Climate & Climate Change

Hi Jennifer,

I’ve only just noticed this week’s Jakarta floods.

Most of the reportage has concentrated on the immediate disaster and the associated political recriminations, but I see in the Sydney Morning Herald that, “meteorologists have claimed climate change contributed to the disaster, with a delayed monsoon season bringing unusually high rainfall.”

I think this could be worth a post in itself, for a number of reasons.

First of all, this is a major weather disaster. Almost half the capital of south-east Asia’s biggest country just spend a week under water. This is happening just to our north.

Second, it would be of interest to understand the cause and effect here. How often does this happen? Why does it happen? The capital is flooded annually and there were big floods in 1996 and 2002.

According to the Jakarta Post, “the floods are worse than the last major inundation in 2002. It has been argued they are the result of weather abnormalities that occur every five years.”

Third, perhaps we could have a general discussion about the evidential value, if any, of such large events in the AGW [global warming] debate. The debate over Atlantic hurricanes like Katrina may serve as a prototype.

Cheers, Mitchell Porter

—————————————–
This is an edited version of a note from Mitchell originally posted as a comment here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001874.html . Thanks Mitch.

Canadian think-tank The Fraser Institute has just released a 64 page-summary of the the latest United Nation’s report on climate change concluding that:

• Data collected by weather satellites since 1979 continue to exhibit little evidence of atmospheric warming, with estimated trends ranging from nearly zero to the low end of past IPCC forecasts. There is no significant warming in the tropical troposphere (the lowest portion of the Earth’s atmosphere), which accounts for half the world’s atmosphere, despite model predictions that warming should be amplified there.

• Temperature data collected at the surface exhibits an upward trend from 1900 to 1940, and again from 1979 to the present. Trends in the Southern Hemisphere are small compared to those in the Northern Hemisphere.

• There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway. Perceptions of increased extreme weather events are potentially due to increased reporting. There is too little data to reliably confirm these perceptions.

• There is no globally-consistent pattern in long-term precipitation trends, snow-covered area, or snow depth. Arctic sea ice thickness showed an abrupt loss prior to the 1990s, and the loss stopped shortly thereafter. There is insufficient data to conclude that there are any trends in Antarctic sea ice thickness.

• Current data suggest a global mean sea level rise of between two and three millimeters per year. Models project an increase of roughly 20 centimeters over the next 100 years, if accompanied by a warming of 2.0 to 4.5 degrees Celsius.

• Natural climatic variability is now believed to be substantially larger than previously estimated, as is the uncertainty associated with historical temperature reconstructions.

• Attributing an observed climate change to a specific cause like greenhouse gas emissions is not formally possible, and therefore relies on computer model simulations. These attribution studies do not take into account the basic uncertainty about climate models, or all potentially important influences like aerosols, solar activity, and land use changes.

• Computer models project a range of future forecasts, which are inherently uncertain for the coming century, especially at the regional level. It is not possible to say which, if any, of today’s climate models are reliable for climate prediction and forecasting.

Read the complete review here: http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/Independent%20Summary.pdf

The press release with comment from Dr Ross McKitrick is here: http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=783

ALMOST every day some report or event is claimed as evidence of global warming. Al Gore’s recent movie An Inconvenient Truth went so far as to claim that we have a “climate crisis” right now.

Do we?

It can be hard finding the real facts on climate change among all the hype.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a mandate to deliver a comprehensive assessment of human-induced climate change every few years, and the Fourth Assessment Report, AR4, is due for release sometime this year.

You have possibly been led to believe, given all the media headlines, that this big report was released in Paris last Friday. It wasn’t.

Friday’s document was just a 21-page summary of the first part of AR4, and doesn’t even have a bibliography.

That’s right, just a summary of a quarter of the big report.

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policy Makers is nevertheless an important document, because it details the position of many global warming experts. So what does it say?

Read my opinion in today’s The Courier Mail, click here: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21169204-27197,00.html .

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just released a 21 page report summary for policy makers of a report entitled ‘Climate Change 2007 – The Physical Science Basis’ which will be released later in the year.

The report summary can be downloaded here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ .

The report summary has been the focus of intensive media interest for some days and according to the ABC has been described by WWF as a “clarion call to governments to act urgently to slash emissions” and by Greenpeace as a “screaming siren”.

It is unclear from the associated media release when the full report will be made available.

——————-
Changes to the text in this blog post were made about 10 minutes after I posted it. New text is underlined.

Hi Jennifer,

The draft ‘Summary for Policymakers’ of the Fourth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been widely leaked to the Press.

Its crucial conclusion is as follows:

“It is very likely that anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases caused most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century.”

The widely available graph of the globally averaged annual temperature anomalies between 1857 and 2005 shows, for the period since the mid-20th century:

1. No warming between 1950 and 1978

2. No warming between 1998 and 2005

The only ”observed” warming over the period is from 1978 to 1998, 20 years only, out of the 55 years.

The actual warming involved over this short period of 1978 to 1998 was 0.53ºC.

The above statement considers that it is very likely that most of this 0.53ºC was caused by anthropogenic (human-induced) greenhouse gas increases. “Most” of this would be between 0.3ºC and 0.5ºC, the amount that the statement considers to be due to human influence.

This temperature rise is negligible.

None of us would notice if it happened instantly, let alone over 50 years.

It is below the amount considered in the weather forecasts. Yet this small temperature rise over 55 years is routinely blamed for all manner of climate disasters.

The IPCC pronouncement is not a certain one. The term “very likely” is defined as amounting to a probability above 90%. In other words, there is one chance in ten that they are wrong. Also, the probability is based on the opinion (or guess) of “experts” who are financially dependent on an expectation of positive results.

Finally, there has been no “warming” at all since 1998, now eight years. “Global Warming” seems to have come to an end.

This temperature record is quite incompatible with the computer climate models, so why should we believe their pessimistic forecasts for the future?

It should also be noted that there has been negligible warming in New Zealand since 1950. The mean temperature for 2006 was 0.7ºC below that for 2005. According to the temperature record for Christchurch, there was no warming since 1910, with a maximum temperature in 1917.

Cheers,
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand