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Collectively, the current IPCC computer modelled scenarios for the iconic doubling of atmospheric CO2 range from 1.1C to 6.4C, with a ‘most likely’ range of 2C to 4.5C. Higher estimates have a much lower probability of being accurate.

In this week’s Science magazine there are two related papers that discuss climate sensitivity:

Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?

Gerard H. Roe* and Marcia B. Baker

Uncertainties in projections of future climate change have not lessened substantially in past decades. Both models and observations yield broad probability distributions for long-term increases in global mean temperature expected from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with small but finite probabilities of very large increases. We show that the shape of these probability distributions is an inevitable and general consequence of the nature of the climate system, and we derive a simple analytic form for the shape that fits recent published distributions very well. We show that the breadth of the distribution and, in particular, the probability of large temperature increases are relatively insensitive to decreases in uncertainties associated with the underlying climate processes.

Call Off the Quest

Myles R. Allen and David J. Frame

Over the past 30 years, the climate research community has made valiant efforts to answer the “climate sensitivity” question: What is the long-term equilibrium warming response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1) concluded that this sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 2° to 4.5°C, with a 1-in-3 chance that it is outside that range. The lower bound of 2°C is slightly higher than the 1.6°C proposed in the 1970s (2); progress on the upper bound has been minimal.

In a nut shell, the limits have been reached for model estimations of the upper bound and therefore even more complex models will be unable to resolve the greater uncertainty of higher bound estimates, so it’s time to “call off the search.”

New Scientist’s take is:

Climate is too complex for accurate predictions

Excerpt: “This finding reinforces not only that climate policies will necessarily be made in the face of deep, irreducible uncertainties,” says Roger Pielke, a climate policy expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US. “But also the uncomfortable reality – for climate modellers – that finite research dollars invested in ever more sophisticated climate models offer very little marginal benefit to decision makers.”

Personally, I disagree with the statement made in Science magazine that “This persistent, high-temperature tail of low probability has been one impediment to political action, as policy-makers have been reluctant to formulate policies to address climate change when the range of uncertainty is so large.” If this is true, then I haven’t noticed.

Climate alarmists never miss an opportunity to capitilise on other people’s misery in order to fuel the global warming gravy train. Hurricane Katrina was a prime example, and now the California fires are an opportunity not to be missed. CNN are leading the way with their ‘Planet in Peril’ special that may well try to make a link between the fires and global warming. The rest of the mainstream media aren’t far behind.

Meanwhile, the FBI have shot dead a suspected arsonist and confirmed that a huge fire in the town of Santiago in Orange County that destroyed 10 homes was started on purpose in two different places. Furthermore, Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity is on course to match the record low of 1977. This could at least partly explain the lack of moisture/drought in the US Southwest. Remember, global warming was supposed to increase hurricane intensity and frequency, and in 2005 alarmists were suggesting a new category 6 classification would be needed for hurricanes.

It seems that global warming has become a ubiquitous explanation for every natural weather event. Shame on you!

Climate policy after 2012, when the Kyoto treaty expires, needs a radical rethink. More of the same won’t do, argue Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner.

The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments’ concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth. And it pays no more than token attention to the needs of societies to adapt to existing climate change. The impending United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Bali in December — to decide international policy after 2012 — needs to radically rethink climate policy.

Read Time to ditch Kyoto in this week’s Nature News (no subscription required).

Another ‘field day’ for the press as a new research paper, entitled ‘A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record’, is published in the journal Proceedings of The Royal Society (Biological Sciences).

The abstract says:

The past relationship between global temperature and levels of biological diversity is of increasing concern
due to anthropogenic climate warming. However, no consistent link between these variables has yet been
demonstrated. We analysed the fossil record for the last 520 Myr against estimates of low latitude sea
surface temperature for the same period. We found that global biodiversity (the richness of families and
genera) is related to temperature and has been relatively low during warm ‘greenhouse’ phases, while
during the same phases extinction and origination rates of taxonomic lineages have been relatively high.
These findings are consistent for terrestrial and marine environments and are robust to a number of
alternative assumptions and potential biases. Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate
may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. Our findings may
have implications for extinction and biodiversity change under future climate warming.

Of course, the press don’t have time to read it and the authors qualify the findings of the study in the text:

“A first qualification is that our results relate to the effects of residuals from the long-term trend. An increase in global temperature may therefore cause an increase in extinction rate but not necessarily an absolute decrease in biodiversity because the underlying trend is for biodiversity to increase over time.”

“A second qualification is that the coarse time scale of our data does not allow us to make short-term predictions,
although short-term effects also cannot be excluded.”

“Finally, although we have shown an association between temperature and both biodiversity and taxonomic rates, this association may not be causative. Deducing causation from correlation is, of course, difficult. The lags shown in some of our analyses suggest that temperature is affecting biodiversity and evolutionary rates, but well known links between organisms and geophysical processes suggest we should not yet rule out the opposite direction of causation (Rothman 2001).”

CO2 gets a mention:

“When atmospheric CO2 concentrations were included as an explanatory variable in our analyses, temperature
always remained significant, and CO2 was normally not significant. CO2 was significant for both marine genus origination and extinction rate, and in the latter case was a stronger predictor than temperature. Overall, temperature was the better predictor of diversity and taxonomic rates.”

The BBC News website goes with Climate threat to biodiversity

“Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries could trigger a mass extinction, UK scientists have warned.”

Australia’s ABC News gets rather carried away and headlines with Global warming to cause mass extinction: report

“Researchers in Britain say in the long term, global warming could lead to a mass extinction of animals and plants.”

Whilst we are on the subject of climate warming and cooling, how has man fared specifically in the UK over the past 700,000 years?

If we turn the clock back 12 months, we have this report on the BBC News website with a nice graphic:

Britain’s human history revealed

Eight times humans came to try to live in Britain and on at least seven occasions they failed – beaten back by freezing conditions. Scientists think they can now write a reasonably comprehensive history of the occupation of these isles. It stretches from 700,000 years ago and the first known settlers at Pakefield in Suffolk, through to the most recent incomers just 12,000 years or so ago (the end of the last great ice age). The evidence comes from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project.

“Australian aboriginals have been in Australia longer, continuously than the British people have been in Britain. There were probably people in the Americas before 12,000 years ago,” Professor Stringer explained.

So there you have it – in the cold we die, in warm intergalcials we thrive.

I’m referring to Queensland’s ‘Cool it by Degrees’ campaign.

“Polar bears are among the most threatened species as a result of changes in our temperature and changes in our climate,” Ms Bligh told reporters.

“If we had every Queenslander change the temperature of their fridge by one degree, it would be the equivalent of taking 11,000 cars off the road.

Several assumptions here including: people keep their fridges below 4C, Polar Bears need saving, and climate change is driven by CO2.

Story from The Sydney Morning Herald:

Qld has cool idea for climate change