - they are completely wrong and their models have no validity at all?
Cinbad,
No, climate scientists are NEVER wrong so that can't be the answer.
Mailman
Mailman
Off course you are right
silly me
I see this myth is still getting an airing:
Lockwood said: “The disappearance of frost fairs is nothing to do with climate. It is because the old London Bridge — really more of a weir — was pulled down and the embankments were put in. So the river now flows much too fast to freeze and is also a lot saltier. Even a return to Maunder minimum solar conditions would not cause the Thames to freeze again so far downstream.”
I always get the impression that's something which only ever gets said by people who have never been to London. Whilst there's good reason to think that old London Bridge acted as a significant dam, it's obvious that even had it still been in place the Thames would not have frozen at any point in the last few decades. Frost Fairs did not happen without extended periods of very cold weather, however much the Thames's flow has quickened since then.
Also worth noting that the Lakes in the Lake District used to regularly freeze over at the same time.
The one certainty in the U.K. is that MP's are starting to look over their shoulder. The 101 who want the bird killer tariff reducing/removing, know that residents in their constituencies are seeing their rights over planning being swept away and that means votes disappearing. I am sure the 101 will increase. The real problems is getting at the civil servants in the ministries, it always has been, they need to ensure their departments stay fully manned to keep their power. Also the NGO and lobbying groups need reining in.
The universities are also worried about losing huge finances. Who knows, maybe the sensible ones will redirect research to something worthwhile such as the next generation of efficient power production
and we can all get on with our lives with the lights on.....preferably lights we can actually read by!
Well does the greenhouse effect exist or not?
I am sure that 97% (maybe even 100%) of climate scientists would say there is no question about it. But, having read The Hockey Stick Delusion and many of climategate emails, I am sorry to say I would want to double check the date if it were a "climate scientist" who had told me the date.
There is no shortage of people who say it is based on a mistaken view of physics.
Some (eg Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory ) seem to me to have completely misunderstood the theory as it is normally presented and then used physics, different from any textbook or physics course I have ever known, to "disprove" it. You can't debunk a theory, even if it's false, using gobbledegook physics.
There are commenters on BH who say that he analysis of the simple model contradicts the second law of thermodynamics or the known properties of radiation interacting with gases. They include people whose views deserve treating seriously ,if only because of their accomplishments in science and engineering.
The model seems to me to be far too much of an oversimplification to say anything useful about the real climate. But it at least purports to explain the principle.
I've made my own analysis of the simple model commonly described, in the hope perhaps of confirming that the whole greenhouse theory is bollocks. But my analysis reproduces the result commonly presented.
I have not (so far as I can see) done anything that involves any physical impossibilities, energy being generated from nothing, contradiction of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and so on. Nor have I assumed that greenhouse gases "trap radiation" - an obviously ridiculous phrase that frequently appears in texts or publications on climate science.
If the greenhouse theory is false, it would be really useful to have a detailed and clear explanation of exactly how.
[Note that truisms such as "you cannot make water hot with ice" are not going to convince any climate scientist to say "My gosh! You are right! The whole thing is nonesense! How could I have been so stupid".[
Off Topic, I know. But it is dirty work and someone has to do it.
In a (vain) attempt to keep a "balanced" view of what is going on on both sides of the climate "debate"
I pay visits to Realclimate, DeSmogBlog and others.
Mostly it is feeding the peanut gallery stuff, but occasionally something useful pops up,
like this expose of Warren Buffett by DeSmogBlog.
http://www.desmogblog.com/warren-buffett-exposed-oracle-omaha-and-tar-sands
"On January 23, Bloomberg News reported Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), owned by his lucrative holding company Berkshire Hathaway, stands to benefit greatly from President Barack Obama’s recent cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline."
The shock that nice, Liberal, Obama-loving Mr. Buffett could profit from the Demon, Oil, is palpable.
The article at least accepts that there are other effects than CO2. The question of quite how powerful the effect of CO2 relative to other influences is the one that interests me. If CO2 is such a direct and powerful agent, how is it that other, presumably lesser, forces actually overcome it's effect over quite extended periods. It seems to me that the climate system has quite a large number of processes acting, with the interactions between them capable of being positive or negative on overall temperature, and is more likely to be self correcting, than the model that has CO2 as the key element, and everything else a minor effect.
Cumbrian Lad:
Yes, the power of CO2 relative to other influences is interesting – and, I suggest, fundamental to the climate debate. Consider this:
From 1962 to 2011, global temperature increased by 0.39 deg C (HadCRUT3) and atmospheric CO2 by 74 ppm (NOAA). But the same sources indicate that, from 1912 to 1961, temperature increased by 0.52 deg C and CO2 by only 18 ppm. So, if CO2 was (as we’re told) the main cause of the recent warming, presumably other influences were the main cause of the earlier, greater warming. But have those other influences been definitively identified? And, if not, how can we be sure they were not the main cause of the recent warming?
Robin - good point. This is best exemplified by the Alaskan glaciers. Glacier Bay.
The IPCC state that the pre 1950 rises in CO2 concentrations had no effect on climate, so what caused all that ice to melt? And how do we know that the warming we experienced at the end of the 20th Century was not just a continuation of the long slow thaw from the Little Ice Age? We don't. But lets blame it on CO2 instead, so that we can further the green agenda...
You have to hand it to the greens, they have pulled off a massive con-trick and achieved many of their policy objectives, without actually having to spend much of their own money to get elected.
Source page: http://www.real-science.com/epa-glacier-fraud
Related:
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/the-truth-about-alaskan-glaciers/
http://www.real-science.com/glacier-climate-scam
Dave quoted, and rightfully derided this
Seems the problem was the chunks of ice floating downstream were so large (because of the record-breaking freeze) they got stuck under the bridge. The bridge may have impeded the flow somewhat, but the problem was that it was so cold:
a quote from a contemporary pamphlet, can be found in this volume
Search the text version for "frost" and have a read of the pamphlet.
another quote:
So the real reasons the Thames hasn't frozen over lately are:
1. It's never been so cold since
2. Gigawatts of waste heat are being dumped into the river from power stations up stream, not to mention minor contributions from warm water from sewage outflows and the urban heat island effect of London.
Robin.
...... but this does not take into account any possible lag in the action.
HuhneToTheSlammer:
Oh no ... surely you don't mean that, although other influences, not CO2, also caused the recent warming, CO2 will kick in with a vengeance in future?
I sense an underlying bias in the article, use of words like admission and so on are really supporting the conventional view. You can't expect much different from The Times or Sunday Times. I was living in Southend on Sea in 1963 where the Thames flows out into the sea. The sea froze to a limited extent then. Not solid but a sort of slush.
Martin A
Another truism is "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
There comes a point that you simply have to let the poor thing die of thirst.
Right now, "Global Warming" which would cause our children to never see snow again has frozen over 260 people to death in Europe over the last few days. The demand for heating gas has caused shortages due to the constrained supply caused by Green policy.
One last expression "Let them freeze in the dark." That seems to be happening.
Robin Guenier
I flagged the new paper by Abdussamatov, just published in Vol. 4, No. 1 of the APR journal (February 2012), on the unthreaded thread, with a link to the full pdf, yesterday.
He recognises a lag effect in the system, but solar driven, and predicts continuation of current temps for the next two years, then gradual cooling from 2014 to another Little Ice Age max at 2042 to 2055.
As far as I can tell, he has been consistently forecasting a cooling trend driven by this solar decline for several years, and events appear to be uncannily following his predictions.
"Right now, "Global Warming" which would cause our children to never see snow again has frozen over 260 people to death in Europe over the last few days."
Feb 5, 2012 at 3:30 PM | Don Pablo de la Sierra
No. Weather has. Not climate. It's a difference most children understand, but seems far beyond your abilities of comprehension.
Martin A
Well I tend to agree with you about the physics of GHG's. It is certainly a theory that fits the reality fairly well, but then is the theory about CO2 until you look closer. - so it would need some good evidence to make one think outside the box, after all (as often told colleagues) - the answer is frequently in the box.
BUT
Notice that one of the people prompting a rethink of what we know is Dr. Pierre R Latour, PE, who was a NASA Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer. This guy didn't sit in a university pontificating on whether we understand physics. I understand that he was involved with making sure astronauts survived in/out of the spacecraft. He had to know the physics of heat transfer and radiative balance extremely well from a practical point of view.
I am not saying he is right but I don't think he should be dismissed out of hand.
http://moyhu.blogspot.com/2012/01/reykjavik-and-ghcn-adjustments.html?showComment=1328457411120#c5587337558620352701
Sorry, Im just not seeing it...but why are they reducing past temperatures while leaving the present as it is? Why homogenize data to make it look like today? Surely this is something that should only ever be done to milk?
Mailman
In http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChangeBW.htm I show how from 2001, according to the CRU, it has actually been decreasing by -0.6°C (-1.08°F) per century.
Well within natural variability, yes, but so is the whole global warming scam.
I wish warming will resume, if just to preserve plant cultivation in Canada. But it seems like the present cycle calls for more cooling.
Pharos:
That may be. But I'm sceptical of all prediction - whether of warming or cooling.
My point (at 2:06 PM) is quite different. The IPCC (and august bodies such as the Royal Society) assure us that CO2 emissions are "very likely" to have caused the observed increase in global warming "over the last 50 years" (because climate models show that Cumbrian Lad's "other influences" cannot have caused it). But, by "the last 50 years", they mean 1951 to 2000. This claim is fundamental to the CAGW hypothesis. But a comparison of the 50 years ended 2011 with the 50 years ended 1961 suggests a rather different conclusion.
Not being a Climate Scientist I speak without authority, but I seem to recollect it stated several times that the warming effect of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is logarithmic and hence we are seeing a diminishing effect on global temperatures. I remember seeing a scale where eventually the effect of additional CO2 emissions was null. So the combined effect of a weaker sun and diminishing effect of additional CO2 emissions could well lead to a graduate fall of global temperatures perhaps with the lag suggested by some quarters.
Perhaps I should have stated above "near null" as a logarithmic scale never reaches absolute null.
Don Pablo de la Sierra Feb 5, 2012 at 3:30 PM
In my more pessimistic moments, I imagine, 1000 years from now, our descendents will be praying to St Phil and to St Mike to save them from Beegoyle and his works of evil - not to forget his host of Dinniars. The effectiveness of the sacrifices made hitherto and still ongoing will be shown by the fact that CAGW has not (yet) arrived.
Fervent believers are not going to forsake their convictions simply because someone has discovered some errors in a climate model somewhere.
If the Great Delusion should ever come to an end, I think it will be because of a combination of:
- economic collapse of the West
- routine eight hour per day power cuts
- hypothermia deaths in the tens of 1000's.
- ten years more of static or falling global temperatures, coupled with severe winters
At one time, I thought it might have been laughed out of existence as the butt of comedians jokes - but that has not happened.
Mailman,
I might be misinterpreting your question, but isn't it to do with showing a warming trend as CO2 increases and deleting the fact Reykjavik was as warm 70 years ago as now? OR am I just an old cynic? (don't answer that - my wife just has)
http://www.real-science.com/new-giss-data-set-heating-arctic
I thought this Q&A with the Icelandic Met Service told all. (H/T to WUWT)
a) Were the Iceland Met Office aware that these adjustments are being made?
No we were not aware of this.
b) Has the Met Office been advised of the reasons for them?
No, but we are asking for the reasons
c) Does the Met Office accept that their own temperature data is in error, and that the corrections applied by GHCN are both valid and of the correct value? If so, why?
The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik but not quite as bad for the other stations. But we will have a better look. We do not accept these “corrections”.
d) Does the Met Office intend to modify their own temperature records in line with GHCN?
No.
Retired Dave . Feb 5, 2012 at 3:52 PM
No. Anyone with a real-world record of engineering success needs to be listened to, treated with respect and should certainly not be dismissed out of hand.
However, I think that it would pay anyone interested in what Dr Latour says to read his words carefully and then compare what he says with the chapter on radiative heat transfer of any standard chem engrg textbook.
Leake's article shows that he too has no instinct for the empirical or the practical. The temperature data on which this entire kerfuffle rests has to be accurate to within .1 degree per decade. The data was not collected by geniuses but by impoverished school teachers and such who had better things to do. A look at Anthony Watts' site surfacestations.org reveals that management of stations in our own time is just as poor as it was during the Great Depression. To base any decision about taxes on such evidence is absolutely unforgiveable. As "Not Bob" suggested above, if politicians presented this information to the public as justification for their actions they would be voted down in a heartbeat. The entire public policy side of this matter has proceeded on smoke and mirrors alone.
If there's a leake in the temperature plateau, isn't it bound to all run downhill?
I'll get my coat...
3:01 PM | Robin Guenier
Hopefully not - rather a wish to know and trying to keep mind open - not about Huhne, of course ;-)
Martin A
"If the greenhouse theory is false, it would be really useful to have a detailed and clear explanation of exactly how."
OK, I'll have a go; The theory states that if we add one molecule of CO2 to an atmosphere it either captures an outgoing photon and passes it on or passes it back : the average over time being a system energy increase. Adherents to the theory cry voila!
However, this ignores the effect that molecule may have on albedo. Instead of the energy of incoming radiation after reduction for fixed albedo we consider the energy before reduction by variable albedo then GHG theory fails.
It does so because solar radiation includes the absorption frequencies of that additional molecule. That molecule, acting as before, but now receiving solar radiation will either pass it into the system or reflect it out: the average over time being a system energy decrease. The net result is zero system energy change. Voila?
For CO2 there are two frequency bands: around 4250 and 15000 nm and they lie each side of the bulk of outgoing energy. You can see a representation of them in this well-worn diagram, they are the little blips in blue either side of the big one;
Greenhouse effect
Note the diagram has the solar spectrum truncated at around 3500 nm which is after the intensity curve levels off. However, the value *does not become zero* and the diagram is therefore misleading. The solar spectrum and levelling off can be seen in fig.4 of this paper by Thuilier et al 2003[1] where the mid to far IR can be estimated to be around 2.5% of the solar spectral intensity. By the same scaling of the Wikipedia graph the two CO2 radiating intensities come out around 5%.
As the surface area of a sphere is 4 times that of a disc and of a hemisphere 2 times, the W/m^2 incoming is no larger at the relevant frequencies than the outgoing. Therefore, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas as currently defined.
*NASA*
Thuillier
Does anyone have the actual figures for spectral intensity solar/Earth at 4250 & 1500 nm?
SSAT>
Rather than my lazy brain trying to work it out, can you explain to me how that fits in with the empirical observation that the greenhouse effect undoubtedly exists? Are you saying there's something different on a macro scale?
Retirned Dave and Martin A,
while at first glance one would expect that Dr. Pierre R Latour should be due some respect due to his past, when one reads what he writes, that respect might evaporate somewhat.
For example, he claims that the 33C surface temperature and the -18C TOA temperature cannot be compared as they are different kinds of temperature. He proves this by assigning a big T to the first, and a little t to the second, and apparently this alone is supposed to convince you. He explains it thus:
Sorry, but I'm not sure what planet he's on, but it sure ain't planet physics.
http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com/blog/192-that-bogus-greenhouse-gas-whatchamacallit-effect#pierre
dave Feb 5, 2012 at 6:00 PM
"empirical observation that the greenhouse effect undoubtedly exists?"
Dave - To help my understanding, are you referring to observed difference in upward radiation at ground level and outward radiation at top of atmosphere?
Dave,
Empirical evidence? I would be keen to know of it.
On the macro scale: if one additional molecule (delta increase) has zero effect on system energy then addition of another will be no different, wouldn't you think?
The key thing Leake left out is the massive uncertainty in water feedbacks and lack of modelling of globe dominating PDO and AMO ocean temp cycles. Water feedbacks swamps all other factors in the CO2 modelling and yet is a total guess with a potential range of of something like 1-5 degrees per CO2 doubling. PDO and AMO is totally ignored and yet quite obviously responsible for most temp variation in last 120 years.
Warmistas models assume high feedback values and ignore PDO and AMO and as a result with the passage of time since 2000 now have models that are glaringly wrong. When those large feedbacks are eventually bought back to more reasonable levels and PDO and AMO ocean temperature cycles are properly understood and accounted for, the modelled effects of increased CO2 will be revealed as nothing to be concerned about.
Thankfully as more time passes their thermageddonist brand of millenialism based on bad models is getting to be less and less tenable or believable for even the true believers.
He should have added: "...according to our models. Admittedly, our models completely failed to predict the 15 year lull. But you should believe the models on this other point. Honest. Please believe me. After all, I'm a climate scientist, not a dentist."
From 1980 to 2011 the amount of bright sunshine reaching the UK is up about 100 hours per year - 8% or so.
Would that have an effect on temperature? Of course.
Is it ignored by "climatologists"? Of course.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/
The problem with missing heat still remains. Its not trapped in the troposphere. it is not being stored in oceans. A stasis in global temperatures is not a mystery if the planet is not accumulating heat.
Martin A,
"If the greenhouse theory is false, it would be really useful to have a detailed and clear explanation of exactly how."
Arrhenius' physical hypotheses are not false though they have not been rigorously formulated for Earth's atmosphere. However, even Arrhenius explained that warming beyond maybe one degree depends on positive "feedbacks." No one has created well confirmed physical hypotheses which give us reason to believe that these positive "feedbacks" exist. No one is trying to create them. Genuine scientists do not use hand waving terminology such as "feedbacks." They replace such terminology with well confirmed physical hypotheses.
Please do not respond with hunches. I know that many Warmists have a hunch that rising CO2 levels cause increased moisture in the atmosphere and so on. However, hunches must be replaced with rigorously formulated hypotheses that are testable.
There is currently a difference in approach to climate science between the sceptical Baconian - empirical approach solidly based on data and the Platonic IPCC - Met Office approach - based on theoretical assumptions built into climate models.The question arises from the recent Muller - BEST furore -What is the best metric for a global measure of and for discussion of global warming or cooling. For some years I have suggested in various web comments and on my blog that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for the following reasons . (Anyone can check this data for themselves - Google Hadley Cru -- scroll down to SST GL and check the annual numbers.)
1. Oceans cover about 70% of the surface.
2. Because of the thermal inertia of water – short term noise is smoothed out.
3. All the questions re UHI, changes in land use local topographic effects etc are simply sidestepped.
4. Perhaps most importantly – what we really need to measure is the enthalpy of the system – the land measurements do not capture this aspect because the relative humidity at the time of temperature measurement is ignored. In water the temperature changes are a good measure of relative enthalpy changes.
5. It is very clear that the most direct means to short term and decadal length predictions is through the study of the interactions of the atmospheric sytems ,ocean currents and temperature regimes – PDO ,ENSO. SOI AMO AO etc etc. and the SST is a major measure of these systems.Certainly the SST data has its own problems but these are much less than those of the land data.
What does the SST data show? The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows a nine year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 - 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 - 15 years with CO2 up 7.9 % and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend since then is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
It is clear that the IPCC models , on which AL Gore based his entire anti CO2 scare campaign ,have been wrongly framed. and their predictions have failed completely.This paradigm was never well founded ,but ,in recent years, the entire basis for the Climate and Temperature trends and predictions of dangerous warming in the 2007 IPCC Ar4 Summary for Policy Makers has been destroyed. First - this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored..
I give one egregious example - there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
"Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed"
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don't even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don't know what future temperatures will be and we can't yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the "plausible" models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given "with high confidence." in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
The recent Lockwood et al paper now accepts the likelihood of 2-3 decades of solar relative inactivity but again trots out a fatuous Met Office climate model to "prove" that the politically correct warming trend will continue. It's about time they recognised that these models are structured incorrectly and are useless for predicting future temperatures because their built in assumptions on forcings and feedbacks are simply wrong