THE IPCC use of computer models to predict temperatures, rain fall, sea level rises and other weather related events either global or regional has comprehensively failed to predict most of the observations made in the last twenty years and ignores any analysis that suggests natural variability as the main driver of climate. Ad hoc effects are put forward in order to explain why the model predictions parted company from the observations. This is most obvious in looking at the components of radiative (temperature) forcing where such effects as aerosols appear with 100% uncertainty. This is not a statistically derived uncertainty but rather an “expert” opinion on an effect that is needed to “balance the books”. Yet all the uncertainties are combined as if they are all well behaved statistical errors.
The report is best summed up by the classic Polish saying from Soviet times – The future is certain only the past is unpredictable. So writes Tom Quirk with his first thoughts on The IPCC 2013 Summary for Policymakers…
There are a series of points that one can take immediate objection to:
1. The temperature plateau from 2000 to the present year is dismissed as of no consequence. The report has borrowed the reply of Chou En Lai who, when asked what he thought of the French Revolution, replied that “It was too early to tell”. Yet in 1988 James Hansen appearing before a Congressional committee said he was 99% certain that the temperature rise from 1977 was not a natural variation.
2. The oceans that have been ignored up to now have suddenly become centre stage as the lodging place for the heat that should have raised the global temperature. The extra infra-red radiation from the increasing atmospheric CO2 is absorbed in the top 2 millimetres of the ocean. This is then mixed by wave motion through the top 100 to 200 metres of the oceans. But the sea surface temperature is in equilibrium with the air surface temperatures so how has the heat energy achieved this avoidance. Of course the deep ocean from 1,000 to 4,000 metres is at 40C or less and any overturning of the deep ocean would cause no end of trouble. This looks like another ad hoc explanation.
3. Sea level rises are forecast to be as much as 1 metre by 2100 yet the measurements show quite different annual rises in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Indeed a good pair of gumboots should get our grandchildren through 2100 with the present measured annual increases.
4. Methane is referred to as reaching unprecedented levels in the atmosphere with no suggestion that its annual increases have fallen by a factor of eight since 1995 [1]. It is not clear in the model projections what level of methane increase is assumed. If it is taken from the original scenarios then it is quite wrong.
5. There is a reference (Figure SPM4 (a) ) to the long running time series measurements of atmospheric CO2 at the South Pole and Mauna Loa. What has not been pointed out is that in 1958 to 1960, there is no difference in these measurements that remains unexplained. Also there is a modest bump in 1990 that had the Point Barrow measurements at latitude 710N been included would have shown a modest 2 year plateau in CO2 concentration. This, when properly analysed, shows that about 2.5 GtC of CO2 entered and left the atmosphere in the space of 4 years when fossil fuel CO2 emissions were 6 GtC in 1990.. Yet we are taught that not all fossil fuel emissions are easily absorbed. This is at the time of the Mount Pinatubo eruption but the CO2 output has been estimated at only 0.015GtC so volcanic activity is not the cause.
Left: IPCC SPM 4 (a) and Right: CO2 measurements at Point Barrow. Click on the image for a better view.
6. The temperature plateau from 2000 to the present has been variously explained by heat disappearing into the oceans, volcanic activity and a lessening of solar radiation (dismissed in this IPCC report). The failure to acknowledge the impact of the oceans that cover 70% of the surface of the earth not only on the temperature behaviour but also CO2 is extraordinary [2]. But the explanation may be that we do not understand what triggers the phase changes in the oceans where up-welling cold water displaces warmer water and of course the reverse. So it is not possible to model such events and this would be an admission of complete failure of the computer models.
7. Regional models should not be regarded as having any useful predictive power if the global models have been unsuccessful. There is a problem with regional modelling over land as the assumption that the mean temperature is the average of the minimum and maximum temperatures can increase temperatures by up to 0.50C. This distorts the heat load over the land and thus would cause a systematic error in computer modelling results.
This report from the IPCC should be its last. Not only has the climate science research community extracted billions of dollars from politicians but tens if not hundreds of billions have been invested in schemes to reduce CO2 emissions with little to show by way of reductions.
The last word should be left to Jonathon Swift who brilliantly satirized the Royal Society in Gulliver’s Travels [4]. Gulliver is taken to the country of Balnibarbi whose enlightened rulers have adopted new methods of agriculture and building but the country appears to be in ruins as “the only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection”.
****
Notes: The Computer says No is a catch phrase from Little Britain BBC TV series.
[1] http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1339463096_document_twentieth_century_sources_of_methane_in_the_atmosphere.pdf
[2] http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1339463007_document_break_paper_apjas_ipa.pdf
[3] http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9213
Tom Quirk is former Chairman of Virax Holdings Limited, a biotechnology company. He is on the Board of the Institute of Public Affairs. He has been Chairman of the Victorian Rail Track Corporation, Deputy Chairman of Victorian Energy Networks and Peptech Limited as well as a director of Biota Holdings Limited He worked in CRA Ltd setting up new businesses and also for James D. Wolfensohn in a New York based venture capital fund. He spent 15 years as an experimental research physicist, university lecturer and Oxford don. Read more from Tom at OLO here and previous contributions to this blog here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So
1. is something about Chou En Lai and Hansen, so much for the IPCC report. And off to a bad start Choun en Lais’ comments were according to many students of history about 1968. But like in AGW denials memes take on a life of their own.
2. Something about looking like an ad hoc explanation. Uh huh
3. Well I guess you’d have to be factoring in some ice sheet behaviour which is going gang busters.
4. methane hand waving on his old favourite – yawn. What’s he saying – maybe they got it wrong. HAHAHAHAHAHA good one
5. Salby like hand waving – means what? Incomprehensible
6. Well yea we do actually – Kosaka and Xie – at this stage – put yer Mum on !
7. “the assumption that the mean temperature is the average of the minimum and maximum temperatures” ROFL – errr nope
How old is Tom now? Keeping well I hope? Still with the IPA.
Seven non-rebuttals couched in garbled hipster talk. By an old bloke.
Dr. Richard Lindzen has made a statement, via Climate Depot, that sums up what many of us think, and why AR5 SPM (the latest report from the IPCC) is a credibility train wreck:
“I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence. They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.
Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean. However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans. However, it is this heat transport that plays a major role in natural internal variability of climate, and the IPCC assertions that observed warming can be attributed to man depend crucially on their assertion that these models accurately simulate natural internal variability. Thus, they now, somewhat obscurely, admit that their crucial assumption was totally unjustified.
Finally, in attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about. It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.”
@luke
I think the game is up when one starts to question the age of his opponent instead of the strengths of his arguments.
OLO, again, shows its strength and its weakness in one article.
Strength, in that unpopular opinions are presented.
Weakness, in that drum-beating nonsense from the IPA on the subject of anthropomorphic climate change is a boringly common theme.
Luke is desperately clutching at any straw within reach and only appears more ridiculous than ever.
Like most extremists he refuses to answer the simplest question— if things are so bad then what do we do about it?
He claims that we are criminals for blocking action on CAGW mitigation. If that’s true then so was the Gillard govt for encouraging Vic to export modified brown coal.
It just proves that Luke never thinks before he yaps and his illogical reasoning is like the blind leading the blind.
IOW he is the last fool anyone should take any notice of and he’s best left wallowing in his hypocrisy and ignorance.
BTW the Bolter has a good column on the SPM in todays Herald Sun.
Lindzen – pffft – who?
What do you mean no warming http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/trend
Wilksey – an “opponent” – not really.
Well Neville – when it gets bad enough you’ll be doing whatever it takes. You’ll then be a climate criminal.
I have to laugh at Bolt – it’s now the fine print – he’s learning – you find right down the bottom of his recent vile scribblings – “well there may be some human impact” – “and if it starts warming again”. Now that’s certainty. If it starts warming again he’ll be a climate criminal too.
Poor old Neville spending his life being let around by the nose ring being told what to think by others.
“… and if it starts warming again”. Now that’s certainty.” Unlike you Luke, BoltA will also admit to cooling. And lo, the warming shall be called Lazarus. And Lazarus shall rise from boiling, acidic seas, from whence humanity but rose when the seas were whole, and unrisen, unlike Lazarus, who, now risen, or will rise soon, who will soon destroy humanity, in a hundred years to be precise, of that we are 95% certain, striking down, no, frying the humans in the name of Gaia (praise be for Gaia).
The future is easy to tell, Luke, it is the past that is the reality.
Luke you are a fool and a coward. You’ve painted yourself into a corner and there’s no way out. How gutless to ignore your stupid yapping here year after year.
Just answer me this, have you looked lately at the tonnages of iron ore exported from the Pilbara and thought about how that many 100s of millions tonnes of coal would transfer to extra co2 emissions?
That is what the Gillard govt wanted Vic to do. Are they climate criminals too? Using your stupid idiocy just about everyone is a climate criminal.
Have you looked at the number of new coal mines opening up in QLD and NSW and new CSG as well? Climate criminals as well? Countless 100s of millions of tonnes of extra co2 emissions.
You really are clueless, so what about Indonesia and their coal exports, are they climate criminals as well?
What about the end users like China, India, Korea, Japan and even the donkey EU. Are they all climate criminals ?
There’s only one donkey here who can’t think for himself and we all know who he is? You can’t even understand simple logic and reasoning or simple concepts or simple kindy maths.
Handjiver goes the alarmist stupid clown routine.
Neville the real coward is you – a serial science libeller and a peddler of disinformation. Fancy spending your life living off blog slops and op eds for advice. Read the document yet. Of course not as it’s above grade 5 level. Neville the climate criminal.
UN-IPCC AR5 Quote: “With unabated emissions (RCP8.5) the Arctic Ocean will likely become virtually ice-free in summer before the middle of the century (see figure). In the last report, this was not expected until near the end of the century.” http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/the-new-ipcc-climate-report/
What we have above is a scientific statement, i.e. it is testable & falsifiable.
Much like this scientific statement in 2007 [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztz3ZdPbdKo ]
Using the same falsified science & methodologies, we are to “believe” they are correct now?
It seems the UN-IPCC belief system requires a healthy dose of denial of reality.
“Handjiver goes the alarmist stupid clown routine.”
When YOU go the “the alarmist stupid clown routine” of “and if it starts warming again”. Now that’s certainty”, what else did you expect? Respect? Fawning?
Anyone got a link to info about net CO2 emissions? I’m wondering if there have been calculations done anywhere to compare Australia’s estimated annual emissions with its estimated rate of CO2 takeup by natural sinks?
I’m sure I once saw a graph of all nations with their anthropogenic emissions compared to estimated sink rates to give an annual figure and what’s more I had the feeling Australia was actually net negative – that is the country takes up more than it emits.
I am wondering if that’s true?
It had to be only a matter of time before the denialists got over the shock of the latest IPCC report and started to rationalise it away.
How can you accept a report that goes against all that you want to happen to your life? Well one way is to deny it….. again.
Luke?
Climate Criminal?
What on earth do think that means and how on earth would one judge that?
Do we get to charge the sun and the oceans too?
Luke has no shame and I’m sick of trying to point out his clueless ignorance and endless lies. Perhaps he just doesn’t understand and perhaps we should just ignore him? Who knows?
Graeme M , Bob Carter ( Taxing Air ) claims OZ is a co2 sink and by a long way. But OZ and NZ combined only emit 1.3% of global emissions, so it’s very small beer compared to other countries of comparable size. Oz 1.2% and NZ 0.1%.
Per sq klms we emit zip compared to other countries. Of course fools like Luke think we can reduce that 1.2% by 5% by 2020 and it will fix his CAGW.
Pure idiocy I know but some dummies just don’t understand simple kiindy maths. BTW I’ve tried this on 5 year olds and they understand it in 5 minutes, but not silly Luke. He pleads ignorance forever year after year.
BTW I think warmist Prof Roger Jones must be a climate criminal as well. He told Bolt that our reductions in co2 emissions through to 2100 would reduce temp by an unmeasurable 0.0038 C or 4 thousandths of 1C. At a cost of 100s of billions $ for zip change in temp doesn’t seem like much of a dividend does it?
On the missing trend/missing pause on the temperature staircase?
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a tread that wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
Careful bazza your lack of reasoning and lack of kindy maths may soon put Luke in the dark. But just tell us what we should do about it. Go on give it a go, dip in that toe.
Luke seems to support IPCC propaganda, and by extension I assume he supports its chair Mr Pachauri, novelist and sexual deviant in training. I wonder if Luke has read this book, and if he realises the thoughts of Chairman Pachauri influence “international climate policy”:
“This is a truly chilling thought – that the global environmental movement might have accepted someone whose ideas and culture are this vapid and banal into its leadership. Putting on a tin hat and telling a guru on a one-to-ten scale how close to the divine you feel is, literally, voodoo science and neither Sanjay nor the narrator seem to grasp the difference between tinfoil hats and the real thing.”
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/08/22/rajendra-pachauri-voodoo-scientist-and-lone-ranger-of-love/
And if the”climate trials” do come, I wonder what Luke’s defence will be?, and if accepts his punishment shall be to be shot with a ball of his own sh*t.
Best to stay quiet on the “climate criminal” bit Luke – lest by your own words be you judged.
What do you mean no warming….Luke?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
@luke
“Wilksey – an “opponent” – not really.”
modesty becomes you Luke!
Thanks Neville. Yes, I was aware that Oz’s emissions are at the bottom end of the scale but in all the data I can find it usually only mentions actual gross emissions, not net. Though given CO2 is apparently ‘well-mixed’ I’m not sure how important our net figure is. I just thought it might be interesting to know. Most of the site’s I go to focus on our per capita figures which is highly misleading.
That said, I am always puzzled by the people who think that Australia doesn’t act now AGW will cause all sorts of problems in 50 years time. As though reducing 1.2% by 5% would make a difference. I understand the economic or policy benefits of acting now (disregarding the questionablenes of those) but the comments I see are not talking about that, they are talking about the physical climate impacts.
I made a comment along those lines on a newspaper site yesterday and had it deleted!!!
But really, what effect would reducing 1.2% by even 50% have? 5 poofteenths of SFA is what… Yet people don’t get that. I am not arguing whether we should or should not, I am just amazed that people have no idea what they are arguing in favour of.
Anyways, enough ranting, still interested if there are any official figures on Australia’s net emissions numbers…
A chance to listen to and meet the rational optimist Matt Ridley. A chance to listen to reason for a change.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/listen_to_reason_book_now_for_matt_ridley/
I’ve watched Ridley debate alongside Dawkins against very good religious opponents and they are very good.
The debate was about belief in god and I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the cut and thrust.
Lindzen – pffft – who?
You see that’s the problem with science today – a leading atmospheric scientist with over 200 publications under his belt is dispelled with a pffft! Same happened to Plimer.
You really are a worry Luke, you have no respect.
Matt Ridley in Melbourne!
Not cheap but I’ll pay ter hear him. )
“In fact, the IPCC has numerous fundamental problems.
The sun is about 4.5 billion years old and while we have been observing it for thousands of years, we have only in the last few years had the tools available to study it seriously. Now that we have the tools, every few months a new discovery is made and our superficial understanding of the sun takes one baby-step towards maturity. The IPCC may wish upon a star that our nearby star does not contribute significantly to our climate, but that is so fanciful that even Disney would not buy it.”
Mal Wedd is a physicist who wishes upon a star that the IPCC’s latestreport was full of science and devoid of post-modern assertion. Sigh.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2013/09/climate-science-in-a-styrofoam-cup
Graeme some of this from Bob’s book may help. Pages 199 to 203.
OZ’s exclusive economic zone sequesters 10 times more co2 than we emit. So we are already way ahead by a factor of 10 to 1.
David Evan’s ( mathematician and co2 modeller and Jo Nova’s hubby) has estimated temp reductions for a variety of emission reductions by OZ until 2050.
5% by 2050 = 0.0007c
10% ” ”= 0.0015c
20% ” ” = 0.0031c
50% ” ” = 0.0.0077c
100% ” ” = 0.0154c All by 2050, from page 203 of Bob’s book.
Beth here is Ridley’s greening the planet video. Brilliant stuff and little wonder they wouldn’t dare debate him on the science.
http://www.mattridley.co.uk/videos/matt-ridley-on-how-fossil-fuels-are-greening-the-planet.aspx
Religious nutters know he would do them like a dinner. I’ve watched him debate and he’s good.
Also Graeme, as I’m sure you realise, that is 1.2% of 0.004% of 5%.
“Now that we have the tools, every few months a new discovery is made and our superficial understanding of the sun takes one baby-step towards maturity.”
But, but, but, sp, 97% are 95% CERTAIN!
“He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…”
But he DID go away bazza. The IPCC just told us. He’s at the bottom of the ocean!
Even though those treads float.
Yes Graeme,
The numbers do not equate with or justify the hand waving and alarmism. For some inexplicable reason if people point out that simple fact then they’re immediately accused of not caring and even of some type of criminal behaviour.
I do find those 2 different wood for trees graphs that both use credible data and almost the same time frames rather amusing.
One posted by Luke at 7:41 & the other by Geoff Brown at 11:09.
Before about 1997 GISS and HadCRUT got on very well. Now they seem to be going their separate ways. Sort of a Tom and Nicole thing…and I suspect HadCRUT is the Scientologist and crazy sofa-jumper in the relationship.
Jen,
I don’t want to seem negative, but a couple of typos or transcription boo boos in item 2?
40C should be 4 degrees C or less.
2mm penetration of infrared into “water” is apparently about right for solar IR, (near or shortwave infrared) but for terrestrial stuff (far or long-wave-IR), penetration into “water” is usually discussed in micrometres. (about six orders of magnitude less than visible light). That would greatly enhance the hypothesis that absorbed IR in the very skin of water (maybe in or embracing the surface tension layer?) must rapidly reradiate almost like in reflection, cos those liddle quantum thingies like photons don’t hang around. Thus the possibility of deeper ocean mixing seems rather remote.
And I should add that there is no issue of slowing of energy flux through conduction from say millimetres below the surface before it can be radiated.
CO2 emissions Australia:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/clearing-the-air-over-emissions/story-e6frg6z6-1226072616524
World:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg
EIA:
http://www.eia.gov/data/totalenergy_annual
Thx Neville, I’m a fan of Matt Ridley TED Talks, even submitted an essay for the Matt
Ridley Prize at The Spectator. ‘So what about the idea that wind power is good fer
climate?’ Didn’t win it though. 🙂
Beth the serf.
I know that oceans are somewhat different to the large bodies of water we manage out here in the MIA, but Bob’s summary of how far heat penetrates certainly applies here. Our dams are freeeeeeezing cold not far below the surface even in the middle of very hot summer days. They also evaporate many cms in those same circumstances. I find it difficult to believe that it would be substantially different out in the oceans, despite such things as currents and deep volcanic eruptions.
How does energy and/or atmospheric heat get trapped and then hide somewhere in the oceans? What is the mechanism that causes it to happen there and not in large bodies of fresh water?
Debbie, water west of the divide is always colder due to its muddy or milky state which prevents sunlight from penetrating it and is, like you say, freezing in the hottest weather. When you get into the channel country the water is almost snowy white and has a very high albedo.
In the oceans the water is clear but often cold from strong winds causing high evaporation even in the tropical trade wind zones although calm oceans at lower latitudes are often quite warm for the top metre or so.
What happens deep down due to the thermohaline circulation with stratified currents due to different densities and temperatures is probably unmeasurable with present technology to the degree claimed by the warmers.
0.006c for the decade of the Argo measurements when these thermometers have standard errors of 0.1c and are such very lonely little petunias out there, puts it in the realm of theory or wishful thinking.
“wishful thinking” is right SD, but that didn’t stop the abc wheeling out the white witch from the CSIRO and that buffoon John Connor and letting them spread doom and gloom for about 10 minutes.
I really believe that without the abc agw would be stone dead in Australia and we could have a meaningful discussion about the number one threat, the religion of peace.; another favourite of the loons at the abc.
And you know when this bloke heralds the new SPM in order to defend the indefensible [hokey stick], that their goose, if not cooked, is at least in the oven.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/28/ipcc-climate-change-deniers
More over the top catastro-science:
http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/climatic-change-how-long-will-earth-remain/
Cohenite: “I really believe that without the abc agw would be stone dead in Australia and we could have a meaningful discussion about the number one threat, the religion of peace”. Too true.
This review of Vahrenholt and Luning’s The Neglected Sun is a guest post by Thomas Cussans.
“The authors of The Neglected Sun, Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning, present a compelling series of reasons to say that not only is the belief in human-induced CO2 warming over-stated but that it ignores by far the most obvious influence of the Earth’s climate: the Sun.”
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/30/the-neglected-sun.html
cohers, I send emails to “our” ABC regularly pointing out their incredible bias and I must admit that the only reason I watch, read or listen to them is out of disbelief. They are relishing their current time in opposition but if only Tony would quickly throw them a bomb we would all be better off.
On OUR ABC news tonight, dire announcements of IPCC confirmationof global
warming, weird spokes people pronouncing rising seas ter 80cm. more storms
and droughts, forgot ter mention ‘The Pause’ though.
I wrote this elsewhere , but it’s very applicable here.
There are Lies,
Damn Lies,
Statistics,
Then there are ‘Facts’ about Global Warming
If none of the above work ‘just play the man’ and abuseand insult them !
Spangled talks utter crap as usual –
“0.006c for the decade of the Argo measurements when these thermometers have standard errors of 0.1c and are such very lonely little petunias out there, puts it in the realm of theory or wishful thinking.”
CRAP
Argo temperatures are accurate plus or minus 0.005°C.
From the resident expert on CRAP – Luke