Climate sensitivity

Apparently the IPCC in their latest report altered the downside prediction of the temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 from 2 deg C to 1 1/2 deg C. Among AGW denialists this is monumental and throws a whole monkey wrench into human caused warming theory. As best as I can make out the upside hasn't changed and 3 deg. C rise remains a rough midpoint prediction. Still some claim of lowered climate sensitivity to CO2 rise can be made. Except maybe not.

Here is one discussion of the matter.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm

Then there are those who think climate sensitivity is under rated, that in fact between ocean sequestration and newly discovered human aerosol production that the sensitivity of ghgs is greater than earlier believed.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/14/2774891/nature-cloud-study-climate-sensitive/

Taken from the UK Independent.

 

the stupidity of the denier viewpoint they fail to consider is the worst case scenario if either side on this issue is wrong...and getting it wrong is what is at stake...

if the deniers are wrong and get their way we'll have an ecological catastrophe brought about merely to satisfy their demand for cheap fuels for their cars...

whereas if the climatologists are wrong and have over estimated the damage in a worst case scenario, we end up with a greener, cleaner planet free of an addiction to fossil fuel...

 

There is a simple truth to sceientific theories.

When you have a correct theory the longer you test and observe that theory the greater agreement you will get and the closer you will come to the exact answer. When you have an incorrect theory as you test and observe the theory further you don't get greater agreement and you get no closer to the correct answer. \

In the case of climate sensitivity after billions of dollars we have no improved estimate of climate sensitivity than we did in Charney report in 1979.

 

Putting aside the gratuitous billions of dollars throw in, the Charney report would seem to be a pretty big red flag don't you think? And since when is consistency of models a problem?

wyly

Yeah, the deniers seem to want to play Russian Roulette as long as they think there is a chance that there might not be a bullet in the chamber that aligns with the barrel. Great way to run a society.

 

Because there is only one true answer not a range. The fact that the range hasn't shrunk in over 3 decades and billions of dollars spent on research is prima facie evidence that the theory is fundamentally wrong.

As I said if a theory is correct as data comes in we should get closer and closer to an exact answer. The fact that the range hasn't shrunk in over 3 decades is evidence that the theory is incorrect.

 

You are a little confused. There is a range in each case, but I'll assume you were speaking to the consistency of the ranges. Actually there was a change in AR4 but I think part of the answer to your faulty logic is a rough relationship between CO2 doubling and temperature range was worked out in the 19th century. Since the problem is mostly mathematical after working out the infrared capture rate earlier in the game there is no reason there would be much change in the latter day models.

But as a denialist I'm sure you prefer your conspiracy hoax by almost all the climate scientists. I'm just wondering whose pulling their strings to get them so closely aligned? Certainly not James Hansen, sort of the star, who thinks the upside of the range should be much higher.

 

Look there is no range. There is a real value somewhere. Some answer is correct not a range of answers. If the theory is correct as you get more data the range should shrink and you get closer to the real answer. If the range doesn't shrink that is evidence that the theory is incorrect.

After 30 decades and billions spent we are no closer to knowing what the actual forcing of CO2 is.

 

Do you know what a range is? All the estimates offered in your graph are ranges.

 

Do you even know what we are talking about?

 

Pretty important we get that value right isnt it ? Given this entire hypothesis is driven by models where an accurate value for this factor is absolutely critical to their projections. Small wonder that this is happening to all of them then





Its not just the fact we dont know the correct values for CO2 sensitivity but that goes for just about everything else too !

Computers are essentially just calculators so GI=GO

 

The idea that the earth circles the sun is a model. What predictive endeavor isn't associated with a model? This is something I run into all the time with denialists. They throw out the word "model" and actually think they have made a point.

 

And is a mathematically sustainable one

Astrology. Which so far has a better predictive hit rate than those climate models supporting AGW

For a computer model to work the values of its variables must be accurately known. Climate models are failed guesswork plain and simple

 

Tell that to an astrologer. They are up to their ears in modeling but none of them to my knowledge predicted AGW or even understood the compelling predictive influence of greenhouse gases.

If I had as much predictive accuracy on the stock market as James Hansen did with AGW back in the early 80s I'd be richer than Warren Buffet, speaking of accurate modeling. He even caught the Pinatubo fall back.

 

Astrology and AGW share a similar unscientific lack of merit based on results to date

Really? You must mean a different James Hansen then because all his scenarios have failed spectacularly in the last 25 years as have all the others too as was illustrated earlier

 

No, it's a fact.

They have definitely made a point: endless scaremongering based on the behavior of models is not empirical science.

 

No, that is the answer to YOUR faulty logic, because that rough answer does not justify AGW scaremongering. Climate is not sensitive enough. That is why the models have to assume far greater sensitivity based on... nothing.

But there is. The latter day models assume double, triple, or even higher multiples of the sensitivity based on physics.

Were the theories of epicycles or phlogiston conspiracies or hoaxes? Or just hubris and groupthink?

 

Denialists do what you can expect them to do, trip off into some moonbeam world or say 2+2=3 with some sort authoritative flair and then walk away triumphantly. LOL

 

And like all alarmists you cannot just take it on the chin and move on . Those sour grapes taste bad dont they ?

 

Looks like they were feeling spunky on AR4, but then thought better of it on AR5...

 

James Hansen is a laughing stock... virtually nothing he's said has come to pass.

Modeling is fine, and can be a useful tool - if they were built for the purpose of being a useful tool to science and understanding. Unfortunately they are built to buttress a political agenda by misusing a simplistic scientific fact (the greenhouse effect), and applying it to the earths climate as if the earths climate exists within a closed loop lab experiment.

The earths climate is regulated by many factors, and the emperical evidence, the observed data says that the feedbacks are negative. None of the models acknowledge this reality - b/c quite simply negative feedbacks won't produce "scary scenarios", won't buttress the political agenda, and won't generate revenue and recognition for the "scientists", environmentalists, and politicos who running the con and seeking to profit from it.

So the lies continue, even as we continue to dip into another cooling period.

 

Hey, it works for economists....

And more to the point, the models are known to be utterly deficient in accounting for the effects of solar activity (NOT total solar irradiance) and clouds.

There is one significant one that is known to be positive: the ice-albedo effect that makes transitions to and especially from ice ages very rapid.

And we'd better pray the positive ice-albedo feedback doesn't take over.

This is a genuine risk of taking action to reverse global warming by reducing CO2 emissions that the AGW scaremongers never acknowledge: that by reducing atmospheric CO2, we could make a natural cooling period that would otherwise have been difficult but brief long and severe enough to tip the global climate over into ice-albedo feedback mode, triggering a new ice age -- a global cooling apocalypse that would make any plausible global warming scenario look like a holiday in Aruba.

 

You mean, astrologers didn't predict the AGW that isn't happening, and hasn't been for 15 years? That makes them better climate predictors than AGW climate models...

No, you would not. Anyone can pick stocks like a genius for a while, just like anyone can predict climate like a genius for a while.

Everyone "caught" that.

 

I get a kind of historical deja vu reading you folks. It's like reading the comments of flat earthers during the time of Columbus. And the funny thing is going back to the Greeks, the knowledge of a round earth had been around for a couple of thousand years. Denier resistance is awesome! And your historical buddies are still at it today. LOL
http://lclane2.net/hundreda.html

And least we forget, here is an exposure of the heliocentric hoax.
http://galileowaswrong.com/store/#!/~/product/id=6519316

 

Well I have to keep it real. Upon inspection James Hansen wasn't quite as accurate in what turned out to be his 1988 GW prediction as I thought he was. He used a too sensitive standard. Still the rise has been well within the IPCC predicted range. No need to gloat, he did get it directionally right unlike you ice-age folks. I'd have still made decent money.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction.htm

 

You realise of course that you are using a rabidly alarmist blog compiled by a cartoonist now dont you ? This site is a joke frankly

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html

This site was created by John Cook. 'I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade. I did a Physics degree at the University of Queensland and while I achieved First Class Honours and could've continued onto a PhD, I instead quit academia and became a professional scrawler'.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071213172906/www.skepticalscience.com/page.php?p=3