Is this the Beginning of the End – or at least the End of the Beginning?
May 2, 2018 by E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D Original link: http://www.cfact.org/2018/05/02/is-climate-alarmist-consensus-about-to-shatter/
On November 10, 1942, after
British and Commonwealth forces defeated the Germans and Italians at the
Second Battle of El Alamein, Winston Churchill told the British
Parliament, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of
the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
In The Hinge of Fate, volume 3
of his marvelous 6-volume history of World War II, he reflected, “It
may almost be said, ‘Before Alamein we never had a victory. After
Alamein we never had a defeat’.”
The publication of Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry’s newest paper in The Journal of Climate reminds
me of that. The two authors for years have focused much of their work
on figuring out how much warming should come from adding carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere. In this paper they conclude that it’s at least 30%
and probably 50% less than climate alarmists have claimed for the last
forty years.
In fact, there are reasons to think
the alarmists’ error is even greater than 50 percent. And if that is
true, then all the reasons for drastic policies to cut carbon dioxide
emissions – by replacing coal, oil and natural gas with wind and solar
as dominant energy sources – simply disappear. Here’s another important
point.
For the last 15 years or more, at least until a year or two ago, it would have been inconceivable that The Journal of Climate
would publish their article. That this staunch defender of climate
alarmist “consensus science” does so now could mean the alarmist dam has
cracked, the water’s pouring through, and the crack will spread until
the whole dam collapses.
Is this the beginning of the end of
climate alarmists’ hold on climate science and policy, or the end of the
beginning? Is it the Second Battle of El Alamein, or is it D-Day? I
don’t know, but it is certainly significant. It may well be that
henceforth the voices of reason and moderation will never suffer a
defeat.
Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming
was edited 13 years ago by climatologist Patrick J. Michaels, then
Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of
Virginia and the State Climatologist of Virginia; now Senior Fellow in
Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute. Its title was at best
premature.
The greatly exaggerated “consensus” –
that unchecked human emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse”
gases would cause potentially catastrophic global warming – wasn’t
shattered then, and it hasn’t shattered since then. At least, that’s the
case if the word “shattered” means what happens when you drop a piece
of fine crystal on a granite counter top: instantaneous disintegration
into tiny shards.
However, although premature and perhaps a bit hyperbolic, the title might have been prophetic.
From 1979 (when the National Academy of Sciences published “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment”)
until 2013 (when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
published its “5th Assessment Report” or AR5), “establishment”
climate-change scientists claimed that – if the concentration of carbon
dioxide (or its equivalent in other “greenhouse” gases) doubled – global
average surface temperature would rise by 1.5–4.5 degrees C, with a
“best estimate” of about 3 degrees. (That’s 2.7–8.1 degrees F, with a
“best” of 5.4 degrees F.)
But late in the first decade of this
century, spurred partly by the atmosphere’s failure to warm as rapidly
as the “consensus” predicted, various studies began challenging that conclusion, saying “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS) was lower than claimed. As the Cornwall Alliance reported four years ago:
“The IPCC estimates climate
sensitivity at 1.5˚C to 4.5˚C, but that estimate is based on computer
climate models that failed to predict the absence of warming
since 1995 and predicted, on average, four times as much warming
as actually occurred from 1979 to the present. It is therefore not
credible. Newer, observationally based estimates have ranges like 0.3˚C
to 1.0˚C (NIPCC 2013a, p. 7) or 1.25˚C to 3.0˚C – with a best estimate
of 1.75˚C (Lewis and Crok 2013, p. 9). Further, “No empirical evidence
exists to support the assertion that a planetary warming of 2°C would be
net ecologically or economically damaging” (NIPCC 2013a, p. 10).” [Abbreviated references are identified here.]
However, most of the lower estimates
of equilibrium climate sensitivity were published in places that are not
controlled by “consensus” scientists and thus were written off or
ignored.
Now, though, a journal dead center in the “consensus” – the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate – has accepted a new paper, “The impact of recent forcing and ocean heat uptake data on estimates of climate sensitivity,”
by Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry. It concludes that ECS is very
likely just 50–70% as high as the “consensus” range. (Lewis is an
independent climate science researcher in the UK. Curry was Professor
and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia
Institute of Technology and now is President of the Climate Forecast
Applications Network.)
Here’s how Lewis and Curry summarize their findings in their abstract, with the takeaways emphasized:
“Energy budget estimates of
equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response
(TCR) [increase in global average surface temperature at time of
doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, i.e., 70 years assuming 1%
per annum increase in concentration] are derived based on the best
estimates and uncertainty ranges for forcing provided in the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Scientific Report (AR5).
“Recent revisions to greenhouse gas
forcing and post-1990 ozone and aerosol forcing estimates are
incorporated and the forcing data extended from 2011 to 2016. Reflecting
recent evidence against strong aerosol forcing, its AR5 uncertainty
lower bound is increased slightly. Using a 1869–1882 base period and a 2007−2016 final period, which are well-matched for volcanic activity and influence from internal variability, medians are derived for ECS of 1.50 K (5−95%: 1.05−2.45 K) and for TCR of 1.20 K (5−95%: 0.9−1.7 K). These estimates both have much lower upper bounds than those from a predecessor study using AR5 data ending in 2011.
“Using
infilled, globally-complete temperature data gives slightly higher
estimates; a median of 1.66 K for ECS (5−95%: 1.15−2.7 K) and 1.33 K for
TCR (5−95%:1.0−1.90 K). These ECS estimates reflect climate feedbacks over the historical period, assumed time-invariant.
“Allowing for possible
time-varying climate feedbacks increases the median ECS estimate to 1.76
K (5−95%: 1.2−3.1 K), using infilled temperature data. Possible
biases from non-unit forcing efficacy, temperature estimation issues and
variability in sea-surface temperature change patterns are examined and
found to be minor when using globally-complete temperature data. These
results imply that high ECS and TCR values derived from a majority of
CMIP5 climate models are inconsistent with observed warming during the
historical period.
A press release from
the Global Warming Policy Forum quoted Lewis as saying, “Our results
imply that, for any future emissions scenario, future warming is likely
to be substantially lower than the central computer model-simulated
level projected by the IPCC, and highly unlikely to exceed that level.”
Veteran environmental science writer Ronald Bailey commented on the new paper in Reason,
saying: “How much lower? Their median ECS estimate of 1.66°C (5–95%
uncertainty range: 1.15–2.7°C) is derived using globally complete
temperature data. The comparable estimate for 31 current generation
computer climate simulation models cited by the IPCC is 3.1°C. In other
words, the models are running almost two times hotter than the analysis of historical data suggests that future temperatures will be.
“In addition, the high-end estimate
of Lewis and Curry’s uncertainty range is 1.8°C below the IPCC’s
high-end estimate.” [emphasis added]
Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow Dr.
Roy W. Spencer (Principal Research Scientist in Climatology at the
University of Alabama-Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for NASA’s
satellite global temperature monitoring program) commented on the paper. Even Lewis and Curry’s figures make several assumptions that are at best unknown and quite likely false. He noted:
“I’d like to additionally emphasize
overlooked (and possibly unquantifiable) uncertainties: (1) the
assumption in studies like this that the climate system was in energy balance in the late 1800s in terms of deep ocean temperatures; and (2) that we know the change in
radiative forcing that has occurred since the late 1800s, which would
mean we would have to know the extent to which the system was in energy
balance back then.
“We have no good reason to assume the
climate system is ever in energy balance, although it is constantly
readjusting to seek that balance. For example, the historical
temperature (and proxy) record suggests the climate system was still
emerging from the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s. The oceans are a
nonlinear dynamical system, capable of their own unforced chaotic
changes on century to millennial time scales, that can in turn alter
atmospheric circulation patterns, thus clouds, thus the global energy
balance. For some reason, modelers sweep this possibility under the rug
(partly because they don’t know how to model unknowns).
“But just because we don’t know the
extent to which this has occurred in the past doesn’t mean we can go
ahead and assume it never occurs.
“Or at least if modelers assume it doesn’t occur, they should state that up front.
“If indeed some of the warming since the late 1800s was natural, the ECS would be even lower.”
With regard to that last sentence,
Spencer’s University of Alabama research colleague Dr. John Christy and
co-authors Dr. Joseph D’Aleo and Dr. James Wallace published a paper in the fall of 2016 (revised in the spring of 2017). It argued that solar,
volcanic and ocean current variations are sufficient to explain all the
global warming over the period of allegedly anthropogenic warming, leaving no global warming to blame on carbon dioxide.
At the very least, this suggests that
indeed “some of the warming since the late 1800s was natural” – which
means the ECS would be even lower than Lewis and Curry’s estimate.
All of this has important policy implications.
Wisely or not, the global community
agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accords to try to limit global warming
to at most 2 C degrees – preferably 1.5 degrees – above pre-Industrial
(pre-1850) levels.
If Lewis and Curry are right, and the
warming effect of CO2 is only 50–70% of what the “consensus” has said,
cuts in CO2 emissions need not be as drastic as previously thought.
That’s good news for the billions of people living in poverty and
without affordable, reliable electricity. Their hope for electricity is
seriously compromised by efforts to impose a rapid transition from
abundant, affordable, reliable fossil fuels to diffuse, expensive,
unreliable wind and solar (and other renewable) as chief electricity
sources.
Moreover, if Spencer (like many
others who agree with him) is right that the assumptions behind ECS
calculations are themselves mistaken … and Christy (like many others who
agree with him) is right that some or all of the modern warming has
been naturally driven – then ECS is even lower than Lewis and Curry
thought. That would mean there is even less justification for the
punitive, job-killing, poverty-prolonging energy policies sought by the
“climate consensus” community.
Regardless, we’re coming closer and
closer to fulfilling the prophecy in Michaels’ 2005 book. The alarmist
“consensus” on anthropogenic global warming is about to be shattered –
or at least eroded and driven into a clear minority status.
