She is a heretic, who has been cast out of the tribe:
In the run-up to the Paris conference, said Curry, much ink has been spilled over whether the individual emissions pledges made so far by more than 150 countries — their ‘intentional nationally determined contributions’, to borrow the jargon — will be enough to stop the planet from crossing the ‘dangerous’ threshold of becoming 2°C hotter than in pre-industrial times. Much of the conference will consist of attempts to make these targets legally binding. This debate will be conducted on the basis that there is a known, mechanistic relationship between the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how world average temperatures will rise.
Unfortunately, as Curry has shown, there isn’t. Any such projection is meaningless, unless it accounts for natural variability and gives a value for ‘climate sensitivity’ —i.e., how much hotter the world will get if the level of CO2 doubles. Until 2007, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave a ‘best estimate’ of 3°C. But in its latest, 2013 report, the IPCC abandoned this, because the uncertainties are so great. Its ‘likely’ range is now vast — 1.5°C to 4.5°C.
This isn’t all. According to Curry, the claims being made by policymakers suggest they are still making new policy from the old, now discarded assumptions. Recent research suggests the climate sensitivity is significantly less than 3˚C. ‘There’s growing evidence that climate sensitivity is at the lower end of the spectrum, yet this has been totally ignored in the policy debate,’ Curry told me. ‘Even if the sensitivity is 2.5˚C, not 3˚C, that makes a substantial difference as to how fast we might get to a world that’s 2˚C warmer. A sensitivity of 2.5˚C makes it much less likely we will see 2˚C warming during the 21st century. There are so many uncertainties, but the policy people say the target is fixed. And if you question this, you will be slagged off as a denier.’
This is religion, not science.
To be honest, I’m surprised Michael Mann hasn’t yet coauthored a study narrowing this range down to the desired levels. He’s always delivered in the past when they needed the right research to fit the desired propaganda.
Interesting. Does the IPCC reports predict how much natural warming or cooling will take place? I am skeptical they can differentiate between nature and human caused climate changes. The Earth’s topography changed so much at the end of the last glaciation, that even if we knew the processes that lead to its end, it may not help predict the future and vis versa.
In this golden age of discovery, you think scientists would be more open to the fact that we really don’t know that much about Earth or our solar system and that is what makes it such an exciting time to be alive.
Insufficient opportunities for graft in that.
you think scientists would be more open to the fact that we really don’t know that much about Earth or our solar system and that is what makes it such an exciting time to be alive.
That would be true if we were talking about the independent “gentleman scientists” of pre-WW II.
Today’s scientists exist primarily on government grants controlled, ultimately, by politicians and government bureaucrats. They know that if they apply for a grant in the climate field, it will be peer-reviewed by folks like Michael Mann. And if they accept funding from independent sources (i.e., the private sector), they will be accused of dishonesty and conflict of interest by the media and fellow scientists. The only “honest” scientists are those who get their money from the “honest” source — politicians. And if a scientist is not dependent on anyone for continued funding, like Freeman Dyson, he will be accused of senility.
Eisenhower warned about this in the same speech he warned of the military/industrial complex:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific/technological elite.”
-“will be enough to stop the planet from crossing the ‘dangerous’ threshold of becoming 2°C” –
It’s so dangerous and important that most of them don’t even what becoming 2 C warmer, means.
Some seem to assume it’s 2 C warmer than “pre-industrial time” [as though that was an actual period of time that could measure being 2 C warmer to in comparison to some present period of time].
So, wiki:
“Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. Pre-industrial is a time before there were machines and tools to help perform tasks.”
This doesn’t have a scientific definition, rather it’s the good old days of lefties. So “Pre-industrial” can perhaps to narrowed to around 100 years of time. But to make matters worse some think it’s some time before the Pre-industrial times that the ruin will occur if we were to get 2 C warmer than it.
Now there isn’t a accurate measurement of Earth average temperature for Pre-industrial” or prior to Pre-industrial” nor is there an established way to know are current average global temperature.
So for instance what is the average global temperature now?
Do want to average it over a period of month, a year, 5 years, decade, 3 decades, or random instant at the present which is averaged globally.
What is established way to determine what average global temperature is, were one to try to measure it?
And average temperature is done by measuring the difference in temperature in comparison to previous times of measuring air temperature. So you stations spread over the world and they are stations A to Z. So mark down the temperatures of station A to Z every day for the warmest day time temperatures of coldest daytime temperature [or pick two time periods, say 1 pm and 5 am] and if do this with same stations over period of say 10 years one calculate the differences in terms of + or – in the anomalies, and plot over some time periods. And this is what we have, but there is not a standard of the A to Z station, instead anyone can pick their stations and their number and distribution.
Or people might imagine that this increase by 2 C will be going from a global average of 15 C to 17 C, though they have no idea of what the average temperature is at the moment. And should noted that people have been saying the Earth’s average temperature is about 15 C for about 200 years.
Now Earth does appear to be warming over the last 200 years, or 100 years, or last 50 years, and this can said to be recovery from the Little Ice Age. Or most say LIA ended in 1850 AD. Or LIA was period where alpine glaciers tended to advance, and starting in 1850 AD most of them started retreating. Or starting in 1850 AD the most significant global event in last 400 year was this retreat of glaciers. And perhaps within the next 50 years all the glacier built during the LIA may be removed. So this the reason one can say we are recovering from the Little Ice age, presently.
And broadly and loosely speaking from about 200 year ago we have warmed about + 1 C, from 100 years year ago about .8 C, about 50 years ago about .4 C, and from 18 years ago, there has been no measurable change in average temperature, and is called the pause. And pause probably will continue in coming decade and it’s possible for there to be a slight increase and decrease over a period of +20 years. Or at the moment there has been increase over a period of +20 years.
So one might ask when will Earth’s average temperature become 16 C?
Btw, the average temperature of continental US is about 12 C.
Canada average is about 0 C- and most Canadian live within 200 miles on the US border, because it has higher average temperature, or count where most Canadian live it’s average is about 7 to 8 C.
In US one can choose to live different regions where the difference in average temperature is greater than 2 C. One find within any county different spots which have greater average differences.
In any given spot in the Temperate Zone [not Tropical Zone where temperatures can average 20 C and be more uniform in temperature and the tropics is 40% of total surface area of Earth] in decade of time one can difference in yearly temperature of 2 C, and course seasonally it’s a far greater difference in temperature [as is night and day]. And if choose to live in a city the Urban Heat island effect makes night time temperature warmer- can warmer than 2 C, and UHI effect also increases daytime average temperatures- and can be quite significant in terms of “heatwaves”.
In the temperate zones the temperature increases 1 C for approximately every 90 miles you move towards the equator. It also drops 1C for every 720 feet in surface elevation. The 2C nonsense implies that life can only thrive in two hemisphere bands that are roughly 200 miles wide from north to south. I have yet to see such a feature on a map.