Climate science does an about-face: dials back the ‘worst case scenario’

[cancel2 2022]

For a long while I've been telling all and sundry that RCP8.5 is an impossible scenario and finally it looks like climate alarmists have got the message. It was used extensively as the basis for the Obama era National Climate assessment. The people that wrote it knew full well that it was alarmist bullshit but also knew that their grants and jobs depend on stoking up the fear. I don't think that even RCP6.0 is realistic either but it will take a while longer before that will be admitted.

So with is new information that excludes the worst case RCP8.5 scenario, rather than predicting a future world that warms by 6°C (10.8°F), they’ll go to the next lower scenario RCP6 with warming by 2100 around 3°C (5.4 °F) .

However, in typical climate alarmist fashion, the two authors of this Nature article are pointing out that the lower temperatures due to this drop-off of coal use and the exclusion of RCP8.5 aren’t guaranteed.

The reason? Scientists are still uncertain as to how sensitive global temperatures are to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. The value, known as the Charney Sensitivity still isn’t known for certain, over 40 years after it was first introduced in 1979 by the United States National Academy of Sciences and chaired by Jule Charney. He estimated climate sensitivity to be 3 °C (5.4 °F), give or take 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).

Without knowing the true climate warming response to increased CO2, essentially all climate models become a crap-shoot. It is a glaring illustration of just how imprecise climate science actually is.

But, get this; new climate models are being used for the next set of major projections due from the IPCC next year known as AR6. Those models are said to show that temperatures are more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought.

So, with AR6 the higher numbers of the worst-case scenario are likely to be back on the table, along with continued calls for climate action in the form of reductions, alternate tech, and carbon taxation.

Inconveniently, there is another fly in the ointment. Even if the atmosphere turns out to be more sensitive to CO2 than they think, it is unlikely that the world will ever get to a doubling for CO2 in the atmosphere – the level on which climate sensitivity estimates are based. It turns out, based on a new calculation estimating if the world will get there, the answer is probably “no”.

Climate scientist Dr. Roy Spencer did a model calculation the same week as this new Nature article was released and discovered something totally surprising. Using data from the EIA projecting that energy-based emissions of CO2 will grow at 0.6% per year until 2050, he plugged that data into a climate model. With the reasonable EIA assumptions regarding CO2 emissions, the climate model does not even reach a doubling of atmospheric CO2, but instead reaches an equilibrium CO2 concentration of 541 ppm in the mid-2200s.

Spencer writes: “[T]he result is that, given the latest projections of CO2 emissions, future CO2 concentrations will not only be well below the RCP8.5 scenario, but might not even be as high as RCP4.5, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations possibly not even reach a doubling (560 ppm) of estimated pre-Industrial levels (280 ppm) before leveling off. This result is even without future reductions in CO2 emissions, which is a possibility as new energy technologies become available.”

The RCP4.5 scenario suggests a range of warming of about 1.7 to 3.2°C (3-5.8°F) which doesn’t constitute a “climate emergency” and may even be beneficial to humankind. After all, humanity didn’t do well during cold periods in history, and another global ice-age would certainly be ruinous.

With this broad uncertainty about what the future climate will be, the bottom line on climate science predictions is well-served by the great Yogi Berra who famously said:

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/...case-scenario/

[Grokmaster]

So...we're NOT "DEAD IN TWELVE YEARS"????

WHO'S GONNA BREAK IT TO DITZIO-CORTEZ???

[Bigdog]

Let me add, the only country that is EVIL for pumping and mining fossil fuels is the USA.

Not Iran, China, Russia, Norway. Denmark, Vz., Kuwait ... and the list goes on.

White libs, Greta, ... why is that?

[Bigdog]

Climate scientist Dr. Roy Spencer did a model calculation the same week as this new Nature article was released and discovered something totally surprising. Using data from the EIA projecting that energy-based emissions of CO2 will grow at 0.6% per year until 2050, he plugged that data into a climate model. With the reasonable EIA assumptions regarding CO2 emissions, the climate model does not even reach a doubling of atmospheric CO2, but instead reaches an equilibrium CO2 concentration of 541 ppm in the mid-2200s.

White libs will deny the science.

[Celticguy]

Well even Michael Mann (the pretend scientist not the movie director) has been walking his nobsense back.

[Stretch]

Same old, same old. Every dozen or so years they revise their stories to give us ANOTHER dozen or so years. And, the ignorant
keep falling for it, voting for it and paying for it.

[Truth Detector]

For a long while I've been telling all and sundry that RCP8.5 is an impossible scenario and finally it looks like climate alarmists have got the message. It was used extensively as the basis for the Obama era National Climate assessment. The people that wrote it knew full well that it was alarmist bullshit but also knew that their grants and jobs depend on stoking up the fear. I don't think that even RCP6.0 is realistic either but it will take a while longer before that will be admitted.



https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/...case-scenario/

[Truth Detector]

Same old, same old. Every dozen or so years they revise their stories to give us ANOTHER dozen or so years. And, the ignorant
keep falling for it, voting for it and paying for it.

Blast from our past:

1967: ‘Dire famine by 1975.’

1969: ‘Everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989.’

1970: Ice age by 2000

1970: ‘America subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.’

1971: ‘New Ice Age Coming'

1972: New ice age by 2070

1974: ‘New Ice Age Coming Fast’

1974: ‘Another Ice Age?’

1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life’

1988: James Hansen forecasts increase regional drought in 1990s

1988: Maldives completely under water in 30 years

1989: Rising seas to ‘obliterate’ nations by 2000

1989: New York City’s West Side Highway underwater by 2019

2000: ‘Children won’t know what snow is.’
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-...ic-predictions

[Cypress]

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/...case-scenario/

Not a credible link.

A blog maintained by a well known climate denier who never graduated college, and does even have a college degree.


This is not much better than the obscure blog by the mentally disturbed mushroom farmer you used to try to pass off as a reputable source of climate science.

[Getin the ring]

"climate science"

yea sunny today partly cloudy tomorrow, winter will be cold and the summer will be hot, we will have rainy days and we will have sunny days

the end

[anonymoose]

"climate science"

yea sunny today partly cloudy tomorrow, winter will be cold and the summer will be hot, we will have rainy days and we will have sunny days

the end

Sounds ominous. We're doomed. I'm getting my affairs in order. I seriously doubt I'll make it past the age of 95.

[CFM]

Same old, same old. Every dozen or so years they revise their stories to give us ANOTHER dozen or so years. And, the ignorant
keep falling for it, voting for it and paying for it.

Been doing the same song and dance for over 50 years. If 5% of what they predicted had occurred, Florida wouldn't exist and Nevada would oceanfront.

[CFM]

Not a credible link.

A blog maintained by a well known climate denier who never graduated college, and does even have a college degree.


This is not much better than the obscure blog by the mentally disturbed mushroom farmer you used to try to pass off as a reputable source of climate science.

Interesting how you believe all those that do have degrees yet have missed on their predictions for over 50 years.

[Grokmaster]

WE NEED TO HIT THE BRAKES ON THE CO2 LIES, AND START TAKING CARE OF REAL POLLUTION OF OUR AIR, SOIL, and WATER....WHICH CO2 AIN'T...

[Truth Detector]

WE NEED TO HIT THE BRAKES ON THE CO2 LIES, AND START TAKING CARE OF REAL POLLUTION OF OUR AIR, SOIL, and WATER....WHICH CO2 AIN'T...

Inconvenient FACTS for leftist alarmist liars:

Below is the composition of air in percent by volume, at sea level at 15 C and 101325 Pa.

Nitrogen -- N2 -- 78.084%
Oxygen -- O2 -- 20.9476%
Argon -- Ar -- 0.934%
Carbon Dioxide -- CO2 -- 0.0314%
Neon -- Ne -- 0.001818%
Methane -- CH4 -- 0.0002%
Helium -- He -- 0.000524%
Krypton -- Kr -- 0.000114%
Hydrogen -- H2 -- 0.00005%
Xenon -- Xe -- 0.0000087%
Ozone -- O3 -- 0.000007%
Nitrogen Dioxide -- NO2 -- 0.000002%
Iodine -- I2 -- 0.000001%
Carbon Monoxide -- CO -- trace
Ammonia -- NH3 -- trace

29% of Earth is land mass. Of that 29% humans occupy less than 2 to 3% of that area. Of the remaining 28% about 40% is pure wilderness. 14% is true desert and 15% has desert like characteristics. 9% is Antarctica. Most of the remaining 22% are agricultural areas. There may be other areas with a human footprint of some kind.

The notion that man is causing the planet to heat up based on CO2 that amounts to less than 1% of the gas in oxygen can only be believed by morons.