Comments on IPCC SREX Summary for Policy Makers

Here is a comment I made on the SciGuy Houston Chronicle site and a subsequent exchange on the same thread.


November 18, 2011 at 4:00 pm
It’s amazing that the IPCC is finally paying attention to the real world. The most important thing they say is
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.I have suggested in various web comments that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for climate change . The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 14 years with CO2 up 7% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.This seems to be now at least compatible with the IPCC.As to Texas weather simple empirical observations show that1) the PDO has an approximate 30 year cycle2) During the last period of negative PDOs from 1940 – 75 global temperatures fell 0.25 – 0.3 degrees3) The PDO has been negative for the last few years. During this phase La Ninas become more frequent El Ninos less frequent. The empirical weather system changes mean that the Jet stream has a more meridional component with the formation of blocking highs, greater weather variability because of sharper temperature gradients across the edges of the highs bringing e.g.more tornadoes and snowricanes to the eastern USA more snow to the western mountains hence more spring flooding in the interior and droughts in Texas.4. The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.http://www.sott.net/articles/show/164199-Livingston-and-Penn-paper-Sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015-My forecast is not based on such an extreme event but it remains a possibility.5 .The SST 5 year moving average rolled over circa 2003and regression analysis since then shows a decline which would amount to 0.28 in 30 years.It’s really about time that the Chronicle published an op ed along the lines of the above comments.


Glenn Beak says:
November 18, 2011 at 11:55 pm
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word.
No, it means that while the Earth is warming, it is a long term climate trend that will show a lot of variation. It means your “eight year global SST cooling trend” is well within expected random variation.
The solar magnetic field strength decline since 2004 is unprecedented in the satellite age – and suggests the possible disappearance of sunspots in the next 5 – 10 years as last seen in the little ice age and the Maunder minimum.
The paper you and Watts mention came out in 2006. It used data mostly collected between 2000 (when sunspot cycle 23 peaked) and 2005. With a straight face they claim “A linear extrapolation of thesetrends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015.” The monthly sunspot count in 2004 ranged from 18 to 51. Last month 88 sunspots were observed.

Dr Norman Page says:
November 19, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Glenn you are still making the same gross scientific error of judgement or deliberate misrepresentation that was made by IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers previous to this latest one ( thru AR4) This was the assumption that they or you knew or know what the natural variability was/is.. You cannot possibly say that the ” “eight year SST global cooling trend” is well within expected random variation ” if you dont know what the expected range of random variation is.To say nothing of the fact that to say a variation is random also implies that you don’t know what the cause is and can’t be bothered to find out.In AR4 for example the Summary for Policymakers is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. You should note that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.. I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC AR4 science section itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
The importance of the new report is that finally the IPCC recognises that the uncertainties of climate prediction are much greater than they previously acknowledged. They are now in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that the whole UN CO2 scare is built on very uncertain foundations and they somehow need to as quietly as possible change their position.The first thing they do is to change the definition of climate change (Global Warming no longer seems a convenient term to use) They say :
“several of the definitions used in this Special Report differ inbreadth or focus from those used in the AR4 and other IPCC reports.]
Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to naturalinternal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.2[INSERT FOOTNOTE 2: This definition differs from that in the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change is defined as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed overcomparable time periods.” The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.]
In other words where previously climate change meant change due to human activity now it means change due to human and natural causes . As previously quoted in the original post they now say that they can’t distinguish these causes for the next 30 years.The rest of their predictions re extreme events are simply trivial and tautologous speculation – they simply say that if warming continues, certain extreme events are more likely to occur. If they don’t know what is happening in the next 30 years they certainly don’t know what will happen in th next hundred.As to the Pennington sun paper – first Pennington updates the measurements on an ongoing basis . He is not measuring sunspot numbers as your answer would imply . He measures the trends in Umbral intensity Umbral Magnetic field strength. If you check post #604 on this thread ( page 41 Sunspot Magnetism Livingstone and Penn) message linkhttp://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread you will see that his original trends have continued as originally forecast up to the present. The key thing anyway in this matter is not the sunspot number but the magnetic field strength and its effect on the solar wind. The idea is that if the Umbral intensity trend increases ie temperature gets hotter- then by 2015 the spot will be indistinguishable from the background ( not non existent ) as in the Maunder minimum when earths climate cooled.