by Judith Curry
Some interesting tweets this morning on my twitter feed.
Several tweets led me to look at an article in the Guardian, entitled Climate change: IPCC cites global temperature rise over the last century. Excerpts:
In the past, these climate change deniers have insisted that variations in the sun’s energy or fluctuations in cosmic rays could be behind the global warming that has been observed in recent decades. Both suggestions are dismissed out of hand by the new report.
“The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there,” said Professor Ted Shepherd of Reading University. “Global warming has certainly not gone away.”
This point was backed by Professor Myles Allen at Oxford University. “We have examined the forecasts made by climate scientists over the past three decades and they have been absolutely spot on in terms of predicting subsequent levels of global warming,” he said. “Our climate models are robust and working well.”
Well, that is sure to shut up the climate ‘deniers.’
Latif and von Storch
NoTricksZone has translated an article from the German German online Spektrum.de science magazine that conducted an in-depth interview with two leading international climate scientists, Professor Mojib Latif and Professor Hans von Storch. Quotes:
“It hasn’t gotten as warm as we expected. […] We really have to think about whether or not our models can really project the future development.” (HvS)
There are uncertainties regarding CO2 climate sensitivity. This is stated in the upcoming IPCC report, which summarizes the latest of science and looks at at a very broad range. Here it is not appropriate to boil the whole problem down to a single magnitude: the global mean temperature. Rather it is necessary to understand exactly what is happening regionally, how the temperature develops at a location. But we are not yet that far, and perhaps we will never get that far because it is far too complex. This is why I’d prefer not to stay stuck on climate sensitivity.” (ML)
The most recent decades contain a strong contribution from the AMO (MOC) even on a global scale. This raises questions about the average climate sensitivity of the IPCC models.” (ML)
We should not declare this discussion over too soon. When we look at the 20th century, the climate fluctuations cannot be exclusively attributed to CO2 alone or to internal factors. Also the sun naturally played a role. The question is whether or not we correctly quantified it.” (HvS)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the temperatures remain at a high level until 2020 or 2025.” (ML)
I would get nervous if the temperature continues to pause more than 5 years more. The we would really need to question our climate models. But I also do not expect a cooling.” (ML)
JC comment: Well wouldn’t it be great to start focusing on how long the pause will last. The IPCC seems to think that pause is nearly finished, just waiting for the next El Nino. MJ’s analysis seems much more reasonable to me, but this raises the question as to how long can the pause go? I wouldn’t rule out continuation to 2035-2040; this seems at least as likely as the the CMIP5 predictions that have already failed for the last decade.