Annual updates to the model-observation comparisons for 2023 are now complete. The comparisons encompass surface air temperatures, mid-troposphere temperatures (global and tropical, and ‘corrected’), sea surface temperatures, and stratospheric temperatures. In almost every case, the addition of the 2023 numbers was in line with the long term expectation from the models.
There were a few minor changes this year: Old versions of the NOAA STAR TMT data are no longer available and so they’ve been removed. All NOAA NCEI surface temperature lines are now using v5.1. New comparisons for SST and TMT-Corrected were added mid-way through last year and have also now been updated.
Highlights
The most impressive comparison continues to be the SAT projections from the CMIP3 models:
SAT comparisons to the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are also in line with model expectations. Differences related to the CMIP5 specified forcings are less important than they used to be, and as long as the CMIP6 models are appropriately selected based on the constrained sensitivity, the observations lie close to the mean of the model subset. Compared to the older papers, Hansen et al 1988 for instance, 2023 brings the observations a little closer to Scenario B, which was the closest GHG concentration pathway to what actually occurred.
This success might seem confusing given the ongoing puzzlement about why 2023 was so astonishingly warm compared to recent years. But there is no contradiction because these are referring to slightly different questions. In discussing the observations, we are tracking specific processes and interactions and we would like to be able to use them to explain why any specific year was warmer or cooler than another. However, when we are looking at the climate model ensembles, we are trying to average over all of the individual weather-related phenomena to discern the predictable, forced, response. For each of the ensembles (CMIP3, CMIP5, CMIP6), 2023 was above the mean expectation of the model surface air and sea surface temperatures, but still well within the spread of model results (which exists mainly because of the distinct weather patterns in each simulation). This does influence my expectation as to whether 2023 presages a new, accelarated, phase of global warming, since as far as I can see, 2023 was well within the expected range of temperatures even though the specific reasons in 2023 are still unclear.
Comparisons to the TMT (mid-troposphere temperatures) are slightly improved, but the real world still falls a little below the mean model expectation, regardless of the observational product or corrections. We discussed reasons for this in a paper last year (Casas et al., 2023) and showed that, in the GISS models at least, the spread in TMT trends was large as a function of the structural uncertainty in the models (the quality/strength of a model’s stratospheric circulation for instance), and that it may be that there simply isn’t sufficient structural variation in the standard CMIP ensembles to encompass the observations.
For the other variables, the 2023 SSTs are edging towards the top of the screened CMIP6 ensemble (depending on the product), but the stratospheric temperatures are well within expectations.
Summary
The various model ensembles of opportunity that make up the CMIP effort have collectively been extremely useful at assessing what are the robust predictions of the models, and where there is more uncertainty. Overall, temperatures are well modeled and have proven skillful over time, but there are many secondary issues – like the regional patterns or the abrupt changes in trends that continue to challenge models and make the science interesting.
If you would like to see any new variables included in this annual summary, you need to find an existing collation of model output for specifically that variable – including both hindcasts and projections, and an observational data source that is operationally maintained.
References
- M.C. Casas, G.A. Schmidt, R.L. Miller, C. Orbe, K. Tsigaridis, L.S. Nazarenko, S.E. Bauer, and D.T. Shindell, "Understanding Model‐Observation Discrepancies in Satellite Retrievals of Atmospheric Temperature Using GISS ModelE", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, vol. 128, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022JD037523
Was Hansen’s scenario A overstating anthropogenic forcing? It is not so clear even if you read the appendix.
On Co2 he suggested a 1.5% pa. “growth of the annual increment”?! One would likely read this as 1.5% emission growth, but the formulation could mean anything. CO2 emissions definitely grew faster than these 1.5%, although a lot of uncertainty is introduced with LUC (land use carbon). Also we know about the tendency to underestimate CO2 sinks. It would be crucial to know what CO2 concentration pathway scenario A implied.
With CH4 we suggested a 1.5% pa. concentration growth (he names 1.4ppbv for 1958, obviously a typo). By now that would be about 3,000ppbv, vastly overstating reality (~1,900ppbv).
N2O was again a bit overstated. The strong growth of CFCs obviously did not occur, but it remains unclear what forcings he derived from it. According the IPCC, depite the ban of many CFCs, their forcing doubled nonetheless between 1980 and 2019. Eventually I could not find any assumption on tropospheric (and anthropogenic) aerosols. Their negative forcing declined by about 0.4W/m2 according to the IPCC.
An estimate of the biases:
+0.4W/m2 with CH4
+0.05W/m2 with N2O
-0.4W/m2 with ant. aerosols
– ?W/m2 with CO2
+ ?W/m2 with CFCs
It is impossible to tell by how much he understated CO2 forcing, but even if it were just 0.3W/m2, it becomes hard to imagine scenario A overstated the total of anthropogenic forcings.
E. Schaffer: – “Was Hansen’s scenario A overstating anthropogenic forcing? It is not so clear even if you read the appendix.”
What are you on about?
What “scenario A”?
What “appendix”?
Or are you being deliberately vague?
He’s talking about James Hansen’s 1988 forecast, both to Congress, as discussed here:
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/06/26/james-hansens-climate-warning-30-years-later/
…and in the literature, as archived here:
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha02700w.html
Hansen used three emissions scenarios in the research paper, the first of which, logically enough, he labeled “Scenario A.” And the appendix is the appendix to that paper (as you’ve probably already figured out by the time you got to this clause.) It’s a repository for the necessary but boring details.
Kevin McKinney, thanks for doing what I’d suggest E. Schaffer should have done…
As for the question posed: “Was Hansen’s scenario A overstating anthropogenic forcing?”
…perhaps this might help contribute to answering it?
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1748102127656841664
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pdf
I guess I figured out most of it already. Fig 2. gives the forcings, although in temperature rather than W/m2. Roughly, “reading” the chart”, there seem to be about 0.33K forcing from CO2 alone between 1985 and 2019, and 0.75K including other trace gases. Dividing these by 0.3 you get ~1.1W/m2 for CO2, ~1.4W/m2 for the others and 2.5W/m2 in total.
AR6 on the other side states +0.95W/m2 and +0.45W/m2 for the respective period, plus another 0.4W/m2 from a reduction of anth. aerosols. So yes, scenario A was about a much stronger forcing than actually occurred and that is because overstating those other GHGs by a factor of 3. You can’t blame him, cause a) it is just a scenario and b) you just can’t predict the future.
He was more systemically off with CO2. It seems he predicted some 415ppm for 2019, which is incidentally very much on point. But that is a) based on underestimating emissions and b) equally understating CO2 sinks. He still overstated CO2 forcing, because of an assumed 4.2W/m2 2xCO2 forcing potential vs. todays more common 3.7W/m2.
Scenario B, to cut things short, assumed some ~1.67W/m2 for the same period vs. the 1.8W/m2 in AR6. It is just a bit below materialized reality, but with a warming trend of almost 0.3K/decade it is still way too sensitive.
Here is my take on his 3 scenarios Vs reality (There is a good chance I have misinterpreted his text!!)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YT8M6u3Uc3HvbCFe6
I have only done CO2 and CH4. I have always wondered why his methane starting point was so wrong. Other than that the projections are very good
Observed forcings were between scenario B and scenario C, thus lower B. Similarly, observed warming was between scenarios B and C. This is been shown and explained for years at this point.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/06/30-years-after-hansens-testimony/
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085378
Interesting, thanks for the link. There is some very good accordance with what I “modelled” quick and dirty based on the few data I had available. And it appears you really need to this on your own, or you will always be stuck in this “some say so, some say so” nirvana. And that 2018 article by Gavin serves as a perfect example..
“If we compare the H88 forcings since 1984 to an estimate of the total anthropogenic forcings calculated for the CMIP5 experiments (1984 through to 2012), the main conclusion is very clear – forcing in scenario A is almost a factor of two larger (and growing) than our best estimate of what happened, and scenario B overshoots by about 20-30%. By contrast, scenario C undershoots by about 40% (which gets worse over time). The slight differences because of the forcing definition, whether you take forcing efficacy into account and independent estimates of the effects of aerosols etc. are small effects”
I know, AR6 was not published by 2018, but on the issue the innoviations were really negligible. As stated above AR6 claims a total of ~1.8W/m2 in forcing for the 1985-2019 period, That excludes aviation induced cirrus, land use and natural forcings as they were not on the radar back then, or not scope of the projection. It does however include anth. aerosols with 0.4W/m2 of forcing. This is NOT a “small effect”. Rather it makes the difference on whether B over- or understated actual forcings. H88 simply did not make any assumptions on anth. aerosols, it only suggested some random volcanic eruptions in C, why so ever..
As 1.8 > 1.67 scenario B indeed understates forcings and overstates the warming trend. Normalized for the forcing number, depending on which temperature record used, that is a 50% to 100% larger warming trend than occurred. This is not on point, it is simply off, period. On the other hand it is not nearly as far off as some claim.
It is not a shame to be off when trying to predict the future. It inevitably happens. There should be no need for window dressing.
E. Schaffer says: “There should be no need for window dressing.”
True. Reality informs us otherwise.
Almost all of it is now Window Dressing Mr. Schaffer.
Unfortunately.
Re: “I know, AR6 was not published by 2018, but on the issue the innoviations were really negligible. As stated above AR6 claims a total of ~1.8W/m2 in forcing for the 1985-2019 period […]. [….] As 1.8 > 1.67 scenario B indeed understates forcings and overstates the warming trend.”
Again, both observed warming and observed forcings were between scenario B and scenario C; less than the former and more than the latter. AR6 acknowledges that, including in citing the Hausfather et al. paper you were linked to and which Gavin Schmidt co-authored. So please try not be misleading again. Claiming you did something yourself doesn’t mean you actually did it correctly or knew what you were doing. I suggest you actually read AR6 before acting as if it supports your position.
Hausfather et al. 2020:
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085378
AR6:
https://archive.is/aySSt/9d56525f6ba5a9ef23995280531220ad89daf7d4.png
“One approach to partially correct for mismatches between the forcings used in the projections and the forcings that actually occurred is described by Hausfather et al. (2020) [page 184]. […] Although this approach has limitations when the modelled forcings differ greatly from the forcings subsequently experienced, they were generally able to project actual future global warming when the mismatches between forecast and observed radiative forcings are accounted for. For example, Scenario B presented in Hansen et al. (1988) projected around 50% more warming than has been observed during the 1988–2017 period, but this is largely because it overestimated subsequent radiative forcings [page 186].”
https://web.archive.org/web/20230930165550/https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter01.pdf
@Atomsk
Feel free to criticize my findings, but as I see it the evidence is pretty clear. If you look at Fig.2 in H88, the forcing in scenario B is about 0.5K between 1985 and 2019. Taking a closer look itseems it is even somewhat less, so I am being generous here. You divide it with a lambda of 0.3 and get 0.5/0.3 = 1.67W/m2
Total anthropogenic forcings in AR6 were..
1980 0.66
1990 1.17
2019 2.72
If we infer 1985 by averaging 80/90 we get 2.72 – (0.66 + 1.17) / 2 = 1.805
Again, 1.805 > 1.67
I do not see what you are trying to argue here, or whatever sources claiming scenario B was based on stronger anth. forcings than occurred, when obviously the opposite is true.
Why does this start in the 1970’s? I would like to see this graph start around 1930.
[Response: Like this?
Back to 1930
-gavin]
Thanks!
Gavin,;
Mann v. Steyn has, after an ENSO- long delay , come to trial at last.
So now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of sanity
by providing Amicus briefs, pro bono. to the honorable court.
Here is mine. Please forward it to Mike:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/06/mark-steyn-medieval-cooler-than-now.html
Russell,
Thanks for the alert Long delay indeed, I’d forgotten.
Love your brief. Funny thing is, I seem to recall a certain denialist lawyer claiming that the jig would be up after discovery, and the court would prove once and for all that AGW was a hoax — because apparently courts are the only worthy arbiters of all things science… in a defamation suit, no less.
Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/17/michael-mann-climate-scientist-defamation-lawsuit
Steyn seems gleeful.
https://www.steynonline.com/14024/day-1-in-court
Heh. If AGW is a hoax, it must have been launched more than two centuries ago, by a shadowy cabal with hidden power and superhuman foresight toward mysterious goals; and sustained by generations of trained, disciplined, competitive skeptics, all beavering away on multiple consilient lines of evidence while keeping their true motives a shared secret through today. IMHO, an idea so preposterous it refutes itself.
Mal,
Indeed! Meta-literacy, some social awareness, a respectable grasp of how things work, plus some reasoning skills and basic integrity can serve you pretty well if don’t happen to have the inclination to become an expert.
I have “admitted” to many denial types that I have been personally privileged to meet with Dr. Warm under his extinct volcano crater!!!
Never once has a single one of them seen my humor!
Mann is still suing a guy, a no body, for what he said in 2015?
God help us all. The world is mad.
It sounds to me like God, if such deity exists, may be telling Mr. Steyn to own his mistake!
My bad …. 2012 … 12 years ago. I think he needs to get over it. I also believe he is going to lose badly.
As in ‘blood on the court room floor’ badly. But it’s his money and his reputation at risk, not mine.
https://climatecasechart.com/case/mann-v-competitive-enterprise-institute/
https://www.desmog.com/2024/01/19/michael-mann-mark-steyn-rand-simberg-climate-science-defamation-trial/
and a daily podcast review and events that is ‘politically biased’ against Mann
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/climate-change-on-trial/id1713827256
Not sure how losing a case for libel on one or another technicality like being a public figure, if he should, when one calls him a pedophile hurts his reputation..
NK: Mann is still suing a guy, a no body, for what he said in 2015? . . . God help us all. The world is mad.
BPL: No, only parts of it.
Excellent as always, Russell. I suppose Steyn’s strategy will be to brazen things out on the theory that sincerity trumps libel.
Hi,
Thank you for all your work.
As I like to answer to people asking question, but as they don’t dare to ask the answer here, I’ll just shoot with what I’ve read in some comment about this work on the internet :
We can read, here, that “Old versions of the NOAA STAR TMT data are no longer available and so they’ve been removed. All NOAA NCEI surface temperature lines are now using v5.1. ”
We can easily find what has change whith the V5.1 on the website of the NOAA :
“Version 5.1 differs from 5.0 in two major ways:
5.1 extends back to 1850 (vs. 1880)
5.1 has complete coverage of all land and ocean areas for the entire period of record”
The questions some “skeptics” (or “realist”) are asking is :
“Organisations like the NOAA are deleting their data because it has been corrected by a new version ?
Does “corrected” mean “not accurate”? [I think he means that it was not]
WHY DELETE AND CORRECT the data’s if “the addition of the figures was in line with the long-term expectations of the models” ?”
Can you please give me some elements of answer ?
It’s not easy to understand for everyone.
Neither it is for me, but I trust the method.
Thank you for your time.
Kevin
[Response: All of these products are a combination of the raw measurements (station readings, brightness temperatures at specific frequencies etc.) and a statistical method to translate that into something useful. You need to account for non-climatic contamination, instrument changes, interpolation (or not) where there isn’t a direct measurement, deal with errors in the raw data etc… Our estimates and understanding of these issues is always evolving, and when the groups think they have a better way of doing it, they update their product versions (UAH is v6, RSS v4, GISTEMP v4, NOAA NCEI v5.1 etc.etc.), and then generally don’t continue them. So the version changes alluded to above are updates to the processing. For instance, NOAA STAR stopped updating their MSU records version 3, and so there is no point in plotting it if the point is keep things up to date. The alternative is to keep updating records you don’t think are accurate – why would they do that? – gavin]
———————
This is another classic example Gavin where you are coming at these questions solely from your own point of view, and have absolutely zero empathy or understanding of the “questions” being asked from the genuine, valid, sincere and genuine point of view of the questioners.
In more simpler terms Gavin – You have not fully understood or groked the questions being asked, nor do you comprehend why these matters might be both valid and important to them.
Your response “why would they do that?” – is prima facie evidence of this.
Your not addressing directly the multiple questions that were asked is also clear evidence you don’t “get it” and have totally missed the point along with their point of view. No empathy.
Does “corrected” mean “not accurate”? Well?
This naturally leads to the related questions like: – If these “not accurate” data were used in prior GCMs going back to the 1980s and ever since then …. slowly and progressively being changed …. then aren’t all those outputs equally “not accurate”?
And/or – then why have not all prior GCMs been REDONE using only today’s “Corrected Data” stats?
If this, then that ….. is a truism that works in real life.
BUT if that is not needed, because it doesn’t matter, makes no difference at all to the GCM outputs, then why and how does all these “correction/inaccuracies” matter in the first place?
There is absolutely no need to jump to conclusions by making assumptions about the intentions of the people asking questions like this. Far better to simply assume they are always asking them in good faith!
NO matter what you might know or believe yourself, dismissing such queries for 30 years serves no useful purpose. But ignored these people have been. That is precisely why so many still refuse to trust you and your ilk.
I suggest, to you, that is because People asking genuine questions like these tend to be treated like homeless bums trying to steal your camera from your car while parked at a McDonald’s restaurant instead of being seen as real decent people simply asking genuine questions.
Unfortunately for KevCle et al, my response will make zero difference as well.
But some passers by will nod in agreement because they know.
Meanwhile the world continues to cook and life on earth will keep dying unnecessarily.
Your response is a prima facie example of “making assumptions about the intentions” of the author to whom you are responding. Gavin’s response is straightforward and objective, and casts no aspersions.
It also answers several of the questions you ask.
Think, man, think.
Kevin McKinney and everyone else including Gavin:
“Your response – and non-response – is a prima facie example of “making assumptions about the intentions” of the author to whom you are responding or not.”
Right back at ya Kevin!
Think, man, think!
Why are you taking on all comers without regard to the facts, history, etc.?
You seem eager to find targets for your outrage. Perhaps you could turn that towards people like Steyn,* who is a genuine climate villain, instead of Mike Mann who is part of the hard working group of people who have tried to decades to get us all involved in responding to climate change sooner rather than later.
Attacking people who should be your colleagues is a terrible waste of time and energy. Your hate should be directed at the real perps, not those of us who have done, perhaps not enough, but our possible to get some wisdom in the public sphere.
* Steyn: https://www.desmog.com/mark-steyn/
Susan: Your hate should be directed at the real perps, ….
Really? Is that what Michael Mann does in your opinion? Is this your suggested template for climate action and stopping global warming and higher temperatures is it Susan?
Nope. I am not interested in that kind of approach. I don’t have any “outrage”, or “hate”, I don’t believe in cheap tawdry gimmicks like “climate villains” either, and I am not wasting time. I’ll make my own choices about what I actually think and say, and not you Susan.
Your interpretations are badly flawed. You clearly know nothing about me nor my values.
You obviously would not like my personal opinions about Michael Mann. Because I believe overall what he has been doing for nigh on 15 years is counter-productive to finding real genuine practical effective solutions and implementing sustainable actions that work towards addressing the real causes of global warming and minimizing it’s impacts. Naturally, of course, he believes he is doing the absolutely right thing from his point of view. I do not. I resolutely disagree.
For the latest on the court case:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/climate-change-on-trial/id1713827256
And I actually just found a quote of his from last year which relates to my many other comments and refs on this topic.
SA: Attacking people who should be your colleagues is a terrible waste of time and energy.
BPL: I don’t think NK is really on the side of the people concerned about global warming. I think it’s a pose. He’s a denier, here to troll.
Stop being sensible, sue. Propagandists or those sucked in by them don’t really respond well to sensible suggestions.
NK: You clearly know nothing about me nor my values.
BPL: We know the values you display when you post here. They include repeating denier tropes and insulting and demeaning scientists.
Susan,
BPL nailed it.
“NK” is on a mission to troll, mock, and undermine. That and given the ridiculous amount of verbiage he posts, he’s obsessively stroking himself.
…
“Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience.” — Alex Steffen
…
The Myth of the Cynical Genius
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-games/202111/the-myth-the-cynical-genius
Ned Kelly
“In more simpler terms Gavin – You have not fully understood or groked the questions being asked, (by kevcle) nor do you comprehend why these matters might be both valid and important to them.Your response “why would they do that?” – is prima facie evidence of this.”
I don’t agree. The worst you might accuse Gavin is of being a bit of sarcasm when he said “why would you do that”? Big deal. Who cares about sarcasm. Stop being a snow flake.
And as KM pointed out even this would be a presumptive interpretation. It might be sarcasm, it might just be thinking aloud.
KevCle said “Thank you !” so he clearly thinks gavin understood the questions and isnt worried about the tone of the response. I bet the irony is lost on you.
Compare this to your own unpleasant tone: “NK Jan 18,another dot in the graph part 1: Kevin McKinney et al…Do you all really need to hand fed like babies every single comment that people make to this board? Or is it at all possible you could actually think rationally for yourselves without any assistance?”
So you aren’t in much of a position to complain about other peoples tone!
nigelj:
I didn’t “complain about other people’s tone”
Please don’t make things up that are not true, or make assumptions about me like that.
How would you know any of those things? Again your making assumptions (guesses, making it up) about what other people “might” think but have not said.
Why do you do that? I don’t.
And when I said “questioners” it was in the plural because i was not only addressing KevCle but those he was speaking of, their questions, he was bring here.
I really think all this mud throwing and paranoia and guesses and assumptions is beyond the pale but a number of folks here and not just you niglej. From my perspective you guys appear to be having a lot of problems actually reading what is actually there.
Interesting. I never assumed anything of Gavin – nor projected any “presumptive interpretation”
In fact, I went out of my way to be sure there was not “assumptions” unfolding —
I asked him some direct questions and framed them rationally, clearly and objectively, and provided a reasonable context. ( at least is my opinion I did) I certainly never assumed he’d answer them either.
So I am at a loss as to what you are talking about actually.
Ned Kelly says
18 Jan 2024 at 9:46 PM
I stand by every word of my reply and questions to Gavin on this matter.
Hi.
In fact, I don’t really know what other people think.
I understood the sentence “”The alternative is to keep updating records you don’t think are accurate – why would they do that?” as “There is no good reason to do so”.
I think, as a non native English-Speaker (I’m Belgian – French and Flemish speaker), that you are right on many points as you talk about the reasons why those people were asking such questions and the reasons that they have to do so.
Some of these could be good reasons.
I don’t doubt that. There is plenty of reasons to doubt.
In this particular example, the person I was talking to did accuse the NOAA (and RealClimate) to falsify the data, without even knowing what what they read (“Old versions of the NOAA STAR TMT data are no longer available and so they’ve been removed. All NOAA NCEI surface temperature lines are now using v5.1.”) meant.
And the answer from Gavin did not satisfy this person either.
They just don’t “believe” it, because it seems they don’t trust RealClimate/Noaa.
Without an answer they are suspicious.
With an answer it’s not better.
That’s why answering to them is sometimes “boring” (sorry for my – maybe- poor vocabulary).
They have no solid reasons (reasons that still seems good for them) to believe their “instinct” and not a “specialist” of the subject. Still, they do.
There is plenty of reason to doubt, but they don’t doubt with any methods that could “protect” them from believing false claims.
But I still think you are partly right to question the reasons they have to be suspicious or to ask those questions, and maybe also to point out the fact that some “irony”/sarcasm isn’t helping them to “trust” what is said.
I don’t blame Gavin for his sentence.
Thank you all for your answer.s
Thank you !
With much thanks for Gavin – most particularly for his sane common sense in these parlous times – I don’t know if it would be useful to reference an old favorite here. It seems to me to answer so many modeling and data questions which are so badly mauled by both fake skeptics and people who don’t understand and are therefore gullible to ill-informed and malicious talking points:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJJxn-gCdo
Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change
Leon Simons: “Aerosol Demasking and Global Heating”
Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year.
While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood.
Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as sulfur, based on the connection between recent changes in marine fuel sulfur requirements and corresponding climate data.
How will the global trend towards aerosol reductions affect near and long term global heating?
What does this catch-22 mean for potential future climate action and policy?
How should we be thinking about creating a more simplified global system in response to the unknown unknowns of our potential future climate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAnoSt6FnY
Feeling short of time? Go to the settings and increase the Playback speed from Normal to X1.25 or X1.5
Learn and Enjoy! :-)
In one of my comments on this forum I said: “what we know”
Note the Dates
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1740084178421416299
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1476486565178359812
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1456615526952755200
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1456615526952755200.html
Save this link if you are not on Twitter — https://nitter.net/LeonSimons8
Here is the video discussion link again with Nate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAnoSt6FnY
Live, Learn, and Enjoy!
2023 was the first year with a global temperature anomaly above 1.5°C in one or more data sets!
When the world decides upon a red line we shouldn’t cross, I think it should be communicated clearly and widely when there are first signs of this line being crossed.
When a person has chest pains, they should go to the emergency room, not to a university.
Academics do what they do best. But we shouldn’t expect them to be straightforward and decisive.
We should take existential risks very serious. Not just treat them as interesting academic puzzles.
Another dot on the graph.
So I have said given what we know the most likely thing to expect is a record temperature every year. One or two people here seem to think that’s just ‘crazy thinking’.
But what did ‘we’ already know at the beginning of 2023? And is there an expert in the house?
Leon Simons quote from the video with Nate :
Do any climate scientists here know that the introduction of the new shipping sulphate rules started in 2020 and that has had the effect of storing up an increasing and accumulating heat in the oceans (especially the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans) ever since then?
And do any climate scientists on this planet also know, besides Hansen et al, that not only is 2023 a strong El Nino in this second half of the year but all of 2023 and 2024 is a solar maximum period as well?
Maybe they are all too busy playing with the data on their GCM computers to notice what is happening out there in the real world today?
I really do not know. I do not think anyone could know what actually goes on inside the minds of climate scientists. It’s a complete mystery.
NK: Do any climate scientists here know that the introduction of the new shipping sulphate rules started in 2020 and that has had the effect of storing up an increasing and accumulating heat in the oceans (especially the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans) ever since then?
And do any climate scientists on this planet also know, besides Hansen et al, that not only is 2023 a strong El Nino in this second half of the year but all of 2023 and 2024 is a solar maximum period as well?
Maybe they are all too busy playing with the data on their GCM computers to notice what is happening out there in the real world today?
BPL: No, Ned, I’m sure climate scientists pay no attention to the actual climate.
You’ve never looked at a climate science journal, have you?
Barton Paul Levenson asks:
“You’ve never looked at a climate science journal, have you?”
NK: No. What’s a climate science journal Barton?
bpl: “You’ve never looked at a climate science journal, have you?”
NK: No. What’s a climate science journal Barton?
BPL: A journal concerned with climate science. Examples would be the Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres,. Journal of Climate, Journal of Atmospheric Science, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, etc. Climate science articles are also sometimes printed in Nature and Science.
My point was that if you had read those journals, many, many studies are being done of all aspects of the climate. Deniers paint climate science as only focused on “proving” global warming, but most of those journals predate the global warming crisis.
Barton, do you mean “A journal concerned with climate science.” like this?
Ned Kelly says
21 Jan 2024 at 6:46 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/not-just-another-dot-on-the-graph-part-ii/#comment-818289
And in all the other refs I posted? Those “journals”?
BPL: A journal concerned with climate science.
Do you mean like this one Barton?
Journal Article
Global warming in the pipeline
Dr James Hansen and Makiko Sato et al
Oxford Open Climate Change, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2023, kgad008,
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
Published: 02 November 2023
The Oxford Open Climate Change ‘kind of journal’ concerned with climate science Barton?
I’m looking forward to reading the Guest Article by Dr James Hansen, Gavin’s former superior at Nasa-Giss, being published here any day now.
Aren’t you?
Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate
Norman G. Loeb, Gregory C. Johnson, Tyler J. Thorsen, John M. Lyman, Fred G. Rose, Seiji Kato
First published: 15 June 2021
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093047
Citations: 53
2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047
Hurrumpf, and what would Hansen know either, stuff all some say.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/105-leon-simons
While it might more fun trying to burn down the straw man you’re building each day ……. there are alternatives to explore with a more mature approach: it’s a choice.
From the study above …..
In this study, we perform a direct comparison between variations in EEI inferred from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) and an in situ estimate of the observed ocean heat uptake over 0–2,000 m combined with published estimates of energy uptake by the deeper ocean, lithosphere, cryosphere, and atmosphere. This comparison is made using annual estimates centered on mid-2005 (the year the Argo array of profiling floats achieved sparse near-global coverage) through mid-2019. Of particular interest are how consistently these two observing systems capture interannual variations and the trend in EEI. This is followed by a partial radiative perturbation (PRP) analysis using additional data sources in order to identify what properties of the climate system are contributing to the observed trend in EEI.
[…]
This remarkable increase in EEI is consistent between these two completely independent observational estimates. The linear trend of CERES implies a net EEI of 0.42 ± 0.48 W m−2 in mid-2005 and 1.12 ± 0.48 W m−2 in mid-2019. The in situ estimates yield a statistically indistinguishable result.
[…]
The TOA anomalies are also consistent across CERES instruments on different satellite platforms (Loeb, Thorsen, et al., 2018). The ASR trend cannot be explained by changes in incoming solar radiation, as the trend in incoming solar flux is negligible (−0.053 W m−2 decade−1).
[…]
The positive trend in EEI is a result of combined changes in clouds, water vapor, trace gases, surface albedo, and aerosols, which exceed a negative contribution from increasing global mean temperatures. At global scale, the aerosol contribution is small compared to other contributions. This may be because only aerosol direct radiative effects are explicitly calculated as part of the aerosol contribution.
Aerosol indirect effects are implicitly included as part of the cloud contribution to EEI—quantifying the aerosol indirect effect would require model simulations that can be run with and without aerosol-cloud interactions.
Because EEI is such a fundamental property of the climate system, the implications of an increasing EEI trend are far reaching.
[ just another climate study to add to the ever growing list that next to no one reads or understands …… ]
So, are you recommending that we read it? Or are you saying that it’s pointless to read it? Or do your excerpts convey what we should know in the proverbial nutshell?
Inquiring minds…
Functioning minds can work out such things all by themselves without any help or asking for advice.
Which is no surprise to me. But hey, don’t let me stop you — keep asking! Even if the kind of help you actually need is not available here.
@LeonSimons8 13 Jun 2023
And what do we know in January 2024?
Mauna Loa carbon dioxide forecast for 2024
Atmospheric CO2 rise predicted to exceed IPCC 1.5°C scenarios
Richard A. Betts, Chris D. Jones, Jeff R. Knight, James O. Pope and Caroline Sandford
The build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration between 2023 and 2024 is forecast to be faster than that required to track IPCC scenarios that limit global warming to 1.5°C.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/long-range/forecasts/co2-forecast
—-
Of course I do not accept the findings nor the basis of the IPCC 1.5C scenarios are worthy of believing them, but that is another ‘argument’ to be had on an entirely different day.
I mean, think about it – How many times does a source, an ever changing ‘committee’ in fact, need to ‘be wrong’ and utterly ‘unreliable’ before refusing to even listen to them anymore and demand something better instead?
NK: How many times does [the IPCC], an ever changing ‘committee’ in fact, need to ‘be wrong’ and utterly ‘unreliable’ before refusing to even listen to them anymore and demand something better instead?
BPL: Probably only once.
Once.
Let that keep ringing in all your ears for eternity.
Please specify your definition of “wrong”* and some concrete, specific instances so we all can see what you in your wisdom consider to be “wrong” in a science area.
____________
*Perhaps you are unaware there are a multitude of definitions for the term in science describing everything from uncertainty to ignorance to propaganda to outright fraud).
jgnfld :
You decide. I am not here to tell you what to think or believe.
Choose your own definitions. I am not here to lead you or anyone by the nose. I have nothing to prove either.
I am here to say what I think and what I believe and ask some questions – which I did about the IPCC and it’s output.
“How many times does a source, an ever changing ‘committee’ in fact, need to ‘be wrong’ and utterly ‘unreliable’ before refusing to even listen to them anymore and demand something better instead?”
Only you individually can answer that question. It’s not for me to answer for you.
So no, your assertion about “wrong” is what you think, not what you have evidence for.
Fine.
Might be time for the crankshaft.
Ned Kelly, so still no examples of where you believe the IPCC have got the science wrong. Instead you produce slippery, BS rhetoric of the sort used by politicians and spin artists. Side stepping the key issue. I’m utterly unconvinced by any of it.
Big claims require big evidence. Refer philosophical razers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_razor
Nah. I answered you nigelj, and the dumbo up above with all the language problems.
Ask the gatekeeper to find those examples! :-)
Global Temperature Report for 2023
Posted on January 12, 2024 by Robert Rohde
Very long and comprehensive
https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/
Including:
Is Global Warming Accelerating? Maybe.
Based on the current trends in land and ocean surface temperatures, it is not yet necessary to assume that the pace of global warming has accelerated. In particular, the warming trend and interannual fluctuations appear largely uniform since 1980. The global temperature in 2023 is unusually warm and defied predictions, but excursions of nearly the same size have occurred in previous years (e.g. 1981, 1998, 2016), and a single anomalous year is not sufficient to demonstrate a change in the long-term global warming rate.
That said, there are other lines of evidence that suggest that global warming may be starting to accelerate, and recently arguments have been made that an accelerated warming rate is imminent.
see https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889?login=false
The first line of evidence comes from observations of the Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI). The energy imbalance is a direct measure of how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth system as a result of changes in greenhouse gases and other factors.
See EEI Graph https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/EEI-2023-1536×846.png
The CERES project uses satellites to estimate Earth’s energy imbalance. Their data suggests that the Earth’s energy imbalance has more than doubled since 2000, indicating an acceleration of global warming’s impact on the Earth system. However, we must also acknowledge that these are technically challenging measurements to make with considerable uncertainty and short-term variability, which may distort the true trend.
In their presented data, the apparent increase in the energy imbalance is primarily caused by increased absorption of solar radiation due to a corresponding reduction in the Earth’s albedo. Most climate models do expect absorbed solar radiation to increase as global warming progresses.
This would be due to a reduction in low cloud cover, a reduction in snow and ice at the surface, and an increase in water vapor, all of which favor an increase in absorbed solar radiation.
However, the observed changes indicated by the CERES program are far more rapid than typically expected by climate models given the current pace of global warming.
The rapid increase in absorbed solar radiation may be due, in large part, to a <b<recent reduction in man-made sulfur and other aerosols that have historically served to block a portion of the incoming solar radiation. In essence, by recent efforts to reduce smog and other air pollution, humans may have inadvertently accelerated global warming.
and see
Global Mean Temperature Prediction for 2024
See Graph https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Forecast2024-1536×846.png
We predict a 58% chance that 2024 is warmer than 2023 and 97% chance that it is at least as warm as 2016, making it very likely that 2024 will become either the warmest or 2nd warmest year on record.
Source: https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/
Journal of Climate
Is Anthropogenic Global Warming Accelerating? 2022
Stuart Jenkins, Adam Povey, Andrew Gettelman, Roy Grainger, Philip Stier, and Myles Allen
Online Publication: 22 Nov 2022
Print Publication: 15 Dec 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-22-0081.1
Abstract extracts:
Estimates of the anthropogenic effective radiative forcing (ERF) trend have increased by 50% since 2000 (from +0.4 W m−2 decade−1 in 2000–09 to +0.6 W m−2 decade−1 in 2010–19), the majority of which is driven by changes in the aerosol ERF trend, as a result of aerosol emissions reductions. Here we study the extent to which observations of the climate system agree with these ERF assumptions.
The GMST trend has increased from +0.18°C decade−1 in 2000–09 to +0.35°C decade−1 in 2010–19, coinciding with the anthropogenic warming trend rising from +0.19°C decade−1 in 2000–09 to +0.24°C decade−1 in 2010–19.
This, as well as observed trends in top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes and aerosol optical depths, supports the claim of an aerosol-induced temporary acceleration in the rate of warming.
[SOP Disclaimer] Further systematic research focused on quantifying trends and early identification of acceleration or deceleration is required. [We claim we know nothing]
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/24/JCLI-D-22-0081.1.xml
2023: +1.54ºC! Why Is Global Warming Accelerating?
Interview with Leon Simons
Climate Chat with Dan Miller
Streamed live 5 hours ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCPf8vvedSI
In this Climate Chat episode we discuss the rapid acceleration of global warming with climate scientist Leon Simons. The Berkeley Earth dataset shows the average global surface temperature in 2023 was +1.54ºC above the pre-industrial average. This is far above previous years and while there was an El Niño starting in 2023, it cannot explain the full jump in global temperature.
Leon Simons is a climate scientist based in the Netherlands. He was a co-author with James Hansen on last year’s “Global Warming in the Pipeline” paper that discussed the recent acceleration in global warming. Leon’s work has focused recently on changes in aerosol emissions from ships and the impact of those changes on climate change.
You can access Leon’s research writings here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leon-Simons
QUOTE:
12:21 PM · Aug 5, 2023
343.3K Views
Prof Michael E. Mann
@MichaelEMann
It’s not sulphate aerosols.
It’s not the Tonga eruption.
It’s not unicorns or fairy dust.
It’s human-caused warming from carbon pollution (plus a sizeable natural swing from La Nina-to-El Nino)
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/
[ Global Daily Surface Air Temperature (link) ]
—————————
NK: Which sounds incredibly definitive in August. No qualifications at all.
Just another dot on the graph?
I reckoning to do better than that, Why stop at one?
I’m now plotting out the daily ERA5 anomalies, global and NH (the latter because that is where almost all the global ‘bananas’ of 2023 are to be found), in the 3 graphs found here – ‘First posted 15/12/23’
The NH anomalies do present some curious wobbles when smoothed with 31-day rolling averages. The two (or is it three) peaks seen in past winters do occur at the end/beginning of months but are surely far far too big to result from some mis-calculation of daily anomalies bases.
Wobbles of years-gone-by aside, the downward progress of these early-Jan temperature anomalies does give weight to the idea that the 2023 ‘bananas’ are not going to be adding ‘nuts’ in 2024.
NINO 3.4 is now on its way down – not the strongest of El Niños. So will February & March 2024 manage scorchyisimoooo!!!? That’s when El Niños peak the temperature anomalies. But perhaps if the ‘bananas’ all run off, Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming.
Fingers crossed!!
MA Rodger: – “Wobbles of years-gone-by aside, the downward progress of these early-Jan temperature anomalies does give weight to the idea that the 2023 ‘bananas’ are not going to be adding ‘nuts’ in 2024.”
And yet the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) continues to grow.
Berkeley Earth suggests the EEI is currently around +2.1 W/m²
https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/EEI-2023.png
Per Leon Simons, the EEI 12-month running mean graph is shown here at:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1748117563660202161
The rate of planetary heat uptake is increasing. Why ignore that key piece of data. MA Rodger? Is that inconvenient for your “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” narrative perhaps?
The North Atlantic sea surface temperatures hit another record daily high on 6 Mar 2023. The North Atlantic is still setting daily records, for 325 consecutive days so far.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1750676548162859310
World (60S- 60N) daily SST has been at record high levels since 13 Mar 2023. The graph may well need a larger y-axis soon.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Global daily SAT is back to record high level (18 Jan 2024)
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
NH daily SAT is back to record high level (18 Jan 2024)
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=nh
SH daily SAT is back to record high level (18 Jan 2024)
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=sh
Tropics daily SAT is back to record high level (18 Jan 2024)
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=tropics
The Antarctic sea ice extent is approaching another record anomaly.
https://zacklabe.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/nsidc_sie_ant_anomalies-6.png
I see multiple indicators suggesting more record months in the offing, with nuts on top!
Geoff Miell,
I find your comment running with the same overly-simplistic ideas as in previous encounters with you..
Concerning EEI, it is interesting that the two graphics you present (here and here give different numbers, the first declaring 12-month rolling ave of EEI presently to be +2.1Wm%-2 and the second looking more like the 12-month rolling ave of +1.83Wm^-2 as per the ClimateChangeTracker’s EEI.
When considering global temperature and the possibility of 2024 having added nuts on top of the bananas of 2023, I do indeed ignore these EEI numbers. This is not as you imply, not because it is at odds with my views on where 2024 SAT could end up. It is because the EEI is weakly coupled to SAT and if you had read the Berkley Earth ‘Global Temperature Report for 2023’ rather than just reference the EEI graphic therein, you would have seen that the section containing the graphic is titled‘Is Global Warming Accelerating? Maybe’.
I fear you are yourself going bananas over daily global SAT data setting new record highs. Simply achieving daily records is not bananas-topped-by-nuts. It is not even ‘bananas’ given there is an El Niño in progress (abet not a big one) and on-going AGW.
It is always pleasing to see Antarctic SIE graphed out as anomalies on a webpage, and this the graphic you attempted to link-to. Good-oh!!
NSIDC’s CHArctic 5-day rolling averages show Antarctic SIE running in 3rd-bottom place (below all bar 2017 & 2023). But I’m not sure this points to it “approaching another record anomaly.” The JAXA VISHOP page shows daily Antarctic anomalies that are edging towards those 2017 & 2023 record low numbers. But, again I don’t see this as indicative of the global ‘bananas’. When today’s (29th Jan) record was set in 2017, there was no ‘bananas’ to follow.
So MA, are you saying that increasing EEI would be OK as long as the GMST doesn’t increase any faster? Is there perhaps a magic iris whisking away the extra extra energy?
I know Geoff gets a little breathless sometimes, with the numbers and predictions, but from you I would expect a better understanding of what is cause and what is effect.
If we could cut back on the spamming from the ned-erworld, the topic of the relationship between EEI OHC and GMST might be an interesting “real science” discussion to have here. What does it mean that they are “weakly coupled”??
zebra,
Firstly, let’s be entirely clear that I am not saying anything is “OK” because of some “magic iris”. Suggesting anyone holds such a view would require more than a little breathlessness.
The EEI shows energy is indeed accumulating in-planet but the rate of that accumulation is not then being reflected in the rate of increase in GMST.
Thus a two-decade-long relationship between increasing EEI and dLOTI is not apparent. EEI since 2001 measured by CERES increases at +0.46Wm^-2/decade while dLOTI over the same period shows a marginally negative acceleration of -0.02ºC/decade^2, this last result very sensitive to all the wobbles over a two-decade period.
This negative value allows us to ignore what we would simplistically expect of an EEI-dLOTI relationship (and being a sensitive result, dLOTI can go positive). But the big job EEI has on its hands when warming the planet is OHC which would thus take on the role of the pantomime “magic iris” if anyone suffers an attack of “a little breathlessness”. And as we would expect from increasing EEI, OCS is accelerating through the period (as per Li et al (2023).
But what is also evident plotting dLOTI against EEI is that the wobbly dLOTI signal is also seen in the EEI wobbles. (See yellow graph posted 31/1/24 HERE.) The relationship between the two in the short term is highly coupled. And the driver of these wobbles that makes sense is the oceans in the shape of ENSO.
The EEI can be broken down into its various components, the two significant ones being OLR which we would expect to be driven by rising temperature and which acts against increasing EEI through the period. And this is indeed what the CERES data shows when plotted against SAT.
The other significant component dominates is the reduction in albedo/reflected sunlight. (This and the OLR component is shown in a couple of graphics (pink ones) posted 5/12/23 at the LINK given above, plotted alongside & against ERA5 SAT. (The one interesting feature is the reversal of the albedo-SAT relationship 2006-12.)
So the OHC appears to have a strong but slow response to varying EEI and it is this strong-slow mechanism that appears to be responsible for the rise in SAT (eg dLOTI) being linear over recent decades.
As for the ‘bananas’ of 2023 and the potential for ‘added nuts on top’, that is something else entirely.
“What does it mean that they are “weakly coupled”??”
Since MAR left his answer to that question mostly implicit, I’ll jump in to say that as I understand it at least, it means that while there is a discernible relationship between EEI and GMST, you can’t really determine one from the other–other factors must be taken into account.
And by “other factors” it would seem we should mostly mean energy fluxes between atmosphere and oceans, and especially between the surface of the oceans and their deeper layers.
MAR
MA, a thorough and clear exposition (although the acronym vortex made me a little dizzy.)
What’s been troubling me, as I’ve expressed in previous comments, is the role that GMST (let’s stick with that) seems to play in people’s reasoning.
Ever since I first heard about “Global Warming”, I have thought that the cause of all our future problems was the increase in energy in the climate system resulting (principally) from increased CO2. And over those decades, I have understood GMST to be the best quantifiable metric or proxy available to demonstrate that. But…
But now we have EEI and OHC, direct measurements with satellites and ARGO. And whether people are claiming impending doom or taking a more optimistic position, the focus is still on GMST, as if it is something other than an average value… an effect, but not a cause of anything.
So we hear things like “but increased EEI means it will be 5C instead of 3C!!”, and your response to Geoff that you ignore EEI because it isn’t reflected in GMST. And of course Spencer (putting aside the dishonest presentation) implying that the physics must be invalid because we can’t predict GMST with great precision.
My reaction to all this is… why does it matter so much? Why is it the focus of the discussion?
Of course, I understand that because it has been so central to the discussion for so long, it has taken on different meanings in different people’s minds. But as I think I’ve said before, when someone asks “why did the GMST go up so much this year”, my answer is… why not?
Can you offer an explanation as to why it shouldn’t do crazy stuff now and again, just like other phenomena we observe moving away from the original equilibrium state at this point?
zebra: – “I know Geoff gets a little breathless sometimes, with the numbers and predictions, but from you I would expect a better understanding of what is cause and what is effect.”
In my experience here, when MA Rodger leads with a snarky response to my comments, it’s generally an indication (or ‘tell’) there’s a lack of a substantive answer following. I think MA Rodger is doing himself a disservice. Is less snarks; more substance too much to ask?
zebra to MA Rodger: – “Can you offer an explanation as to why it shouldn’t do crazy stuff now and again, just like other phenomena we observe moving away from the original equilibrium state at this point?”
A very good question. Do you mean “crazy stuff” like:
* Jan 2024 ending with the highest global average Sea Surface Temperature in observational history?
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1753140203802239177
* global surface temperatures were a record for the day, at +1.71 °C above the pre-industrial baseline, and the running 365-day average was 1.51°C above the pre-industrial baseline.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1753403323909308736
Leon Simons tweeted on Feb 2:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1753385410992959720
More inconvenient data for MA Rodger’s “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” narrative perhaps?
Perhaps this “breathlessness” is catching?
Kevin McKinney: – “And by “other factors” it would seem we should mostly mean energy fluxes between atmosphere and oceans, and especially between the surface of the oceans and their deeper layers.”
Perhaps the weakening of the AMOC is starting to alter the energy transfers between the surface of the oceans and their deeper layers? Just a thought…
Geoff Miell
Geoff, I am disappointed that MA didn’t respond to my last question (yet), but the thing is, you repeatedly producing long lists of videos, quotes, yadda yadda doesn’t advance the discussion at all.
His first answer to me was actually very informative about the physics of what is happening.
Science isn’t just numbers; coming up with dramatic numbers doesn’t demonstrate much of anything, because the Denialists come up with non-dramatic numbers, and the public has no way to tell what means what.
And it sounds like you didn’t actually read/understand what I said about cause and effect. Maybe you should take a breath (heh) and think about it more carefully.
zebra: – “Geoff, I am disappointed that MA didn’t respond to my last question (yet), but the thing is, you repeatedly producing long lists of videos, quotes, yadda yadda doesn’t advance the discussion at all.”
Um… My original response to MA Rodger (at 26 JAN 2024 AT 2:14 AM) was to challenge his “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” narrative. I’m presenting accumulating and IMO compelling evidence/data that so far comprehensively challenges that narrative. It seems to me you’ve lost track of the original discussion that you’ve tapped into later.
zebra: – “His first answer to me was actually very informative about the physics of what is happening.”
Good for you. MA Rodger hasn’t provided a satisfactory response to my challenge. Perhaps he’s waiting & hoping the temperature data for Feb & Mar 2024 will in time get closer to supporting his narrative? We’ll see soon…
zebra: – “Science isn’t just numbers; coming up with dramatic numbers doesn’t demonstrate much of anything, because the Denialists come up with non-dramatic numbers, and the public has no way to tell what means what.”
It seems to me you are indulging in a bit of denial too, about the compelling evidence/data indicating rapid changes are happening faster than forecast.
zebra: – “And it sounds like you didn’t actually read/understand what I said about cause and effect.”
It seems to me you have an ongoing history at this blog of misunderstanding people.
zebra: – “Maybe you should take a breath (heh) and think about it more carefully.”
‘Do as I say, not as I do’, aye zebra? But what can one expect from someone who hides behind a pseudonym, unwilling to put their own words under their own name?
Geoff Miell,
(I was under the impression that in past to-&-fros between you and me, it was you who runs off prior to us achieving some semblance of an understanding.)
You again present your view that Feb & Mar 2024 will be a continuation of the ‘bananas’ seen through the latter half of 2023, you perhaps also suggesting some added ‘nuts’ due to the recent El Niño.
But (not the first time I’ve suggested this) do note the declining anomalies in the ERA5 SAT data.
The average January-so-far anomaly (to 25th Jan) sits at +0.972ºC above 1979-2000 anomaly base, a base which for January sits -0.307ºC below the 1991-2020 anomaly base used by Copernicus. So to allow a comparison we can calculate Jan-so-far with a 1991-2000 base – Jan-so-far is running at [972-307=] +0.665ºC.
The Copernicus ERA5 numbers show the top January anomaly of past years as +0.581ºC set in 2020 (+0.551ºC in Jan 2016 sits second, following a more meaty El Niño). So Jan 2024 looks like it will end up “scorchyisimo!!!”
But would such a new record be ‘bananas’ or perhaps even ‘bananas-with-added-nuts’?
Given the 2020 record was set four years ago and AGW in January is running at +0.0184ºC/year (OLR 1979-2023), that would suggest we could project a ‘no bananas’ record for Jan 2024 at +0.655ºC. As ERA5 is a bit acceleraty, that projection would be a bit higher using just recent years (+0.67ºC).
Of course, we still have a few days for the numbers to shift. And data for Feb & Mar are yet to arrive. However, these numbers do suggest “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” for those advocating ‘bananas’.
MA Rodger (at 4 FEB 2024 AT 8:44 AM): – “Of course, we still have a few days for the numbers to shift. And data for Feb & Mar are yet to arrive. However, these numbers do suggest “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” for those advocating ‘bananas’.”
And yet per Copernicus ERA5 data, it seems to me the global mean SAT first 12 days of Feb 2024 have been ‘hot’, averaging +1.95 °C. Feb 8-11 were over +2.0 °C, relative to the 1850-1900 baseline, not far below the instrumental record highs on 17 Nov 2023 (+2.07 °C) & 18 Nov 2023 (+2.06 °C).
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1759322864636039663
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/custom-uploads/Page%20Uploads/2%C2%B0C/era5_daily_sfc_temp_global_anomalies_ref1850-1900_1940-2023_dark.png
And the World (60°S-60°N) daily mean SSTs have been at record seasonal highs, all over 21.0 °C, for available data (up to Feb 17).
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
On Feb 9, the daily SST was literally going off the chart. I note that Climate Reanalyzer have since increased the Y-axis on their SST graph.
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1756348352386457714
I’d suggest the numbers need to “shift” substantially to relatively ‘cooler’ temperatures over the remaining days/weeks to support your “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” narrative. We’ll see soon how well your narrative holds up.
MAR, call me stupid, but I can’t follow your last discussion because I don’t know what either “LOTI” or “OCS” stand for. I’m not up on all the shorthand, and It would help if you wrote out the abbreviations the first time you use them.
I do know about the more commonly used abbreviations such as SAT, GMST, EEI, and OLR, but haven’t run across the other two.
Thanks.
John Pollack,
You don’t appear to be alone reelling from my “acronym vortex”.
My apologies.
LOTI = Land + Ocean Temperature Index [which is just a more exact name for NASA’s Gistemp/GISS ].
OCS = Ocean Heat Content.
Some fossil fuel interests are insisting that the global temperature would need to average 1.5°C of
warming over two or three decades to be a technical breach of the threshold. “Business as usual” until the
year 2050? In theory, and by agreement the world is committed to be net-zero emissions by 2050. Perhaps it
can be a New Year’s resolution on New Year’s Eve in 2049.
At the risk of an analogy: If warming is like flooding,1.5 °C of warming is the equivalent of floodwaters
splashing over the top of the dike and more water is upstream. The peak is yet to come.
GRAHAM V SAUNDERS: – “Some fossil fuel interests are insisting that the global temperature would need to average 1.5°C of warming over two or three decades to be a technical breach of the threshold.”
I’d suggest on our current trajectory, in “two to three decades” the Earth System is likely to breach the +2.0 °C multi-year warming threshold.
https://twitter.com/DrJamesEHansen/status/1745839183502221527
The Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) continues to grow. That’s what’s driving the acceleration of the Earth System warming rate.
Hear Leon Simons talking with Nate Hagens in the YouTube podcast titled Leon Simons: “Aerosol Demasking and Global Heating” | The Great Simplification #105, recorded late last year, duration 1:24:53. From time interval 0:42:50, Leon Simons says:
“Yes, so this is the global average incoming, sorry, the absorbed sunlight. So there’s about 340 watts of sunlight coming in, and about 29, 30 to 29 per cent of that sunlight is being reflected back to space, and then about 240 watts per square metre was absorbed by the planet 23-years ago. And as the graph shows, this has increased by 2 watts per square metre. So the Earth is absorbing 2 watts per square metre more heat than it was 23-years ago. And then there has been balanced a bit, only a little bit, by an increase in outgoing long-wave radiation, and you might think: ‘OK, why is there more heat going out while the greenhouse gas concentration is increasing?’ That’s because the temperature has been increasing. Without increasing greenhouse gas emissions, there would be about 4 watts per square metre more heat going out at the current temperatures than we see on this graph. So it would be off the chart and there would be more heat being radiated to space than is being absorbed from the sun. But now we see there is more heat is being absorbed than is being radiated to space, and you see that the yellow part is growing bigger. That means that there’s more heat is absorbed faster. The rate of heat uptake is increasing…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAnoSt6FnY
See Slide 8: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d5bc2bb737636144dc55d0/t/65a7fd05b6c2a3717409701c/1705508101143/Podcast+Nate+Hagens+Leon+simons+Pipeline+paper.pptx+%285%29.jpg
Professor Johan Rockström, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said:
“We have no evidence, whatsoever, that we can support in a dignified and responsible way, eight, soon to be 9 billion people in the world as we know it, at anything above 2 °Celsius.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816647
Dear Geoff Miell,
Thank you for the comment and the referenced information for all to see. I have somethings that are useful and skillful to add to that:
2023: +1.54ºC! Why Is Global Warming Accelerating? Jan 22nd 2024,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCPf8vvedSI
with climate scientist Leon Simons, co-author of “Global warming in the pipeline” Hansen et al
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889?login=false
So not too long to wait for a degree of objective data confirmation. Plus Leon emphasized how aerosols impact on cloud formations globally, so we need to understand where the rain will be falling in the years and decades ahead (agriculture etc) in order to be prepared for all these shifts in climate that will then immediately and progressively impact (can dramatically change) the weather patterns anywhere and everywhere.
Additional external supporting Refs for Leon’s and Hansen’s understandings of the scientific evidence (and reticence / negligence) include:
Is Anthropogenic Global Warming Accelerating?
22 Nov 2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-22-0081.1
What Does Global Land Climate Look Like at 2°C Warming?
2022 Analysis of global mean temperature changes indicates the 2040s as the decade when most CMIP6 models reach 2°C warming with respect to a pre-industrial period (1850–1900).
CMIP6 models show that the Earth likely will reach 2°C of global warming by the 2040s without significant policy changes
Geographic pattern of changes in key climate indicators portend unfavorable conditions of habitability for large populations
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003330
A New 66 Million-Year History of Carbon Dioxide Offers Little Comfort for Today
https://skepticalscience.com/66-million.html
Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2
8 Dec 2023 The Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi5177
Editorial on Hansen et al. ‘Global warming in the pipeline’
The authors take this into account along with the delayed response of slow processes in the climate system and find that the 1.5°C warming limit of the Paris Agreement is likely to be crossed within the 2020s, and the 2°C warming limit before 2050.
2023
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad010/7335888
World Temperatures Will Blow Past Paris Goals This Decade, Asserts New Study
2023A Legendary Climate Scientist Claims That Current Mainstream Warming Estimates Are Too Low
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/11/03/world-temperatures-will-blow-past-paris-goals-this-decade-asserts-new-study/
Comments?
Graham, over the previous decades, climate scientists have done an admirable job in trying to quantify what is happening to the climate due to human activity (primarily increases of CO2). The GMST was the best metric available, because it could be related to past temperature measurements and proxies.
However, using it to communicate the progress of climate change has created a problem of understanding in the general public and allowed the FF interests to deny and obfuscate.
The cause of the climate changing is the increase in energy in the system due to CO2 absorbing outgoing radiant energy, and GMST is one effect of that… one, as I said, that we could quantify.
We are beginning to see other effects more clearly these days, in extreme events and disruptions of normal patterns.
But we also have developed the ability to quantify that energy increase with modern instrumentation; we can measure the difference between energy coming in from the sun and energy radiated to space (EEI), and we can directly measure the increase in the oceans, which is a much more reliable indicator (OHC).
The point is, the 1.5C number is not necessarily the best indicator of what is happening. The answer to the FF nonsense is that as long as we observe the energy in the system increasing, extremes and disruptions are inevitably going to increase as well.
So your analogy is apt, although I would suggest that the dike has already been breached, and we are beginning to see whose house is going to be flooded, and whose will be completely swept away.
zebra says:
“The point is, the 1.5C number is not necessarily the best indicator of what is happening.”
Among other things said above, this sentence is absolutely and categorically correct on all levels.
The “dyke” (corrected spelling) has indeed already been breached – and I advise all here, in particular GRAHAM V SAUNDERS, the 1.5C and 2C global average temperature anomaly yardsticks are irrelevant meaningless artifacts conjured up from the minds of the extremely unwise and incompetent.
The outcome of which has been to both mislead and manipulate the entire world for decades.
It is also clear to any sane rational being with an ounce of awareness that: there is “no agreement” the world is committed to be net-zero emissions by 2050.
zebra also says
23 Jan 2024 at 6:38 AM
“Graham, over the previous decades, climate scientists have done an admirable job in trying to quantify what is happening to the climate due to human activity (primarily increases of CO2).”
Others have done “an admirable job to quantify what is happening to the climate” since the 1970s as well:
Apparently, it’s not that difficult or complicated, nor a unique specialty skill at all.
So, does anyone want to tell me again why we need so many more (100s to 1000s) of Imaginary Made Up Hypothetical Climate Scenarios built into multiple Non-Real GCMs from the CMIP3 to CMIP6 and all of these repetitive (and inaccurate) IPCC summary reports again – being Reports and Models “which are not representing the reality with which we are living” – (per Leon Simons) to already know and understand what’s happening as we watch an ongoing Human and Climate Catastrophe unfolding in full view for over 3 decades now, and to also know what to do about it?
Anyone have any bright ideas or comments about this irrational dilemma humanity and modern climate science finds itself in today?
Relying on the Unreliable, and Untrue, for example.
Ned Kelly. Maybe we need more climate models to work out the things Exon Mobils climate models didnt address? Like regional climate change, aerosol effects, details of SLR, full range and effects of extreme weather, etc,etc. Did you think of that possibility?
Nigelji – “Did you think of that possibility?”
I have already long ago reviewed all the potential possibilities of what I say here.
There is NO possibility we needed more modles to fill in any gaps from Exxon or James Hansen for that matter. Totally unnecessary.
No one needs another model to know for certian aerosols impact the EEI and effects the worlds climate as a result. NO ONE!
Nor do we need models to know that intentionally screwing around with the levels of aerosols is a devil’s bargain and it needs to stop. It is basic known physics.
CMIP 5 and CIMP 6 are useless appendages like our Appendix and Tonsils are these days.
Nice to have but absolutely not essential. A waste of time and energy and focus by self-serving self-interested climate scientists and related fields.
Knowing where 2023 sits as a dot on the graph?
A irrelevant nothing-burger of epic proportions.
How skillful or accurate CMIP 6 is in tracking unfolding results to AVERAGED SMOOTHED CONSTRAINED 95% CONFIDENCE LEVELS of Model Forecasts?
A irrelevant nothing-burger of epic proportions.
Of zero usefulness.
GCMs are now a useless waste of time resources energy money and focus.
How “successful” the Exxon models, or Hansen’s models, or CMIP3 models, or all the IPCC wasted output have been is a profound useless waste of time resources energy money and focus.
Others, might see it differently. History will prove me correct and the climate scientists dead wrong. Would you like some detailed arguments as to why or a mountain of refs that proves my point of view will prevail and is far more important right now than anything else?
Nigelj, if don’t get this reply either, it’s not my fault. Look elsewhere for someone to blame. :-)
To guide action. It’s a big probability space, and understanding has increased greatly. For example, IIRC those Exxon models did not show the possibility of an Amazonian savannah conversion tipping point, which would release massive additional amounts of carbon and decrease regional precipitation and humidity. Subsequent modeling efforts did. But we don’t have a complete understanding yet, by any means. For example, there has recently been a call for the accurate modeling of dynamic permafrost degradation.
Then there’s the fact that the social reality has shifted a lot. To give a couple of examples, twenty years ago it was something of a leap of faith to think that solar PV tech could scale up enough even to have a measurable impact on emissions. Now it’s ~5% of global electric generation, with a current doubling time of about 5 years–and for good reason, as it’s now cheaper, in most cases, than just operating extant coal-fired capacity.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-solar?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~GBR~IND~ESP~ITA~CHL~USA~CHN
https://www.lazard.com/media/nltb551p/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf
That’s a reality that opens up possibilities that didn’t exist in 2003, or even 2013. So, new scenarios are needed.
Yes, it’s long been clear that we need to cut emissions urgently. (And yes, a lot more should have been done already than has been.) But while that should be all we need to know in order to set broad policy directions, folks trying rationally to plan what the best emissions mitigation strategy for their company, region, or nation should be need a lot more detail than that.
Kevin — those Exxon models did not show the possibility of an Amazonian savannah conversion tipping point, which would release massive additional amounts of carbon and decrease regional precipitation and humidity. Subsequent modeling efforts did.
No one needs an exxon model nor a nasa-giss model to know that is a major risk to be avoided. The same goes for every forest. All this knowledge is already known. Including what must be done to preserve them.
It matters not in the least precisely where the Tipping Point is – anyone who says we do is lying to you.
Kevin – “But we don’t have a complete understanding yet, by any means.”
No one needs complete understanding to solve the problems.
Anyone who says we do, is lying to you! Or you yourself is doing the lying.
This is the totally irrational delusional thinking of, and constantly pushed by, climate scientists, Climate Modellers, Climate statisticians, and the IPCC and COP ad the Economic systems and all the extremely unwise self-appointed self-serving pseudo-experts who falsely claim we must have complete understanding.
We do not! They are lying to you, to everyone.
It is the complete opposite but this fraudulent approach is just as extreme and untrue as the fantasies the deniers put out.
Zebra, that is actually a very good comment, and I wish more people pointed out the fact that temperature is a result of our contributions as well as a potential cause for more disruption. I believe Michael Tobis wrote about this as well, back in the day.
My only caveat (as a lukewarmer I guess it’s in my contract…) is I wish you would label many of the disruptions as ‘coming soon to a theater near you’ as opposed to ‘already amongst us.’ I believe that to a) be the truth and b) a more effective message.
Thomas, could you please explain how the GMST is a “potential cause” for more disruption?
It worries me when someone says I made a good comment but appears not to understand the point I was making.
“Thomas, could you please explain how the GMST is a “potential cause” for more disruption?”
Hotter temperatures = more heat stroke, more need for expensive air conditioning..
Thomas W Fuller: – “My only caveat (as a lukewarmer I guess it’s in my contract…) is I wish you would label many of the disruptions as ‘coming soon to a theater near you’ as opposed to ‘already amongst us.’ I believe that to a) be the truth and b) a more effective message.”
Disruptions are already happening around the world, and they will get worse as extreme weather events intensify in the coming years.
2023 shattered climate records, with major impacts.
https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/2023-shatters-climate-records-major-impacts
Multiple Australian states currently swelter amid heatwave warnings.
https://www.aap.com.au/news/multiple-states-swelter-amid-heatwave-warnings/
Extreme weather events are the top risk facing supply chains in 2024, according to an annual outlook report from Everstream Analytics.
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/extreme-weather–top-supply-chain-risk-2024-everstream-climate-change-food-shortages/704232/
A wet bulb temperature of 35 °C (in the shade, with low air flow) is generally fatal well within 6 hours of exposure time (and if substantially biologically compromised, in as little as 15 minutes). Per the Supporting Information for the PNAS paper An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress, published 3 May 2010, included these statements:
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913352107
Evidence/data indicates biologically compromised people are likely to die at lower wet bulb temperature thresholds.
Recent empirical data indicates a lower moist heat threshold for where heat stress compensability ceases to exist, taken from laboratory-based measurements in young, healthy adults doing work associated with the minimal activities of daily living.
https://www.pnas.org/cms/10.1073/pnas.2305427120/asset/7e1197f1-3196-4a36-a310-937609789b47/assets/images/large/pnas.2305427120fig04.jpg
As heatwaves become more frequent, intense, and longer-lasting due to climate change, the question of breaching thermal limits, not just for us humans, but also for plants and animals we depend upon for food, becomes more pressing.
See the PNAS paper published 9 Oct 2023, by Daniel J. Vecellio et al. titled Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically determined lower moist heat stress tolerance.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120
Published in Nature communications on 29 Nov 2023, by Jennifer Vanos et al. titled A physiological approach for assessing human survivability and liveability to heat in a changing climate, included the Abstract:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43121-5
GAVIN Reports up above:
– Annual updates to the model-observation comparisons for 2023 are now complete.
– In almost every case, the addition of the 2023 numbers was in line with the long term expectation from the models. [Meaning, in some cases they were not]
– The most impressive comparison continues to be the SAT projections from the CMIP3 models: (graph)
– SAT comparisons to the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are also in line with model expectations.
– … the 2023 SSTs are edging towards the top of the screened CMIP6 ensemble
– Compared to the older papers, Hansen et al 1988 for instance, 2023 brings the observations a little closer to Scenario B
– This success might seem confusing given the ongoing puzzlement about why 2023 was so astonishingly warm compared to recent years.
– Overall, temperatures are well modeled and have proven skillful over time
One question:
How many of these “models” accurately imputed the statistically significant 80-90% cumulative decrease in maritime sulphur emissions over seas and oceans, both over Emissions Control Areas and globally, beginning from 2010 then progressive reductions through 2012, 2015, and 2020 until today?
My ref: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d5bc2bb737636144dc55d0/t/65a1a1dae6777975b57059aa/1705091548046/Podcast+Nate+Hagens+Leon+simons+Pipeline+paper.pptx.pdf
I suspect the answer is zero.
A second question:
These CMIP3, CMIP5 and CMIP6 models, and the older papers, Hansen et al 1988 for instance, are they really that impressive, uniquely skillful, more reliably predictive, or any more useful as any of the other Hypothetical Imaginary Not Real Made Up Models and Scenarios, equally based upon multiple Incomplete Incorrect Assumptions, are?
My example ref:
Yes. Do we really know anything of significant importance scientifically today about the primary core solutions and the scale required in tackling the key drivers of global warming that we didn’t know in the 1980s – even before the IPCC and UNFCCC were created and when Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists and NASA-GISS led by Dr. James E. Hansen were producing their first climate change models?
I do not believe we do. It’s just more of the same year after year about how fast is it warming instead – they keep saying they do not know!
With the same chorus we have heard being sung repeatedly by climate scientists since the 1990s of: “Let’s wait until next year to see what the latest results might be then.”
Along with their habitual rhetoric focusing on how “skillful and accurate” their Climate Models are, while endlessly dumping their emotional angst against anyone who looks like a “denier” questioning or critising their work.
Like here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/
and here
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/clauser-ology-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs/
and here
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/a-distraction-due-to-errors-misunderstanding-and-misguided-norwegian-statistics/
and here
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/the-scafetta-saga/
and here
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/as-soon-as-possible/
In my opinion, all totally self-serving and utterly boring and of absolutely no use to anyone or life on earth.
[Response: You are at complete liberty to never pay any attention to anything posted here. – gavin]
Since reductions of maritime sulphur emissions began in 2010 OHC has been cumulatively increasing.
Ned:
So, just checking–
impute /ĭm-pyoo͞t′/
transitive verb
To relate (something, usually something bad) to a particular cause or source; place the fault or responsibility for: synonym: attribute.
“imputed the rocket failure to a faulty gasket; kindly imputed my clumsiness to inexperience.”
Similar: attribute To assign as a characteristic; credit.
“the gracefulness so often imputed to cats.”
To charge; to ascribe; to attribute; to set to the account of; to charge to one as the author, responsible originator, or possessor; — generally in a bad sense.
Me, I’d impute the reduction to agreements to emit less sulfur. Is this controversial?
https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx
Ned Kelly
“I didn’t “complain about other people’s tone”
Then what ARE you complaining about? Your lack of a clarifying explanation is frustrating. In normal civil discourse people explain themselves.
I got the impression Gavins comment “The alternative is to keep updating records you don’t think are accurate – why would they do that? – gavin]” seemed sarcatic or patronising to you. If not what is your complaint?
I assume you understand Gavin didn’t mean it as a literal question. It was implying there would be no point in doing that given all he had previously explained.
The rest of Gavins comments were a straight forward explanation . So the only thing I can see you might think was a problem in terms of how he responded to KevCle is that final sentence.
“KevCle said “Thank you !” so he clearly thinks gavin understood the questions and isnt worried about the tone of the response. I bet the irony is lost on you…..How would you know any of those things? Again your making assumptions (guesses, making it up) about what other people “might” think but have not said.”
Yes I’m making a guess, but its a reasonable guess. Kevcle asked Gavin some questions. Gavin replied and Kevcle said thank you with an asterisk. This suggests to me he was almost certainly happy with the reply. It would be a strange way of indicating otherwise.
“And when I said “questioners” it was in the plural because i was not only addressing KevCle but those he was speaking of, their questions, he was bring here.”
OK. You seem to think (my impression) Gavin is patronsing towards some people and treats them with contempt (?). Im trying to make sense of your comments which kind of talk around the issue rather than being plainly stated.
Some people are clearly denialists asking stupid questions and I’ve seen Gavin get a bit sarcastic to them. You know what? I dont care.
While I prefer courteous debate, and would prefer stronger website moderation in that respect, and deletion of name calling, a bit of sarcasm doesnt worry me. We dont have to be painfully polite. Do you see the difference?
Where I get frustrated is that Gavins and Rasmus’s commentary is too technical for the general public. IMHO. If they defined the jargon it would help.
“I really think all this mud throwing and paranoia and guesses and assumptions is beyond the pale but a number of folks here and not just you niglej. From my perspective you guys appear to be having a lot of problems actually reading what is actually there.”
You have a whole bunch of highly educated people with a wide variety of degrees apparently not reading your comments correctly. Perhaps they have all lost their minds but its more likely you aren’t writing clearly.
“Interesting. I never assumed anything of Gavin – nor projected any “presumptive interpretation”
So you say. But I can’t see any problem with anything Gavin said other than a possible bit of harmless sarcasm in his final sentence, so it seems to me you are reading an awful lot into what Gavin said.
“I asked him (Gavin)some direct questions and framed them rationally, clearly and objectively, and provided a reasonable context. ( at least is my opinion I did) I certainly never assumed he’d answer them either.”
I’m not taking about that. I responded to your statements: : “This is another classic example Gavin where you are coming at these questions solely from your own point of view, and have absolutely zero empathy or understanding of the “questions” being asked from the genuine, valid, sincere and genuine point of view of the questioners.In more simpler terms Gavin – You have not fully understood or groked the questions being asked, nor do you comprehend why these matters might be both valid and important to them.”
You did ask some questions: ” Does “corrected” mean “not accurate”? Well?This naturally leads to the related questions like: – If these “not accurate” data were used in prior GCMs going back to the 1980s and ever since then …. slowly and progressively being changed …. then aren’t all those outputs equally “not accurate”?”
FWIW I assume early climate models were based on using data that has since been corrected. So yes the outputs would now be considered not 100% accurate.However the early models run in the 1990s for example still did a reasonable job of predicting recent trends. But I cant see much point running them again with updated data to tell us about todays conditions. It would make more sense to use the new improved climate models and the updated data to project the future and hindcast. Which seems to be what Gavin is saying. And its why Im puzzled you see a problem with gavins response.
I think I get where you are coming from in a general sense related to various other comments. You’re frustrated with inadequacies in the science and its communication and the slow pace of mitigation, and the downsides of renewables, (I think we all are) but screaming that frustration every five minutes and being very shouty and making exaggerated claims ( peoples confusion is entirely due to climate scientists ) gets tedious and makes you look like a troll. And its probably part of the reason you are getting so much push back against what you say from so many people..
Dear nigelj,
I was very clear in my original comment you are writing about, I was also then equally clear in my former response to you. I addressed your “queries” directly.
Your additional opinions, conjectures and characterizations above, are all your own.
These have nothing to do with me. I have nothing to clarify, nothing to explain, and in fact, nothing to prove. Though I must admit, you a few others here, are quite odd fellows with a fragile grip on reality and what seems an extreme lack of basic awareness. But that is only my opinion.
While this behaviour speaks for itself, imo, I cannot prove it beyond all doubt.
Ned Kelly. So you dont answer my questions, you dont clarify your position or at least explain it in a different way, and you call me an oddfellow with a so called fragile grip on reality- and this after criticisng Gavin for not answering questions, answering other questions badly , and treating people who ask questions in a condescending way. (Your comment 18 Jan above). I suggest you google the word hypocrite. Because you Sir are a massive hypocrite.
nigelj says – So you dont answer my questions…
I do answer your questions. Dr S doesn’t post all of my answers.
Nothing I can do about that. (shrug)
Ned Kelly,
Given your ubiquity down this thread, (38% of the comments & 58% of the verbage from you), perhaps you could pause a while and answer a question.
You say “With the same chorus we have heard being sung repeatedly by climate scientists since the 1990s of: “Let’s wait until next year to see what the latest results might be then.”” This is not a “chorus” I have heard.
Can you back you oh-so-bold statement with some evidence? Or are you just a vacuous moron basking in the stench of the mountainous heap of smoldering nonsense you inflict on us here at RC?
MAR – Ned Kelly – 38% of the comments & 58% of the verbiage [in this thread]
threatened with the Turing test, NedGPT attempted denial-of-service attack?
The only defense – Hitchens’ razor (“what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence“
He’s ALREADY “answered” this saying
“You decide. I am not here to tell you what to think or believe.
Choose your own definitions. I am not here to lead you or anyone by the nose. I have nothing to prove either.
I am here to say what I think and what I believe and ask some questions”
Don’t you just luvs ya’ the old “just asking questions” ploy.? Personally, I wonder if he has ever quit beating his wife? Just askin’. Not tellin’ anyone anything.
Gavin, please pull the John Maddox Memorial “That’s enough -Ed” switch
The one comment per day Borehole rule only works if enforced
More “distortions” of data and information being thrown around about climate models which outright ignores the progressive Maritime sulphur regulation changes introduced from 2010 ongoing …. and other aerosol reductions in land based fuels / engines like diesels.
Zeke Hausfather
@hausfath
A number of folks have argued that warming will happen faster than we expect because scientists are not accounting for falling emissions of planet-cooling aerosols as we reduce fossil fuel use. This is not the case – all our future scenarios account for rapid aerosol declines:
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1444679408573419520
Shipping fossil fuel use has not been reduced.
The reductions in the graph also do not mirror the reality of actual fossil fuel use globally, especially liquid fuels.
This is what happens – individuals setup public soap boxes – then they just throw out DATA and Graphs at people willy nilly 24/7 for years making all kinds of SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS that are not supportable in the real world.
Nor is able to be challenged by (non-science qualified) readers nor properly tested or fact checked by any “credible experts” against genuine facts and a rational consensus of reality.
My Models says………….. in this graph …… all the Models are correct ….. is all you ever get. Is all you will ever get along with “the distortions and the disinformation and misdirection” that comes with it.
Hindcasts in the form of cross-validation experiments are the only approach that will have any impact on making progress in climate modeling. Forecasts (and waiting for future results) simply eat up too much valuable time and lack flexibility for exploration. The machine learning community learned that without handcast cross-validation most models would need to be junked. How anyone can risk making a single projection for some years in advance knowing that it could fail is not a good career choice. One can squander a research career in no time. Those involved in machine learning use cross-validation on hindcasts/historical data to avoid making that mistake.
Came across the following commentary on last years high temperature, from Copernicus. It focuses on the impacts of aerosols. Have cut and pasted a couple of selected paragraphs. Any comments?
“The question of whether reduced aerosol loading contributes to global warming is not new to atmospheric scientists, but it has recently resurfaced with the extreme heatwaves across the North Atlantic and many areas of Europe. In this analysis, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) scientists conclude that it is too early to attribute the recent exceptional warming to a reduction in shipping emissions undertaken since 2020.”
“In 2020, the International Maritime Organization adopted its ‘IMO 2020’ regulation to drastically reduce shipping-related sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Studies have concluded that the drop in emissions significantly reduced the formation of clouds over shipping lanes. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimated that that “the likely side-effect of the 2020 regulations to cut air pollution from shipping is to increase global temperatures by around 0.05C by 2050. This is equivalent to approximately two additional years of emissions.” However, linking SO2 reductions directly to the recent extreme marine heatwaves omits part of the complexity of using models to calculate sulphate aerosol interactions in the atmosphere or estimating the effective application of the IMO 2020 regulation, and, more generally, the complexity of climate and atmospheric chemistry.”
“Reviewing the record North Atlantic Sea surface temperatures in June 2023, a preliminary analysis from CAMS scientists found a significant negative anomaly in Saharan dust aerosol transport over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, and an increased anomaly in biomass burning aerosol over the North Atlantic, coming from the massive Canadian wildfires. These aerosol anomalies are much bigger than the sulphate change from shipping emission reductions. This makes the estimation of the impact of reduced sulphate aerosol emissions on the sea surface temperatures very challenging.”
“The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also suggested that, among other factors, the reduced winds of a weakened Azores anticyclone – an extensive wind system that spirals out from a centre of high atmospheric pressure – could have reduced the ocean-atmosphere exchange and the vertical mixing of the ocean between colder and warmer waters, as well as reducing Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, all of which has the potential to increase the ocean surface temperature.”
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
Carbon Brief and Copernicus — “…of the 2020 regulations to cut air pollution from shipping..
and “very challenging.” etc etc etc
Repeating from Ned Kelly says
22 Jan 2024 at 7:42 PM
1)
How many of these “models” accurately imputed the statistically significant 80-90% cumulative decrease in maritime sulphur emissions over seas and oceans, both over Emissions Control Areas and globally, beginning from 2010 then progressive reductions through 2012, 2015, and 2020 until today?
2) It’s just more of the same year after year about how fast is it warming instead – they keep saying they do not know!
With the same chorus we have heard being sung repeatedly by climate scientists since the 1990s of: “Let’s wait until next year to see what the latest results might be then.”
PS
Since reductions of maritime sulphur emissions began in 2010 OHC has been cumulatively increasing.
The GSAT anomaly of the 12 month running means will have a story to tell circa May 2024 or soon after. – Leon Simons / James Hansen et al
It’s all about discriminating between the sources of climate variation. As long as these sources are not at least calibrated to order of magnitude, attribution will continue to be hopeless. – Paul Pukite
Would you buy a used car from Carbon Brief or Copernicus, or Sri Nigelji ?
Ned Kelly.
I acknowledge global climate models don’t appear to adequately incorporate aerosol issues as per Leon Sims comments. However climate models are generally mainly primarily used for projections rather than assessing the causes of the warming in 2023. The Copernicus/ Carbon brief study I referenced didn’t appear to use climate modelling for 2023. Instead they researched the aerosol issue in other ways as per the relevant embedded links in both the copernicus article and carbon brief article. The researchers relied partly on global aerosol data bases and estimated other aerosol quantities from available evidence.
They conclude that in 2023, the aerosols reduction related to the Sahara are much greater than the reductions in aerosols reduction from coastal shipping. I see no reason to doubt this maths is broadly correct, because I can see roughly how they would have estimated things.
Consider also that the high temperatures in 2023 were around july – october approximately. This suggests to me a short term one off sort of cause, like maybe the Sahara or the Tongan volcano. If it was due to the reduction in shipping aerosols and industrial aerosols, you would expect an impact on temperatures through the whole year.
The main reduction in shipping aerosols was completed in 2020 . Its also hard to see why that would mainifest suddenly several years later in the middle of 2023.
Of course reductions in shipping and industrial aerosols would have contributed something to last years high temperatures.
Its possible that heat from aerosols reductions since 2020 going into the oceans ( as per your comment) might have come out of the oceans in the middle of last year as part of the current el nino, but the el nino was in a early phase last year, so its far from certain.
With so many variables and issues last year, I can see why the climate community thinks last years temperatures are a conundrum. But this years trends will help solve that conundrum.
The reduction in anthropogenic aerosols is expected to accelerate warming going forwards, and is thought to have already accelerated warming over several recent years. This looks robust because the warming effect of aerosol reductions is near irrefutable.
I agree completely with Hansen that aerosol reductions will accelerate warming, but the climate science community thinks hes overstating how much. But it certainly looks like there will be a significant acceleration, which is just more bad news.
I made a mistake. I was looking at out of date information. The warmest months in 2023 were in fact July – December. ( From data just posted by MAR on the UV thread)
This doesn’t change what I’m suggesting: Namely that its hard to see why the unusual warmth from after July 2023 would be caused mainly by reductions in shipping aerosols in 2020 which were phased in very fast in that year. Its hard to see why they would suddenly have an abrupt effect several years later, and also in such a concentrated period possibly from from July – December 2023. (January 2024 is cooler thus far according to data posted by MAR on the UV thread).
However I agree with Carbon Brief and other sources the reductions in aerosols from shipping will have had some effect, and will still accelerate global warming over the longer term.
Related information from Carbon Brief on the shipping issue:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/
Well, Nigelj, that was two sensible rational on topic and mature responses to my commenst and about the issues involved.
Excellent. You are one of a kind here. Much appreciated. If only there were more like you and less of the others.
But then you made your “hysterical crazy man” post about me. What a pity. :-(
IN regard to (I think) your primary dilemma — I repeat:
“It’s all about discriminating between the sources of climate variation. As long as these sources are not at least calibrated to order of magnitude, attribution will continue to be hopeless”. – Paul Pukite
Most people do not (cannot) discriminate. They swallow everything they are being told and get totally screwed up with contradictory information overload in the process as a result.
aka eventually what climate scientists put out there, and all the related comms sites eventually does people’s heads in.
Again I say I cannot control which of my responses to your and other comments might get through. And I am not going to worry about in the least. It’s not my responsibility if you become confused because you do not get to see what I said.
Nigelj said:
My climate models are only used for understanding climate variability. Once that is performed adequately then we can discriminate any secular trends from long-term cyclic variations.
In contrast, our p##k oil models are all about projections. The only way that oil (and FF in general) deplete is by human extraction and combustion. No discrimination necessary as natural processes are not involved in depletion (at least not in human time scales). Projections are then a guess against geological constraints and economic game theory, the latter being an almost intractable problem to solve and apply to prediction.
Over at P##kOilBarrel dot com, we treat fossil fuel depletion and climate change with equal amounts of concern. I really have no problem with Ned Kelly’s comments. Already past the 50 yr anniversary when the Limits to Growth model predicted the future inflection point would occur — not too far off — and Dr. Thomas Smith recently pointed out that the updated LTG models haven’t changed much at all.
https://twitter.com/DrTELS/status/1749923786634211483
Paul Pukite.
“My climate models are only used for understanding climate variability.”
Understood and appreciated, but I was only saying global climate models are MAINLY used for projections and were NOT used by Carbon Brief to analyse 2023 warming. That was the context.
“Over at P##kOilBarrel dot com, we treat fossil fuel depletion and climate change with equal amounts of concern. I really have no problem with Ned Kelly’s comments.”
I assume you mean Ned Kellys comments on peak oil. I have no doubt he is right to the extent we are at or near peak oil. I never suggested otherwise.
I agree with you that peak oil a huge concern. Have been reading bits and pieces about the issue for at least ten years. We are hugely dependent on fossil fuels for everything (this is about the one and only thing the climate sceptics are right about). For me its just another very good reason to be developing alternatives, like renewables before the oil crunch really hits us.
My point was ONLY related to this:. Ned Kelly appeared to be suggesting that we at dire risk of running out of oil very soon in the next few decades, meaning that we will not be able to build out a renewables grid in time to fill the gap when oil runs out and so society is probably locked into inevitable severe collapse. I think Ned is too pessimistic on that timing and conclusion. Estimates show there is at least 50 years of oil left assuming no new discoveries ( and there are bound to be a few more). This would fit nicely with getting to net zero emissions by 2050, assuming we get our act together and cut emissions and build a new energy grid. If we dont Ned might ultimately be proven right.
Paul Pukite (@whut) (at 28 JAN 2024 AT 1:18 AM): – “In contrast, our p##k oil models are all about projections. The only way that oil (and FF in general) deplete is by human extraction and combustion. No discrimination necessary as natural processes are not involved in depletion (at least not in human time scales). Projections are then a guess against geological constraints and economic game theory, the latter being an almost intractable problem to solve and apply to prediction.”
These model projections are dependent on incomplete/insufficient data. But I’d suggest overwhelming accumulating data indicates the era of affordable and abundant global fossil oil and gas supplies has now ended.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/03/unforced-variations-march-2023/#comment-810221
Meanwhile, ICYMI/FYI:
https://arjunmurti.substack.com/p/five-big-calls-to-get-right-over
US ‘conventional’ + offshore oil productions are declining. US tight oil production (excluding the Permian basin) has already peaked. The US Permian basin is the only play that’s likely to show any further growth, but the key questions are:
a) For how much longer?
b) How steep will be the decline after the final peak?
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1741469704458318102
https://www.artberman.com/blog/eagle-ford-shale-a-preview-of-permian-decline/
Future US shale gas production may be too high and reserves may be overstated.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/draining-america-first-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-shale-gas/
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1751669768992477223
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-oil-crash-ano-18.html
Perhaps this is a portent for what’s to come soon for the rest of us?
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2024/01/el-pico-del-diesel-edicion-de-2023.html
I’d suggest it may well be sooner than most people think…
Geoff Miell:
I’ve no problem with that view. Often ponder that the term “climate change” was chosen to make it interoperable with economic climate change. Partly due to finiteness of FF, the energy economies of scale are transitioning and changing the climate in which we do our business and carry on our way of life. The old phrase AGW in retrospect was way too limiting. Climate is such a useful overloaded word.
nigelj :
Of course there are the nation-states “have’s” and “have not’s” when it comes to p##k oil, generating future conflict. Note that I am obscuring the term because I notice many climate science blogs use that as a delete comment trigger, this one apparently included, since my comment above would not enter moderation unless I hashed it (causing several days worth of delay as I waited to see if it would appear) . The really terrible site that refuses any discussion of course is the “And Then There’s Physics” blog — can’t tell you how much time I have wasted by crafting a comment that included the word oil in the wrong fashion, only to have it deleted.
Ned Kelly is essentially pointed out that our goals are all the same, but that they are magnified when placed into the context of massive resource depletion.
Paul Pukite
Good points.
My comment mentioning peak oil got published no problem. So the issue seems like its a bit of a mystery. I know the topic can bring out the crazy people, but its an important issue strongly related to the climate issue so I would hope this website isn’t blocking such posts..
“Ned Kelly is essentially pointed out that our goals are all the same, but that they are magnified when placed into the context of massive resource depletion.”
OK, but I would assume most people are aware the resource problem by now. and it doesn’t mean a lot until we get into details and the most likely estimates of how many resources are left.
When I was younger I was very pessimistic about the resource limits issue having read dire warnings about running out of certain metals by 1990. But a lot of its media scare mongering. Read the fine print and such warnings are based on known reserves at todays prices, ignoring less economic reserves, new discoveries and minerals dissolved in sea water and geothermal brines.
That said we do have a serious problem with resource scarcity , and we will hit hard limits sooner or later and it may force us to reduce our consumption and go back to some simpler forms of technology. But I don’t personally believe this is imminent in the next couple of decades. Maybe this century or next.
The latest angst among academics is that there allegedly wont be enough resources to build a renewables grid and Ned Kelly has posted such material. Im not convinced by such claims. The issue is now being used by climate denialists crowd and right wing lobbies to attack renewables, which really frustrates me.
I agree with Ned on some things and not on others, as I do with many people. We should all be able to do that with each other, and avoid splitting into factions. Where “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
nigelj (at 29 JAN 2024 AT 1:39 PM): – “That said we do have a serious problem with resource scarcity , and we will hit hard limits sooner or later and it may force us to reduce our consumption and go back to some simpler forms of technology. But I don’t personally believe this is imminent in the next couple of decades. Maybe this century or next.”
You (among many) may perhaps be in for a shock soon…
US petroleum geologist Art Berman tweeted on Mar 3, which included a graph of world crude oil + condensate production based on EIA data from Jan 2000 through Oct 2023 (latest available), indicating the latest data for monthly average production remains 2.7 Mb/d below the Nov 2018 (84.6 Mb/d) peak:
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1763972628761510079
The latest EIA data published is preliminary and usually lags a few months behind the
present day.
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production
Per the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, for year 2022, crude oil + condensate annual average production (page 17):
WORLD: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 81,157 kb/d
#1: USA: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 11,887 kb/d (14.6% global share)
#2: Russian Federation: _ 10,669 kb/d (13.1%)
#3: Saudi Arabia: _ _ _ _ _ 10,509 kb/d (12.9%)
#4: Canada: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _4,868 kb/d (6.0%)
#5: Iraq: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4,446 kb/d (5.5%)
#6: China: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4,111 kb/d (5.1%)
#7: United Arab Emirates: _3,364 kb/d (4.1%)
#8: Iran: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3,313 kb/d (4.1%)
The top-3 producing countries represent more than 40% of the global share of production, the top-5 represent more than 50% and the top-8 represent more than 65%. Very few countries provide most of the world’s oil production.
https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review
Has the moment of global ‘peak crude oil’ already passed? We will only know for sure in hindsight, perhaps in the not-too-distant future…
US petroleum geologist Art Berman was in conversation with Johan Landgren in the
YouTube video titled Art Berman: The Perfect Energy Storm -World Oil Production Decline, published 22 Feb 2024, duration 0:33:36. On when US shale oil production is likely to begin declining, Art Berman said (from time interval 0:15:12):
“So that’s as you know, that’s a very difficult question to answer, but my sense is that, um, we, we… I, I fully expect that we will see, ah, declining shale oil production; certainly this decade, ah, and probably quite a bit sooner. I would say, ah realistically, within 2 to 3 years, I think the world will be, ah, very aware of, of, of the problem that it doesn’t think that we have right now. So, you know, 2026; 2025; 2027 – I don’t know exactly when it will be. Ah, as you said, we can throw some money at it, ah, and maybe postpone the inevitable, but, um, it’s going to be a factor sooner than later, and it will be this decade; I’m quite certain of that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J9vmQYoiSg
Just a few percent (or even a fraction of a percent) of a shortfall in petroleum fuel supplies can make a tremendous difference in fuel prices for the average person, and not only just with fuel but also with general costs-of-living.
Nigelj- “Of course reductions in shipping and industrial aerosols would have contributed something to last years high temperatures.
Not according to Dr. Michael E Mann. He was adamant they did not.
He was so totally convinced of his superior infallibility he said so publicly in June 2023!
Go figure, hey.
I do not believe him. I think he is ‘full of it’ myself.
Irony is dead. And you have killed it.
dissemble
verb
1. conceal or disguise one’s true feelings or beliefs
Example: an honest, sincere person with no need to dissemble
Also known as “Why the IPCC Reports and Climate Models can never be presented as ‘wrong’. “
Tell this to the aware knowledgeable and wise people of world in 2024!
They are wrong today and they are wrong in 2021!
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/we-are-not-reaching-1-5oc-earlier-than-previously-thought/
1982 hit song “What about me!” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzQKECQgjW8
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/a-tale-of-two-hockey-sticks/
combined with https://time.com/6088531/ipcc-climate-report-hockey-stick-curve/
The biggest contribution scientists can make to #scicomm related to the newly released IPCC Sixth Assessment report, is to stop talking about the multi-model mean. – Gavin
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/notallmodels/
by rasmus -The problems with the SPM are similar those from the previous fifth assessment report which prompted me to write a post in 2013. Neither the present nor the previous SPM have much resemblance to either being a summary or being written for policy-makers.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/deciphering-the-spm-ar6-wg1-code/
When Reality meets Theory head on!
Most here were suckered in by this extensive distortion of data by Joeri Rogelj – today it more obviously falls apart like a politician’s speeches of promises before an election versus the years later when in office. There is no comparison between the two.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/a-deep-dive-into-the-ipccs-updated-carbon-budget-numbers/
The sea level projections for the year 2100 have been adjusted upwards again.
Meaning the previous IPCC SLR projections were ……. WRONG !
STEPHAN SAYS: “If you look at the 2100 projections for the last three reports (AR5, SROCC, AR6) you can see that the numbers have increased each time – and remember that the AR5 numbers had already increased by ~60% compared to the AR4. “
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/sea-level-in-the-ipcc-6th-assessment-report-ar6/
STEPHAN again: “The sea level rise numbers published in the new IPCC report (the Fourth Assessment Report, AR4) have already caused considerable confusion. Many media articles and weblogs suggested there is good news on the sea level issue, with future sea level rise expected to be a lot less compared to the previous IPCC report (the Third Assessment Report, TAR).”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/
When you’re presented with 7 different hypothetical scenarios (where the Map is NOT the Territory) you can’t miss – one is going to right – isn’t it? No, all can be completely wrong. Because those theoretical scenarios, LUC, renewable energy uptake, GHG emissions, aerosol emissions, cloud behaviour, OHC, and more are IMAGINARY scenarios and not REAL world. The Real World of energy use, carbon budgets, and all the rest do NOT match any of these imaginary scenarios.
When you create 100s to thousands of imaginary climate models, and then group them together, and give a 95% confidence level to them a range of 10% or even more, and then PLOT RealWorld Data onto the pretty graph and by Chance for Years it happens to fit inside the Range proves nothing about the accuracy of any scenario in those Models – it only shows that averaging of the averages on average coincide with this years ESTIMATED (best guess/best assumed) Data Points based on incomplete Global Measurements .
Which is then Averaged out all semblance and relationship to Planetary Reality
Even when you can see with your own lying eyes the absolutely massive swings in results across 3 years, even in the (narrowed) CMIP3 graph. https://www.realclimate.org/images/cmp_cmip3_nice-1-1536×1071.png and the alt https://www.realclimate.org/images//cmip3_nice_1930.png
The projected Mean can increase 0.2C over 12 years,and yet the real world moves by 0.5C and is still considered a ” Success ” for Science and the Models. The range extends to 0.8C at times. And yet they do not have a clue why any of this happens in the Real World -and the Models especially their 95% Confidence levels are no more than an Illusion, Magic stage craft.
They call this proof and assert repeatedly the Models are correct and skillful.
It’s not that the “data” itself is wrong, how can made up scenario data and drivers be wrong? – nor that the representations of all the Data measured or made up is not correct – the issue that it is all Meaningless.
Celebrating a hypothetical success of Imaginary scenarios based on Imaginary Data and Hypothetical assumptions of various earth physics drivers -and then averaging them all out into theoretical groups as “yardsticks” to measure Reality Against is Meaningless self-congratulatory egotistical back-slapping that helps no one and solves nothing and it proves nothing to anyone but the credulous.
Where was I?
RASMUS – “My concern is that the IPCC stubbornly has stuck to a format which so far hasn’t worked, as we can glean from the graphic presented below. Its “calibrated language” and the way its reports are written apparently don’t work,”
RASMUS then lists — IPCC Failures and Missed Opportunities on a graph showing CO2 PPM growth
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/the-summary-for-policymakers-of-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-sixth-assessment-reports-synthesis/
But I am fraudulently mislabeled and mischaracterised here as a “Denier”and a “Troll” ?
Why not Rasmus? Or Stephan? Or Gavin? Or Mike? :-)
The ASI Blue Ocean Event
Similar to the IPCC forecasts for crossing the 1.5C and 2C pre-industrial anomaly we have the melting ASI dilemma of multiple errors and corrected Forecasts.
Originally the IPCC Reports placed this event occurring circa the decade of 2090+/-.
Can you remember in which report? I do.
Here’s a research question for the “resident amateur scientist” Know-It-Alls at RC –
What was the IPCCs forecast range for this Blue Ocean Event in the AR4, the AR5 and the AR6 and in any other publications by them?
When do they place it now?
When do the many ASI science experts place it occurring? Just select a few, not all of them. No averaging either.
It is my educated opinion the extreme levels of denial and rank incompetence and ignorance present on this site from some quarters is astounding.
You are all welcome to disagree if you so choose. You decide what you believe. Not me. Not anyone.
You are at complete liberty to never pay any attention to anything posted here by me as well.
NK: Also known as “Why the IPCC Reports and Climate Models can never be presented as ‘wrong’. “
BPL: Straw man. The problems with climate models are always under scrutiny. That’s why we have articles on the climate model intercomparison project, and endless articles on how to improve the physics.
Ned, you do realize, don’t you, that at the time the scenarios are created, they are for the then *future?* That the whole point of a scenario is to have a reasonable set of guesses as to what might happen, when there is no knowing exactly what *will* happen?
Because you are writing as if you don’t know that. I find it hard to believe that you don’t, but honestly, that’s what it sounds like.
Perhaps because they are making suggestions and critiques intended to improve the product, whereas you just seem to be saying “Don’t bother!”
Your opinion may be considerably less educated than you think.
So evidence of errors is not evidence of errors?
Using graphs of scenarios that are not only outdated and in error today but at the time the scenarios are created, is not evidence of errors being promulgated today by scientists.
Yet if I or Victor or Leon Simons or Hansen or Peter Kalmus were to declare publicly what Michael Mann claimed in mid-last year on Twitter which I posted here already we’d be all labeled as deniers or cranks.
Nah, the disingenuous streak down your backs proves who the cranks are here.
Your own writing proves how illogical disjointed and nonsensical it is while it continues to deny and completely mischaracterize what I have written by twisting that into something else entirely.
The majority of readers never comment but they are can see who the cranks and the childish trolls are here.
Sigh. A assumption about future actions, posed as part of a suite of possible futures, is not an “error,” even when the future turns out differently. Why? Because it’s a given–a starting point–the “if” that allows derivation of a “then.” For example, it’s quite clear that Dr. Hansen knew perfectly well, back in the 80s, that Scenarios A, B & C were mutually exclusive. I’d have thought everybody grasped that.
In what way, specifically, have I misrepresented or denied what you said? To quote Led Zeppelin, “If you can clarify, please do.”
Yes, I think that’s true for the most part.
“The majority of readers never comment but they are can see who the cranks and the childish trolls are here.”
Oh so VERY true!
Ned Kelly. I’m not sure what you hope to achieve by constantly screaming – and thats what you so- that the IPCC have made a few mistakes and science and modelling isnt perfection, and has made a few mistakes. Do you really think scientists aren’t aware of this? Do you think your incessant screaming, hyperbole, vilification and negativity would change anything?
What you are doing is feeding the denialists. They gleefully point out any errors they can find in the science and will just love your comments. You are also giving the public excuses to ignore the climate problem completely. You sound like an angry adolescent who has just discovered the system isn’t perfect and throws a tantrum.
I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t criticise peoples views and the science, etc,etc. Warmists need to avoid groupthink. But at least be a bit more polite, subtle and balanced. Basic management / communications skills says if you want to persuade people praise their achievements then point out the mistakes and failings diplomatically but firmly. Simply screaming at people and you risk alienating people (and your best people end up resigning.)
And remember the science is done within available funds and with the best equipment and information available at the time. This has its limitations. It is not the same thing as negligence. What you are doing by criticising the older IPCC reports , is like criticising an old piece of technology for not being as good as what we have now. Its pointless criticism.
People should remember the IPCC do not do the science. They rely on modelling and research papers done by scientists. Predicting sea level rise has been very difficult and is still a work in progress. But the current projections are better quality than decades ago.
Despite Ned Kellys hysterical negative spin on climate model projections, warming and SLR (sea level rise) has tracked close to climate model projections. You can see this on this websites model / data comparisons pages. In my view the science isn’t perfect on some issues, but its very robust overall., and on the issues that count the most.
I am not constantly screaming, nor even occasionally screaming. I am not hysterical. Far from it.
Nigel says: People should remember the IPCC do not do the science.
I’ve no ambition or intention of persuading anyone.
I also cannot address your questions/comments when Dr S doesn’t post my comments to you nigelj. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a forum. :-)
What “incessant screaming, hyperbole, vilification and negativity ” are you speaking of.
Maybe an example of each is in order?
PS No, I do not agree with any of your many false characterizations. For the record. If it gets through this time.
Ned Kelly.
“What “incessant screaming, hyperbole, vilification and negativity ” are you speaking of.. Maybe an example of each is in order?”
Ok some examples:
Screaming: Your bad habit of using vast blocks of bolded text is screaming at me. Its a pain in the proverbial and too overdone.
Hyperbole, vilification, negativity and trolling: Your claim that “climate scientists are entirely responsible for the (alleged) confusion out there” is a perfect example of hyperbole, evidence free comment, vilification negativity and arguably a perfect example of trolling, normally defined as making inflammatory statements to annoy the group.
Vilification: “Though I must admit, you a few others here, are quite odd fellows with a fragile grip on reality and what seems an extreme lack of basic awareness. But that is only my opinion.”
Vilification and evidence free claim: “With the same chorus we have heard being sung repeatedly by climate scientists since the 1990s of: “Let’s wait until next year to see what the latest results might be then.”
Vilification and unsubstantiated claim: “Along with their habitual rhetoric focusing on how “skillful and accurate” their Climate Models are, while endlessly dumping their emotional angst against anyone who looks like a “denier” questioning or critising their work.”
Screaming, not accurate, and a strawman. “No one needs complete understanding to solve the problems. Anyone who says we do, is lying to you! Or you yourself is doing the lying.This is the totally irrational delusional thinking of, and constantly pushed by, climate scientists, Climate Modellers, Climate statisticians, and the IPCC and COP ad the Economic systems and all the extremely unwise self-appointed self-serving pseudo-experts who falsely claim we must have complete understanding. We do not! They are lying to you, to everyone.”
None of these people have said we need complete understanding of the climate issue, before we move to mitigate the climate problem. But obviously the better the understanding we have the better the mitigation will be.
This is from just a couple of your typical posts up thread and elsewhere.
My advice: Don’t waste your time coming back to me trying to make excuses and defend the indefensible. Instead tone things down. Some of your points are very valid but your style and evidence free claims is not helping at times. Does it look like you are convincing anyone here, given the feedback?
Its not all you. Certain other people might also refrain from vilification, name calling and insults and evidence free assertions.. I have my faults as well, impatience and not checking things carefully enough before I post being one. Sigh.
Ned: “I’ve no ambition or intention of persuading anyone.”
So what’s the point of all this recreational typing you do, then?
“It’s all about discriminating between the sources of climate variation. As long as these sources are not at least calibrated to order of magnitude, attribution will continue to be hopeless.”
– by Paul Pukite Jan 2024 on RC
I wasn’t worried about climate change. Now I am.
Sabine Hossenfelder 1.1M subscribers
268781 views in 7 hours 28 Jan 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4
About the recent heat records, ENSO, shipping exhausts, other possible drivers, unknown short term future shifts, Climate sensitivity, ECS, CMIPs (models), 2019 “hot models”, IPCC predictions (forecasts and Models), UK MetOffice “hot” Model, Hansen et al 2023, Criticisms, ECS +5C can’t be easily dismissed, the next 20 years?
Misc quotes from the transcription
takes us to 13 mins of 21 mins ………………… feel free to watch/read the rest of the video yourself, or don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4
A well known popular, and long proven to be an effective science communicator, Sabine Hossenfelder has a PhD in physics.
She is author of the books “Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray” (Basic Books, 2018) and “Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions” (Viking, 2022).
As simple as possible, but not any simpler! Science and technology updates and summaries.
No hype, no spin, no tip-toeing around inconvenient truths.
I just watched that video yesterday. I would like it if RC did a post on the matter.
Technical detail … what exactly is different in the ‘hot models’ regarding the supercooled cloud droplets? (Eg.: Are the updrafts slower, giving more time to freeze? More IC nuclei?)
It continues to baffle and disgust me that this site, run by some of the world’s top climate scientists, continues to function primarily as a platform for crude, clumsy, clownish, self-indulgent, long-winded, boorish global warming deniers like “Ned Kelly” to spread nonsense and falsehoods and insult climate scientists.
The volume of absurd (and highly repetitive) global warming denial that has been published on this site over the years FAR exceeds the volume of scientific information posted by the site’s owners. And the sadly wasted time, energy and attention of the intelligent people who continually engage with and indulge the deniers is a tragedy.
Please seriously consider hiring a webmaster (or recruiting a volunteer) to administer this site with the attention it deserves and help it become the resource that it has the potential to be.
Absolutely correct. I would only modify one sentence:
….wasted time, energy and attention of the [otherwise apparently] intelligent people….
As I’ve said many times, it seems like a form of co-dependency/addiction.
Filling up the page with nonsense is crazy enough, but I have to wonder if filling up the page with a response to that nonsense isn’t crazier.
A real “ignore” button would be convenient, but we all have one already in our choices.
I have been following this RealClimate discussion (as I usually do). The original topic included “Climate monitoring groups … paying attention about just how extraordinary 2023 really was ”Some of this “extraordinary” was that June to December 2023 were at or above 1.5°C and January 2024 is track to be about 1.7C about the 1950-1900 baseline. I think modelling has not predict this. James Hansen is closer but the “arrival” of 1.5°C is decades early. How about 2.0°C by circa 2030?
GRAHAM V SAUNDERS: – “I think modelling has not predict this. James Hansen is closer but the “arrival” of 1.5°C is decades early.”
I think your comments indicate you don’t have any idea what any modelling has predicted. For example, see Table 1 in the 1 Mar 2021 paper by Claudia Tebaldi et al. titled Climate model projections from the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) of CMIP6. Table 1 shows the calendar year best estimate (and 5 to 95% probability range in square brackets) at which warming levels (relative to 1850-1900 era) are reached per various trajectory scenarios (SSP 1-1.9, SSP 1-2.6, SSP 2-4.5 SSP 3-7.0 and SSP 5-8.5). For all scenarios considered, the best estimates for breaching the +1.5 °C (11-year running mean) are all in the 2020s. I’d suggest that’s not dissimilar to the Hansen et al. projections.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/12/253/2021/
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1751250619489493148
GRAHAM V SAUNDERS: – “How about 2.0°C by circa 2030?
Per Copernicus, the global daily surface mean temperature has already breached the +2.0 °C threshold already – i.e. 17 & 18 Nov 2023.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/custom-uploads/Global%20Climate%20Highlights%202023/fig3_GCH2023_PR_daily_global_temperature_increase_above_preindustrial_2023.png
I’d suggest it’s only a matter of time when global weekly, monthly, 2-monthly, 3-monthly, and 6-monthly surface mean temperatures for the +2.0 °C threshold will be breached. Whether these all occur “by circa 2030” is debatable.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1733629769915457578
GRAHAM V SAUNDERS
Response #2 (the first one has been blocked/trashed)
In my first reply I simply said I believe 2C by 2040 would be more likely then 2030.
And I clarified (logically) why that was my thinking etc.
I came back with an addendum which may never see Graham, to reinforce my stated pov:
A NASA study analyzed the future action of six climate variables in all the world’s regions — air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, short- and long wave solar radiation and wind speed — if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, which could occur by 2040 if emissions keep rising at current rates.
The study found that the Amazon will be the area with the greatest reduction in relative humidity. An analysis by the Brazilian space agency INPE showed that some parts of this rainforest biome have already reached maximum temperatures of more than 3°C (5.4°F) over 1960 levels.
In view of the current nonstop rise in greenhouse gas emissions responsible for intensifying climate change, NASA researchers this year posed two key questions: When will the planet’s temperature likely reach an annual average of 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels? And what will the global climate look like in great detail all over the world at that temperature?
Disturbingly, their findings indicate that a 2°C increase could be reached between 2041 and 2044 (under higher and lower emission scenarios, respectively) in comparison with the preindustrial period (1850-1900). The planet is currently at 1.15°C (2.07°F) above 19th century levels, with most of this warming occurring since 1975.
A rise above 2°C could put Earth on track for catastrophic climate change impacts, according to the 2023 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/detailed-nasa-analysis-finds-earth-and-amazon-in-deep-climate-trouble/
Is this case of the Left Hand not knowing what the Right Hand is doing?
GRAHAM V SAUNDERS: – “How about 2.0°C by circa 2030?”
Significantly above +2.0 °C means very likely an ongoing trajectory to +4 °C anyway.
Tipping points and escalating feedbacks would be driving further warming.
https://twitter.com/CodeRedEarth/status/1751563836685942870
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber delivered his Aurelio Peccei Lecture on on 17 October 2018. From time interval 0:24:51, Prof Schellnhuber said (bold text my emphasis):
“You either end up with say, 500 ppm – we have now 410 and we are on the course of towards 500 ppm – you either end up in the so-called Mid-Pliocene, that was three million years ago, where the Earth in fact was two or three degrees warmer, and sea level was at least ten metres higher. But under the same condition, more or less, you could also go back to the Mid-Miocene, fifteen million years ago, where the Earth was five degrees warmer and sea level was sixty metres higher. So with the same boundary condition, you could either have a situation where human civilisation could simply not exist, or something – forget the Holocene – if we would go into the Pliocene, we might… we might somehow adapt to it, we might manage it, just so! But this is what the paper said. The jury is still out on that. And what is the knack here, what is the real secret here, ja? Its path dependence. If the boundary conditions are the same, but you could end up in two different states, it depends on the path you have taken for this trajectory, ja? And we simply don’t know yet, whether the current path will lead us fifteen million years back, or just three million years back. So, look up the paper. It is… the summary of what… thousands of scientists have put together. It’s a meta study. But… it is posing the most important questions of all, actually: Do we still have a chance to preserve civilisation on Earth? And I think this is well within the context of a Peccei Lecture.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK2XLeGmHtE
The closer the Earth System gets to the +2.0 °C warming threshold (and higher) the great the risk of civilisation collapse.
Atmospheric concentrations and missions are the highest ever and near half all emissions have happened since 2000; ripe for some records being broken it seems to me. For indications of acceleration. For real world impacts above and beyond what has come before. 8 I have a lot of confidence that the climate science profession and community will get an ever better handle on the variability, with better attribution to physical processes and that will flow through to improved climate models and projections.
The window of opportunity that climate science has given us to confront the problem is a gift beyond price; the failures of those in the highest Offices to treat the top level science based advice with the seriousness it deserves, as their duty of care, is not a failure of climate science.
Yet we do have some indications we are approaching peak emissions – with capital expenditure on low emissions RE set to exceed that for FF at last, with installations of solar and wind already around 3/4 of all new electricity additions. That has happened within only one decade as solar went from very expensive to the lowest cost per MWh electricity option and to the most built sort of new electricity by a large margin. That quickly. So perhaps no surprise that pessimism based on outdated assumptions of RE inadequacy and expense persist, even without the deliberate Doubt, Deny, Delay promotion of anti-RE narratives to save fossil fuels from global warming and clean energy.
Investment in solar panel factories (that will rapidly expand near term RE even further) is only exceeded by investment in battery factories. Given that only 7 years ago a grid connected Big Battery was installed in South Australia to widespread derision and EV’s were rare and unusual it is heartening to know that whole battery mega factories have been built and brought into production since, with more in the pipeline.
We are starting to see some optimistic assessments of our ability to get low emissions with energy abundance – as if it were somehow a bit crazy-doomist to ever think we could not – but until RE and batteries began crossing tipping points on costs few world leaders could even bring themselves to SAY they will commit to a policy of reaching zero emissions.
People taking the climate problem and challenges seriously, apart from climate scientists and environmentalists, have made RE work, much better than expected but handing the issue off to fringe politics in “you care so much, you fix it” style, with some empty gesture + enough rope funding for “alternative energy” seemed more about reinforcing a “green politics” framing of the climate problems, with the expectation their “green solutions” would crash and burn and undermine credibility.
Underestimating the power of R&D and innovation and entrepreneurship to make solutions like solar and wind and batteries work cost effectively at large scale may be the best mistake the Doubt, Deny, Delay crowd have made. So far.
In an interview with the American science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson . Gavin Scnmidt seems to give a totally different picture. He said that climatology significantly underpredicted current warming. He said there was “total failure” to predict what happened in 2023. See for yourself, for 3 minutes from 4 minutes in. https://youtu.be/CHJKKsOHtAk?si=CPNrv7W2accqhgBC&t=242
Did i miss something?
For those seeking more information, the above link to Gavin’s appearance on Tyson’s show is an excellent answer. AndThenTheresPhysics has taken this on as well:
Is the ECS Very High? https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/is-the-ecs-very-high/
and Peter Sinclair here:
https://thinc.blog/2024/01/28/the-weekend-wonk-what-happened-in-2023-are-our-models-wrong/
TINC has taken on a good few other issues, like how the farmers’ rebellion in France is a kind of shooting themselves in the foot problem. Main site ->
https://thinc.blog/
???
The following are excerpts from an interview with Schmidt:
– Can you put what we saw in 2023 into perspective? –
It wasn’t just a record. It was a record that broke the previous record by a record margin.
We started with La Nina, this cool phenomenon in the tropical Pacific. That was still around until March. And then in May, we started to see the development of an El Nino, the warm phase of that cycle.
It normally affects the temperatures in the following year. So that would be 2024. But what we saw in 2023 was that the temperatures globally seemed to go up with the El Nino event, in a much greater way than we’d ever seen it before.
The long term trends we understand, and it’s being driven by the greenhouse gases, it’s being driven by anthropogenic effects. We’re expecting that to continue, decade by decade, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which we haven’t done yet.
But what happened in 2023 was that, and then plus something. And that ‘plus something’ is much larger than we expect, or as yet can explain.
– What are the leading hypotheses for that ‘plus something’? –
There have been emails and conversations going on around the world, among the scientists who are looking at this, and people say, ‘Oh, let’s look at the Earth’s energy imbalances. Let’s look at the aerosols, let’s look at the El Nino, at what’s happening in the Antarctic, in the North Atlantic.’ And everybody has lots of ideas, but it doesn’t quite add up.
It may be that El Nino is enough. But if I look at all of the other El Ninos that we’ve had, none of them did this. So either this El Nino is really super special, or the atmosphere is responding to this El Nino in a very special way. Or there’s something else going on. And nobody has yet really narrowed these possibilities.
That long-term trend is still within the bounds of what we’ve been predicting for many years. But the specifics of what happened in 2023 are a little mysterious.
– What should we expect for 2024? –
It matters why 2023 was the way it was, because does that mean it’s going to continue? Does that mean the impacts are going to start to accelerate? We don’t know! And that’s problematic.
2023 did not follow the old patterns. If the old patterns come back, and 2023 was just a blip, then 2024 will be very close to 2023. If it’s not a blip, if it’s something systematic that’s changed, or that’s changing, then you would expect 2024 to actually be warmer. Because you have the warmth that you would expect, and then there’s this extra thing.
And that has implications for the weather, and heat waves, and intense rainfall, and coastal flooding, and all the rest of it, that we can expect this year.
https://www.rawstory.com/2023-s-record-heat-partly-driven-by-mystery-process-nasa-scientist/
Update/Response – It Doesn’t Matter?
I Was Worried about Climate Change. Now I worry about Climate Scientists.
Sabine Hossenfelder
1.15M subscribers
CONFIRMATION BIAS is not good science.
Some climate scientists have reacted to my previous video about climate sensitivity. In this video, I elaborate on my thoughts regarding the IPCC’s projections and why it worries me how they are dealing with the uncertainty of the climate model outputs. … in particular Climate Sensitivity – is it 3C 5C or closer to 8C?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEZ9HFlqzms
Sabine Hossenfelder becomes the latest in a long line of physicists to opine on matters they don’t understand. She’s a quantum gravity researcher ferchrissake!
The uncertainty in climate sensitivity is less a result of any inadequacy in the models and more a result of the fact that is is a difficult question. It depends not just on which effects are considered, but the timescale on which they are considered. Moreover, almost all the uncertainty is on the high side rather than the low side. Also, for any sensitivity over about 3 degrees per doubling, we’re pretty much fucked now that we’ve squandered 40 years failing to deal with the problem.
I say this as a physicist: The problem with the attitudes of many physicists when it comes to climate change stems from their technophilia. They are so enamored of the idea of an endless bright future of humans flitting about the stars and bonking aliens like Captain Kirk that they refuse to countenance any potential threats to that future. They look into the problem just enough to think they can dismiss it.
Hossenfelder’s understanding of climate change is so shallow that a thirsty horse trying to drink from it would die of dehydration. She should either stick to quantum gravity or look into the problem adequately.
All Sabine did was point out how physical theories go through growing pains on their path to maturing into accepted models of the the way nature works. She used an example of how parameters in a theory are estimated based on experimental results. Early on they are given error bars based on the scientists own judgement of statistical uncertainty, etc. She then showed what happens when later experiments provide new values way outside the original error bars. What this means is that the error bars should have been much wider in the first place, with the blame often placed on confirmation bias, which is simply over-confidence in the scientists belief in the correctness of the parameters.
I think the current spike in ocean temperatures is estimated as 4.5 standard deviations (!!!) outside the mean temperature, as stated by Brian McNoldy:
https://twitter.com/BMcNoldy/status/1760690880867185017
McNoldy is the one featured in the NY Times “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures” article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/climate/scientists-are-freaking-out-about-ocean-temperatures.html
Does this mean the model is wrong? That standard deviation is based on normal/Gaussian statistics. Should it be a model based on fat-tail statistics? Is there something else missing in the models? That’s the kind of question Sabine is asking, which is really just a reflection of what actual climatologists are “freaking-out” over.
“Does this mean the model is wrong?”
There are lots of models. They are all “wrong” one way or another. They have varying degrees of usefulness, anyway. Bear in mind that they are used not just for global sensitivity estimates, but for understanding a wide variety of dynamic features, including ENSO.
McNoldy’s 4.5 sd temperature spike in the North Atlantic is certainly an attention grabber, but it’s also a strange statistic, since it’s based on the deviation from the 1991-2020 mean. He’s comparing 2024 temperatures with a non-stationary mean centered on 2005. It’s no longer a spike of 4.5 sd, .given underlying mean warming since 2005.
taking a look at the latest SST anomaly (currently Feb 18-24):
https://psl.noaa.gov/map/clim/sst.anom.anim.html
What concerns me more are the huge anomalies in the tropical eastern and central Atlantic. The area at least 1C above normal exceeds that of the now-waning El Nino, The peak anomalies are in the 2-3C range. This is an enormous deviation for already-warm tropical waters outside of the primary ENSO region. The cool current that typically hugs the west African coast north to the equator is simply gone north of 15S latitude, replaced by a band of hot water.
I don’t know how this is affecting the region, but I do note that equatorial west Africa is the region that supplies most of the world’s chocolate, and the price of commodity chocolate has about tripled. I’m sure it can’t be good for those growing for their own subsistence, either!
@ Ray Ladbury says
1 Mar 2024 at 9:06 AM
The scientific method is the scientific method.
As a “physicist” you should stop defending the indefensible.
Your mouth is full of abusive adhominem against the woman. Not unlike the many verbal personal attacks she has copped from “climate scientists” online. As a “man” you should be ashamed of yourself.
Instead you are proud if it. While completely ignoring her scientific arguments. I bet you did not even take the time to watch here whole response or her previous two commentaries on the topic in full.
As such your response here is worthless and unedifying.
To have “scientific judgment” in ANY area, one must first have a clear and deep knowledge about said area. There is no evidence she has the requisite knowledge.
As well, to apply the scientific method, one must have replicable observations and analysis. There is no evidence of either, rather there is only opinion.
The scientific method may well be the scientific method. That doesn’t change the fact that unbacked opinion is still unbacked opinion. Lionel Messi simply is not qualified to be an Olympic badminton coach too.
jgnfld says:
Change “she/her” pronouns to “AI/ML” and that will be an enduring theme in the future. The algorithms will be built by those without the requisite knowledge, but they will explore corners that the experts in the field have yet to consider. It’s called emergent knowledge.
So what will the role of human experts be?
human experts may shift from being the primary source of discovery to being validators, integrators, and interpreters of the complex and nuanced knowledge uncovered by AI.
Clearly, you did not even bother to read my response. You also need to look up the term ad hominem, as your continued misuse of it just makes you appear stupid. I have leveled the exact same criticisms at Freeman Dyson.
I am a physicist. I understand the temptation to think that the success and rigor of physics gives us special insight into the scientific method. I also understand why this is a trap. To say “The scientific method is the scientific method,” is to grossly oversimplify both the methodology and the power of science. When Bacon wrote “Novum Organum,” he could not have envisioned the vast range of subjects to which it would be applied. Nor could he have envisioned how adaptable it would be.
The problem comes when a specialist in one branch of science speaks ex cathedra without taking the time to understand another branch of science. This is understandable. It takes time to understand a complex field–and if we are to contribute to our own field, time is a commodity we are likely to find in short supply.
But Hossenfelder succumbs to the delusion that her understanding or her own field provides her with special understanding of fields well outside her expertise. I also notice that you are rather selective in citing her commentaries. In her latest, she expresses alarm over the advent of new climate models with much higher climate sensitivities.
That is the risk of not having a deep understanding of the subject–one is likely to swing back and forth in one’s assessment based on each new piece of information.. But hey, that doesn’t fit in with the message you want to present, so you feel free to ignore those inconvenient facts.
I do hope that you will also feel free to pound sand.
jgnfld says
4 Mar 2024 at 8:26 AM
Ray Ladbury says
4 Mar 2024 at 10:46 AM
Clearly it’s people like yourselves Sabine was criticizing and pointing out their errors and poor judgment.
It is such a pity that your lack of a sense of irony precludes your appreciating the humor (not to mention hypocrisy) in your saying “The scientific method is the scientific method,” while ignoring the most basic tenet of the scientific method–prioritizing falsifying information. All you had to do was look at some of Hossenfelder’s more recent video, and you would see that she has reversed course, and is not quite concerned by the threat climate change posts.
Mind you, I still do not find her opinions on climate to be particularly illuminating. She still does not have a deep understanding of the field. However, her learning curve does have a positive slope. Yours does not, because you rely on motivated reasoning rather than science.
40 years of failing to deal with the problem? Guess you’re still living in RCP 8.5 LaLa Land, Ray.
In 2021, Nature published “A global inventory of photovoltaic solar energy generating units” by Kruitwagen et al (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03957-7#:~:text=We%20locate%20and%20verify%2068%2C661%20facilities%2C%20an%20increase,be%20423%E2%80%89gigawatts%20%28%E2%88%9275%2F%2B77%E2%80%89gigawatts%29%20at%20the%20end%20of%202018.)
“Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy generating capacity has grown by 41 per cent per year since 20091. Energy system projections that mitigate climate change and aid universal energy access show a nearly ten-fold increase in PV solar energy generating capacity by 2040,”
I could do the same exercise with wind and nuclear, but I think you get my point.
It is perfectly legitimate to say we need to do more or that we haven’t done enough. But to say we’ve squandered 40 years failing to deal with the problem is not only wrong and not only an insult to the tens of thousands of people who have bought EVs, installed solar panels, voted for climate initiatives and altered their lifestyles, it is hugely demotivating to the millions who you want to enlist for further initiatives.
You’re not helping, Ray. You’re not helping.
I believe that ““Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy generating capacity has grown by 41 per cent per year since 2009,” should read “…has grown by 41% per year from its pathetically low level in 2009…”
I also note that fossil fuel usage continues to grow apace, climate policy remains stagnated near where it was before 2000 and half the electorate is too stupid even to acknowledge the problem. And the only significant piece of climate legislation to make it through our log-jammed legislature is likely to be overturned if Cheetolini returns to haunt the White House again. And even in civilized countries, they are nowhere near on track to achieve their already pathetically inadequate climate goals.
This is not a glass half-full/half-empty question. This is a glass bone dry. I hope you will forgive me if I don’t join you in breaking my arm patting myself on the back.
No, this is not a glass bone dry. This is a propagandist frustrated that someone–anyone–would point out that the world’s efforts to decarbonize have already invalidated RCP 8.5 and that even with increasing fossil fuel consumption (which was predicted by everyone with a brain who watched the course of development worldwide) we’re doing better than ye propagandists have been shrieking about.
You’re not helping, Ray. Not helping.
Ray Ladbury: – “…for any sensitivity over about 3 degrees per doubling, we’re pretty much fucked now that we’ve squandered 40 years failing to deal with the problem.”
It seems Prof Eliot Jacobson tweeted much the same thing re having an accurate ECS to understand our predicament on Mar 1:
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1763370047341564094
[Response: This is verging on the totally nuts. – gavin]
She’s so popular, and she seems so rational. But I agree with you, she’s both helping and hindering, with a semblance of expertise that is not quite just right. She is right to point out that we face something beyond what we’ve imagined, and it’s not good. But she’s wrong to dismiss all the people who’ve done the hard work and have taken her quibbles into account, often for a decade or more.
I take her with a serious grain of salt, particularly because she dismisses rational disagreement.
I don’t want to go 100% follow the money with her, but it’s not an insignificant input.
Actually, while I stand by my above criticism, it does appear to me that Hossenfelder’s learning curve does seem to have a positive slope. In this, she seems to outperform the vast majority of the lukewarmers (e.g. Tommy Fuller or Lavrov’s Bitch, above). Having now looked at her latest videos, she is at least starting to understand that the physics of climate change is more complex than she knew and that the implications of the uncertainty do not necessarily favor a sanguine attitude.
Not long ago, she tweeted “…In comparison to climate science, quantum mechanics is child’s play….” My reaction is that of course it is–the climate is much more complicated than any system we tackle with quantum mechanics. However, at least Hosssenfelder seems to be realizing that the basic science is sound–certainly sound enough to tell us we have a significant threat.
Ray et al.: I started a reply but decided to think it over first. Here goes. Much as I enjoy and appreciate as well as agree with you, the extreme language above, which I don’t want to overemphasize by repeating (doing stuff with space aliens), seems to me a provocation bound to exacerbate conflict rather than getting people to think about the basis for their opinions.
Since I’m science adjacent I run more on instinct & kicking the tires, at which I’m pretty good if I say so myself (not entirely lacking in training though, MIT biochemistry for a bit, and taught scientists how to draw from life). I’m not in a position to evaluate the ins and outs of Hossenfelder. She puts herself annoyingly front and center and and makes money. She seems sort of OK to me. It puzzles me that anybody calling themself a scientist doesn’t appear to have looked up whether somebody has already done the work and answered the questions.
OK, can’t resist (humblebrag), my 15 minutes of fame! https://realclimate.science/2011/02/24/feynman-channels-his-thoughts-on-global-warming-through-susan-anderson/#gsc.tab=0 – Heller/Goddard appears not to understand that he’s got it backwards. Feynman was a treat at our weekly powwows, very down to earth but demonstrably not an idiot.
Susan, sorry to offend. I am afraid that contemplating the imminent end of democracy in the US and the concomitant loss of the limited progress we’ve made on climate has me in an uncharitable mood.
Sorry Ray, I always appreciate your good sense and clarity and wasn’t personally offended; it was amusing in its sour way. I have taken it upon myself, wrongly perhaps, to discourage extremes of exaggeration which are likely to prevent people from understanding the simple truth.
I don’t know why my spidey sense (awful metaphor) tingles with annoyance at Sabina H, and I can’t evaluate what’s wrong with it, but as you say she’s getting there rather than facing away from it.
I join you in this: “contemplating the imminent end of democracy in the US and the concomitant loss of the limited progress we’ve made on climate has me in an uncharitable mood.”
Perhaps one of those solar storms so ably described in Kathryn Schulz’s terrific New Yorker piece will spare us the trouble of our long defeat by finishing us off quickly: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/04/what-a-major-solar-storm-could-do-to-our-planet
As for Ned Kelly and others of his ilk, who attack hardworking purveyors of truth because they aren’t extreme enough in their attempts to convey information and explore communication (Mike Mann, our hosts, et al.), as you say they are the opposite of helpful. We need people who open doors, not shut them with a slam. With a huff and a puff they appear to wish to blow our house down.
Susan, I had to think about my reply too. You are of course entitled to call for civility and close adherence to the scientific focus of this blog, and many commenters will agree with you. Others like myself, however, follow the discussions here as much for entertainment as for edification. And we all know that some people come here to reanimate zombie denialist memes, and that civil rebuttal is ineffectual on such people, either because they never will think about the basis for their opinions or because they privately acknowledge their ideological and/or mercenary basis but will never admit it here. It’s gratifying for me to see our bloggy friend Ray confront odious denial with fluent, lacerating, even uncivil scorn and wit! I for one am not convinced Dr. Hossenfelder deserves his full-bore treatment, but Ray himself has reconsidered his previous comment. On balance, I trust him to distinguish climate truth from motivated falsehood, and appreciate his usually penetrating and often sarcastic comments without wincing.
Mal, I agree. And they keep coming up like dragon’s teeth. Ray is one of the people who keeps me coming back here to contribute my 2 cents and (possibly) tin ear.
[Sabine not Sabina, from my earlier]