Sceptics on Radio 4
Nov 1, 2014
Bishop Hill in BBC, Climate: Sceptics, Climate: sensitivity

I gather that there was a segment on Radio 4 about climate sceptics this morning, with an interview with Nic Lewis. I'm going out shortly so I can't record it for you, but you should be able to listen again here in a few hours' time.

Update on Nov 1, 2014 by Registered CommenterBishop Hill

Nic Lewis emails:

As you know, Roger Harrabin's piece on global warming that included excerpts of his interview with me aired at 7.15 this morning on Radio 4.

Unfortunately, his piece confusingly muddled up both CO2 emissions with CO2 concentrations and equilibrium climate sensitivity with the transient climate response level. Both equilibrium climate sensitivity and the transient climate response relate to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, but the equilibrium sensitivity is higher because the transient response refers to the global warming that occurs over decades rather than the centuries it takes for the ocean to fully warm up and equilibrium to be reached.

Harrabin said "if we double CO2 emissions - which we are likely to do later this century - we are likely to provoke a temperature rise of about 1.7°C", or similar words. What I had told him was that, based on instrumental observations, I estimated the equilibrium climate sensitivity to be 1.7°C warming for a doubling of CO2 concentration.

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