The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued a new report concerning the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, the goal of the Paris “Treaty.” In doing so, they changed the basic definition of how to measure climate by mixing existing and non-existing temperature data. This surely constitutes a radical change from their previous basis for reaching their conclusions about climate change. The IPCC still uses a 30 year period, but it is centered on the present rather than ending at the present. This curious approach thus requires future data that cannot exist.
Half of the assessment of Earth’s current climate is to be based on crystal ball gazing, which usually means reliance on unreliable climate models that keep showing levels of warming which fail to occur. The IPCC has very little scientific credibility as explained over recent years on this blog. But using half speculative data has to be one of the strangest to date. So their assumption is basically that climate is warming if their models assume that they will. It is long passed time to abandon the IPCC as a useful contributor to scientific knowledge on climate change.
The new definition assumes that the trend in the previous 15 years of actual data continues during the subsequent 15 years of speculative “data.” Data extrapolated for assumed temperature trends over the next 15 years should not be a basis for measuring climate change.
Jim,
“The Temper of Our Times”: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.” quote is GREAT!
Carbon Credits and Offsets come to mind…. it’s fun to hear how “VMT” and carbon credits are needed to have smart growth……, etc.
https://www.cleanenergylawreport.com/california/webcast-californias-100-zero-carbon-future-how-sb-100-and-eo-b-55-18-will-impact-businesses-and-projects/
IPCC Third Assessment Report
Chapter 14
Section 14.2.2.2
Last paragraph:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
This information was not included in the Summary Report for Policymakers given to the press and public.
If the climate is indeed a coupled non-linear chaotic system (who can doubt the IPCC) then there is no rational or scientific basis to make a definitive statement about a future state of the climate.
At this point the coupled non-linear chaotic nature of the climate makes scientific observations academically interesting but individually they have no relevance in predicting the future state of the climate. The climate is a system which means the relationships among these observations are what is important not the observations themselves.
All the public discourse regarding the future state of the climate has been based on the false premise that the current climate models are predicting the future state of the climate when in fact the models are merely projecting these states.
Predictions are the purview of science. Model projections can only agree with predictions when the models duplicate the real world which the IPCC says is impossible to do.
To base public policy on an unknowable state of a system defies common sense. However, too much money and political power is at stake for the Central Planners to do otherwise.
I would argue that the Climate Model True Believers are the ones taking an unscientific approach to the subject.
In January 1961 President Eisenhower in his Farewell Address identified the situation in which we find ourselves today:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”
Other relevant publications from Eric Hoffer are: “The True Believer” and “The Temper of Our Times”
From “The Temper of Our Times”: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
+1.5 degrees C. was the tipping point
last week
This week the tipping point
will be +1.4 degrees C.
Next week +1.3 degrees C.
You must keep up with the science,
if you want people to read your blog.
And the confidence level is no longer 95%.
It is now 103%
That means 3% of the scientists
could completely change their minds
and the team would still be 100% confident.
How can one argue with 103% confidence?
These are people with science degrees.
They are on government payrolls.
Why would anyone read an IPCC science fiction report
after 30 years of their very wrong climate predictions ?
I’d rather read War and Peace in a mirror.