Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 12/09/2008 9:16:36 PM PST by neverdem
The U.N.'s own observations show no warming trend, but things may still get hot and bothered in Poznan.
Ten thousand people from 86 countries have descended upon Poznan, Poland, for yet another United Nations meeting on climate change. It’s the annual confab of the nations that signed the original United Nations climate treaty in Rio in 1992. That instrument gave rise to the infamous 1996 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, easily the greatest failure in the history of environmental diplomacy.
Al Gore himself descends on Wednesday to personally bless the conclave’s work product — which, based on past history, we can be assured will range somewhere between flawed, fraudulent, and downright farcical.
Kyoto was supposed to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide below 1990 levels during the period 2008–2012. But, since it was signed, the atmospheric concentration of this putative pollutant continued to rise, pretty much at the same rate it did before Kyoto. Incidentally, even if the world had lived up to the letter of the Kyoto law, the effect on global temperature would have been too small to measure.
The purpose of the Poznan meeting is to work out some type of framework that goes “beyond Kyoto.” After completely failing in its first attempt to limit carbon dioxide emissions internationally, the U.N. will propose reductions even greater than those Kyoto required. Kyoto failed because it was too expensive. Anything “beyond” it will cost that much more, and is even less likely to succeed.
Besides, the world cannot afford any expensive climate policies now. Economic conditions are so bad that carbon-dioxide emissions — the byproduct of our commerce (not to mention our respiration) — are likely falling because of the financial chill, not the climatic one. Indeed, a permanent economic ice age would likely result from any mandated large cuts in emissions.
And, before proposing an even harsher treaty, the U.N. ought to pay attention to its own climate science. It regularly publishes temperature histories from its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was formed in the late 1980s with the express charge of finding a scientific basis for a global climate treaty.
Since Kyoto in December 1996, a very funny thing has happened to global temperatures: IPCC data clearly show that warming has stopped, even though its computer models said such a thing could not happen.
According to the IPCC, the world reached its high-temperature mark in 1998, thanks to a big “El Niño,” which is a temporary warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that occurs once or twice a decade. El Niño years are usually followed by one or two relatively cold years, as occurred in 1999 and 2000. No one knows what really causes these cycles but they have been going on sporadically for millennia.
Wait a minute. Starting an argument about global warming in 1998 is a bit unfair. After all, that’s starting off with a very hot temperature, followed by two relatively cool years.
Fine. Take those years out of the record and there’s still no statistically significant warming between 1997 and 2007. When a scientist tells you that some trend is not “significant,” he or she is saying that it cannot mathematically be distinguished from no trend whatsoever.
More importantly, there’s not going to be any significant trend for some time. Assume, magically, that temperatures begin to warm in 2009 at the rate they were warming before the mid 1990s, and that they continue to warm at that rate. The world has to warm in such a fashion through 2020 before there’s a significant trend reestablished in the data. That’s a full quarter century for any discernable trend of global warming to emerge.
That, however, is not what the U.N.’s own models show. The IPCC’s latest (2007) compendium on climate used 21 different climate models to forecast the future, and subjected each to different “storylines” (in the U.N.’s parlance) for global emissions of carbon dioxide. They are there for the world to see, on page 763 of the volume on climate science. Not one of them predicts a quarter century without warming — even under a scenario in which emissions increase more slowly than they already are.
The U.N.’s own climate models have failed barely a year after they were made public. They have demonstrated a remarkable inability to even “predict” the present. Will 10,000 people in Poznan somehow ignore this?
They shouldn’t. Instead they should be thankful. The lack of recent and future warming almost certainly means that the ultimate warming of this century is going to be quite modest. And they should keep in mind that expensive policies to fight a modest climate change will only worsen the cold snap currently affecting the global economy.
Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of the forthcoming Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know.
I think it is much cooler here in my neck of the woods, than average.
“Al Gore himself descends on Wednesday to personally bless the conclave’s work product”
Climate Pimp Algore. I’ll give him credit for one thing, he saw a great racket to get into on the ground floor.
Manbearpig bump.
Anybody got a hot air-sickness bag? I think I’m gonna puke.
Global Warming getting debunked by the data as we speak. The models are broken and basing policy on broken models is the ultimate in stupidity.
LOL...want to go back to the bronze age?
We use broken models for so many things...the key is in understanding that the models aren't perfect. In the common paraphrase of George Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
A poor calibration on a model doesn't mean it's not useful or appropriate for the decision at hand.
LOL, very funny stuff.
Right or wrong about climate change, this is a strawman argument. Kyoto was meant to reverse the upward trend in emissions among inudstrialized nations not "solve" climate change. Most of the countries that committed to Kyoto reductions have managed to grow their economies and cut emissions at the same time. The point was to change direction, not to fundamentally alter the temperature. That would take more ambitious goals. So either this guy does not understand the treaty and is therefore not bright enough to analyze science or he is intentionally trying to be misleading - (which is exactly what he claims that the people in Poznan are doing). I would go for the latter.
Depends upon your definition of 'useful' - and whether or not that definition fits within valid scientific guidelines or political ones instead.
Show me any G-8 signatory of Kyoto that has cut CO2 emissions.
Germany.
You wrote that. I answered with one country about which I was certain. What do you want from me? You could have written "except those devious Germans".
On the other hand I can point out that ALL of European G-8 have cut emissions and except for Italy they will probably meet their Kyoto targets.
Here you go:
France: -4.2% below 1990
Germany: -18% below 1990 (more than accounting for the East)
Netherlands: -8.4% Italy -4.6% below 1990 UK - 20% below 1990
Germany is still the world's largest exporter. The UK has had a booming economy. Basically your statement about hurting the American economy proves you don't believe Americans are capable of innovation. Pitiful that you have so littel confidence in your own nation. Maybe you are in part of the country that is not "real America"?
I beg to differ.
They weren’t basing policy on a bad model.
They contrived a model to justify their policy (global socialism).
And if this one fails to gain traction, they’ll look for another one.
Not to the victims of Hurricane Ike.
While the model was incorrect on exactly where landfall would be, it was useful to know that a hurricane was coming to some region of the Gulf Coast.
Good point, as an engineer I get your point (all models have error)
... but these models are beyond merely erroneous, they are the supporting arguments for a fraud and only ‘useful’ in promoting horrible public policies for a ‘threat’ that isnt really there.
Proof of fraud? Let IPCC tell us what the accuracy metrics, error bars and disqualification criteria are for these models. They cant because there arent any. They have turned hypothesis into (imagined) reality without bothering with validation and confirmation!
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