The Crisis Report - 57
Short Takes — A few thoughts on Climate Models.
From James Hansen’s How We Know that Global Warming is Accelerating and that the Goal of the Paris Agreement is Dead. He is forecasting that we will reach +2C around 2040.
SO.
If you read my recent series “Unclothing the Emperor : Understanding “What’s Wrong” with our “Climate Paradigm” you know I covered a LOT of ground. There was a huge amount of research and material for the piece and not everything made the cut.
Here are some of the notes for a “Part Five” addition to the series that just didn’t come together in my head. If you want to see my reference material for just the part on Permafrost it’s here (Personal Thoughts — 12 : Researching my next piece).
The topic is “Climate Models” and why the ones that “we the public” are using, probably aren’t the “best” models in existence. There are OTHER models of the Climate System.
There is a LOT of PRIVILEGED INFORMATION in Climate Science that is not being shared.
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Going back to 1979, when the Moderates and Alarmists outlined their understandings of how the Climate System worked and what the risks of continuing to burn fossil fuels might be.
1979
The Charney Report
The US National Research Council convenes a five-day “ad hoc” study group on carbon dioxide and climate at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Chaired by Jule Charney, the assembled panel of experts (which includes a retired representative from the Mobil oil company) sets about establishing a “consensus” position on the “implications of increasing carbon dioxide”.
They compare two models — one of Manabe’s and one by James Hansen at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The panel notes how heat from the atmosphere could be temporarily absorbed by the oceans and they also settle on a range for climate sensitivity from a LOW of +2.0C and a HIGH of +4.5C.
In 1979 the “battle lines” on CLIMATE SENSITIVITY were drawn.
For a “doubling” of atmospheric CO2, from 280ppm in 1850, to 560ppm.
The MODERATES forecast +2.0C of warming.
The ALARMISTS forecast between +4.0C and +5.0C of warming.
And that’s where things have “pretty much” stayed for the last 40 years.
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THERE ARE OTHER MODELS
For example, “why do you think ‘a retired representative from the Mobil oil company’ was at this meeting in 1979?”
Who was he “representing”?
It’s always tempting to dismiss accounts of “secret knowledge” as “conspiracy talk”. However, in this case it’s true.
The Fossil Fuel Interests had their own Climate Models and Climate Scientists.
Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago
Top executives were warned of possible catastrophe from greenhouse effect, then led efforts to block solutions.
More Exxon Documents Show How Much It Knew About Climate 35 Years Ago
Documents reveal Exxon’s early CO2 position, its global warming forecast from the 1980s, and its involvement with the issue at the highest echelons.
Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too
Members of an American Petroleum Institute task force on CO2 included scientists from nearly every major oil company, including Exxon, Texaco and Shell.
Italy’s Eni Faces Lawsuit Alleging Early Knowledge Of Climate Change
Newly-unearthed document seen by DeSmog shows the oil and gas company was warned of the “catastrophic” risks of burning its products in 1970.
Lost Decade: How Shell Downplayed Early Warnings Over Climate Change
Newly discovered documents from the 1970s and early ’80s show that Shell knew more about the “greenhouse effect” than it let on in public.
A newly unearthed journal from 1966 shows the coal industry, like the oil industry, was long aware of the threat of climate change.
Even the automakers did climate studies that predicted rising CO2 levels would cause planetary warming.
GM, Ford knew about climate change 50 years ago
Researchers at both automakers found strong evidence in the 1960s and ’70s that human activity was warming the Earth. A primary culprit was the burning of fossil fuels, which released large quantities of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide that could trigger melting of polar ice sheets and other dire consequences.
How good were the Fossil Fuel Scientists?
Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections.
ABSTRACT:
Many of the uncovered fossil fuel industry documents (from the 2015 investigation) include explicit projections of the amount of warming expected to occur over time in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
Yet, these numerical and graphical data have received little attention. Indeed, no one has systematically reviewed climate modeling projections by any fossil fuel interest.
What exactly did oil and gas companies know, and how accurate did their knowledge prove to be?
Here, we address these questions by reporting and analyzing all known global warming projections documented by — and in many cases modeled by — Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003.
Our results show that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully.
Using established statistical techniques, we find that 63% to 83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming.
ExxonMobil’s average projected warming was +0.20° (± 0.04°C) per decade, which is, within uncertainty, the same as that of independent academic and government projections published between 1970 and 2007.
The average “skill score” and level of uncertainty of ExxonMobil’s climate models (67% to 75% and ±21%, respectively) were also similar to those of the independent models.
Moreover, we show that ExxonMobil scientists:
Correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age in favor of a “carbon dioxide induced ‘super-interglacial’”.
Accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000 ± 5.
Reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming.
“We found that not only were their forecasts extremely skillful, but they were also often more skillful than forecasts made by independent academic and government scientists at the exact same time.”
Harvard compared the Fossil Fuel Science against James Hansen, who was also at Woods Hole in 1979.
Harvard’s scientists used established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) statistical techniques to test the performance of Exxon’s models.
They found that, depending on the metric used.
63% to 83% of the global warming projections reported by Exxon scientists were consistent with actual temperatures over time.
Moreover, the corporation’s own projections had an average “skill score” of 72% (+/-6%) with the highest scoring 99%.
*A skill score relates to how well a forecast compares to what happens in real life.
For comparison, NASA scientist James Hansen’s global warming predictions presented to the U.S. Congress in 1988 had scores from 38% to 66%.
Apparently, the Fossil Fuel Climate Scientists were “really good”. So good, they had a “delegate” at this meeting in 1979 to represent them and their findings.
Does it seem ODD that NONE of them have EVER written or talked about their work?
They were the BEST “Climate Scientists” on the planet at that time and their work was NOT for “public consumption”. It was PRIVILEGED Information.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of PRIVILEGED CLIMATE SCIENCE.
The Insurance Industry has its own Climate Scientists and Climate Models.
The Military has its Climate Models.
NSA/CIA have their Climate Models.
China has “secret” Climate Models.
Russia has “secret” Climate Models.
The Fossil Fuel Industry “almost certainly” still has “secret” Climate Models.
The IPCC and “Public” Models that we TRUST, probably aren’t the “best” models in existence.
They use 1998 NASA/GISS estimates of “Arctic Amplification” that are half of what it actually turned out to be.
1998
Rind.
Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943–5971, MARCH 27, 1998 by David Rind NASA\GISS.
Rind addresses the “nagging” issue of POLAR AMPLIFICATION.
Doubled CO2 equilibrium simulations from different atmosphere-mixed layer ocean models show different degrees of high-latitude climate warming amplification.
In the GFDL model, the temperature response at high latitudes is 3–4 times that at the equator.
While in the GISS model, it is only close to a factor of 2 [Rind,1987a].
That was very influential. NASA/GISS is regarded as the “Gold Standard” in Climate Science. It became an accepted FACT that this would be the “expected” amount of “Arctic Amplification”.
High-Latitude Climate Warming Amplification should ONLY be “close to a factor of 2”.
2022
That was a “theory”. REALITY says, the Moderates and NASA/GISS were WRONG.
The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979
Communications Earth & Environment volume 3, Article number: 168 (Aug 2022)
Abstract:
In recent decades, the warming in the Arctic has been much faster than in the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.
Numerous studies report (based on models) that the Arctic is warming either twice, more than twice, or even three times as fast as the globe on average.
Here we show, by using several observational datasets (REAL collected DATA) which cover the Arctic region.
That during the last 43 years the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the globe, which is a higher ratio than generally reported in literature.
We compared the observed Arctic amplification ratio with the ratio simulated by state-of-the-art climate models, and found that the observed four-fold warming ratio over 1979–2021 is an extremely rare occasion in the climate model simulations.
The observed and simulated amplification ratios are more consistent with each other if calculated over a longer period; however the comparison is obscured by observational uncertainties before 1979.
Our results indicate that the recent four-fold Arctic warming ratio is either an extremely unlikely event, or the climate models systematically tend to underestimate the amplification.
Garbage In/Garbage Out.
Models are only as good as the ASSUMPTIONS embedded in them. Different assumptions lead to VASTLY different outcomes.
One of the things I would like to see at COP28 would be a resolution that ALL Climate Models and information be shared. Including those of the Fossil Fuel industry.
I would really like to know what their Climate Scientists think.
rc -120223
Great report, thank you. Why don’t “they” release these reports, all models and data, to the public? Why is it “privileged” when it literally affects or will affect all of humankind and our planet?