I’m late to this party; my apologies. The primary “take home” of this report is to have emissions drive the simulations. How is this going to work? Will they simply choose a matrix of emission scenarios (low, medium, high) and proceed. Will that produce any more realistic projections? In her recent book, Judith Curry argues that the IPCC has “characterized the climate change problem [to focus] on meeting emissions targets that are arguable unachievable in the near term.” She goes on to say “the slow incremental risks of warming have been mischaracterized as urgent, leading to rapid implementation of policies that are not only costly and suboptimal, but arguably reduce societal resilience to weather and climate variability, whatever their causes.”
Dr. Curry makes a valid point that future scenarios should consider. Further, Richard Tol has argued that the first rule of any climate policy should be to do no economic harm. This is in line with the Iron Law of Climate Change. So, my questions become these: has anyone determined how “fast” we can replace coal and gas? Is it realistic to establish a political goal of “net-zero” without first truly identifying the impacts to the economy of that goal? I don’t think anyone has done this. Wouldn’t it be prudent for at least one scenario that reflects what is realistically possible to achieve? It seems to me that any plausible scenario must recognize what is achievable in the near-term, both in terms of industrial capacity and societal needs.
Hindsight is always 20-20. Does anyone else wonder what the world would be today had we not allowed Three Mile Island (“history’s only major disaster with a toll of zero dead, zero injured, and zero diseased”) to thwart nuclear power in America? Since that accident, we’ve started up plants totaling 107 GW of coal capacity. Had that capacity been nuclear, would “climate change” still be an “existential threat?”
That would be an interesting model scenario: return to 1979 and model more nuclear into the capacity mix to determine what the concentrations would be today. Foolish, yes, but interesting.
I hope the light at the end of the AR7 tunnel that you see is not the unrushing freight train of vested interests. Grant funding, tenure, political power, clicks, business income, NGO donations and not least, fame & fortune require an apocalyptic narrative. I remain skeptical .
Question. How do you model technological change? Example: Direct air capture of CO2 is currently not technically feasible & totally uneconomic at the scale needed yet they presume it will be by 2050 (in the NetZero by 2050 "plan").
Check the physics of the basic assumption in all, that increased CO2 will increase IR absorption. This is factually false, as shown in NASA Technical Memorandum 103957. This shows total absorption in the 14-16micron range, which is the only effective area for CO2.
Also, there is no scientific paper written to prove that the assumption is true.
So here we go, making huge decisions on an unproven hypothesis!
RIP RCP8.5 (&SSP5-8.5 with it) is becoming "unlikely". (Like the sun coming up in the west is becoming "unlikely".).
"..climate advocates wedded to apocalyptic messaging are not going to like a return to plausibility and may resist appropriate high-end scenarios."
Fair and diplomatic way of putting it. We expect the RCP8.5 (SSP5-8.5) Zombie will be propped up like weekend at Bernie's for as long as possible by "those crazy kids". (But nobody wants a rotting corpse wearing sunglasses and a toupee around forever.....)
Sadly (tragically?) I’m not sure the IPCC can undo the damage it has done to the credibility of the science popularizers, and therefore to most scientists who speak from well earned and honest authority.
This is hopeful that the IPCC will begin using rational scenarios, though I am skeptical that in the end the rational realists will prevail. From a geologist’s perspective, it seems rather than modeling emissions alone it would be useful to model natural climate forces as the basis of the models then overlaying emissions modeling over that. These are forces that have driven climate for literally eons so it always seemed to me that’s where everything should start.
It has also always been curious to me how heat from the earth resulting from tectonic forces are completely dismissed as a long and even short cycle climate driver. It is said there are not enough volcanoes to make a difference yet terrestrial volcanoes are not really where the majority of the heat comes from. It is in deep trenches within the 50,000 miles of the ring of fire. There are two sources of heat to warm the oceans, the sun above and earth’s heat from below. One is being completely ignored yet good evidence exists that El Niño is driven by deep ocean geothermal heating. Tectonic features on Antarctica’s western shelf creates significant heat flow, melting glaciers from below. The same in the North Atlantic. These geological events are cyclical as pressure is built and released but not enough research has been done to fully understand these events.
James E Kamis. Has spent years working on his theory of Plate Climatology. When I first came across his work it mirrored what I had been thinking for quite some time but never put into words. He has a new book “Climate Impacts on Climate” quite interesting read. Many of the ideas have merit but getting research money that could confirm or refute the theory is problematic in the current environment.
Very informative piece. And good news. One question:
The relation in the graph between CO2 emissions and Global Mean Temperature Increase during this century looks fairly linear. But my layman's understanding is that it's logarithmic. Why the difference?
I’m late to this party; my apologies. The primary “take home” of this report is to have emissions drive the simulations. How is this going to work? Will they simply choose a matrix of emission scenarios (low, medium, high) and proceed. Will that produce any more realistic projections? In her recent book, Judith Curry argues that the IPCC has “characterized the climate change problem [to focus] on meeting emissions targets that are arguable unachievable in the near term.” She goes on to say “the slow incremental risks of warming have been mischaracterized as urgent, leading to rapid implementation of policies that are not only costly and suboptimal, but arguably reduce societal resilience to weather and climate variability, whatever their causes.”
Dr. Curry makes a valid point that future scenarios should consider. Further, Richard Tol has argued that the first rule of any climate policy should be to do no economic harm. This is in line with the Iron Law of Climate Change. So, my questions become these: has anyone determined how “fast” we can replace coal and gas? Is it realistic to establish a political goal of “net-zero” without first truly identifying the impacts to the economy of that goal? I don’t think anyone has done this. Wouldn’t it be prudent for at least one scenario that reflects what is realistically possible to achieve? It seems to me that any plausible scenario must recognize what is achievable in the near-term, both in terms of industrial capacity and societal needs.
Hindsight is always 20-20. Does anyone else wonder what the world would be today had we not allowed Three Mile Island (“history’s only major disaster with a toll of zero dead, zero injured, and zero diseased”) to thwart nuclear power in America? Since that accident, we’ve started up plants totaling 107 GW of coal capacity. Had that capacity been nuclear, would “climate change” still be an “existential threat?”
That would be an interesting model scenario: return to 1979 and model more nuclear into the capacity mix to determine what the concentrations would be today. Foolish, yes, but interesting.
I have it on good authority (internet climate alarm trolls) that there is no issue in the science and that the models are tracking accurately.
Are you saying here that the IPCC itself is starting to finally admit that is not the case?
I’m shocked to be Frank. I thought averaging the output of dozens of models with widely disparate outcomes was how science is done.
Nice post.
I hope the light at the end of the AR7 tunnel that you see is not the unrushing freight train of vested interests. Grant funding, tenure, political power, clicks, business income, NGO donations and not least, fame & fortune require an apocalyptic narrative. I remain skeptical .
Question. How do you model technological change? Example: Direct air capture of CO2 is currently not technically feasible & totally uneconomic at the scale needed yet they presume it will be by 2050 (in the NetZero by 2050 "plan").
Check the physics of the basic assumption in all, that increased CO2 will increase IR absorption. This is factually false, as shown in NASA Technical Memorandum 103957. This shows total absorption in the 14-16micron range, which is the only effective area for CO2.
Also, there is no scientific paper written to prove that the assumption is true.
So here we go, making huge decisions on an unproven hypothesis!
RIP RCP8.5 (&SSP5-8.5 with it) is becoming "unlikely". (Like the sun coming up in the west is becoming "unlikely".).
"..climate advocates wedded to apocalyptic messaging are not going to like a return to plausibility and may resist appropriate high-end scenarios."
Fair and diplomatic way of putting it. We expect the RCP8.5 (SSP5-8.5) Zombie will be propped up like weekend at Bernie's for as long as possible by "those crazy kids". (But nobody wants a rotting corpse wearing sunglasses and a toupee around forever.....)
Were you invited to participate in the workshop? Given your recent work in this area I would think it would be a no brainer.
Do "higher ups" get to provide political overlays?
Count me as hopeful but skeptical.
Sadly (tragically?) I’m not sure the IPCC can undo the damage it has done to the credibility of the science popularizers, and therefore to most scientists who speak from well earned and honest authority.
This is hopeful that the IPCC will begin using rational scenarios, though I am skeptical that in the end the rational realists will prevail. From a geologist’s perspective, it seems rather than modeling emissions alone it would be useful to model natural climate forces as the basis of the models then overlaying emissions modeling over that. These are forces that have driven climate for literally eons so it always seemed to me that’s where everything should start.
It has also always been curious to me how heat from the earth resulting from tectonic forces are completely dismissed as a long and even short cycle climate driver. It is said there are not enough volcanoes to make a difference yet terrestrial volcanoes are not really where the majority of the heat comes from. It is in deep trenches within the 50,000 miles of the ring of fire. There are two sources of heat to warm the oceans, the sun above and earth’s heat from below. One is being completely ignored yet good evidence exists that El Niño is driven by deep ocean geothermal heating. Tectonic features on Antarctica’s western shelf creates significant heat flow, melting glaciers from below. The same in the North Atlantic. These geological events are cyclical as pressure is built and released but not enough research has been done to fully understand these events.
James E Kamis. Has spent years working on his theory of Plate Climatology. When I first came across his work it mirrored what I had been thinking for quite some time but never put into words. He has a new book “Climate Impacts on Climate” quite interesting read. Many of the ideas have merit but getting research money that could confirm or refute the theory is problematic in the current environment.
Very informative piece. And good news. One question:
The relation in the graph between CO2 emissions and Global Mean Temperature Increase during this century looks fairly linear. But my layman's understanding is that it's logarithmic. Why the difference?
I remain skeptical that this will affect much of the hysteria…
This is fantastic news.
Restores a little bit of hope in the integrity of the scientific process, even close to decision-makers.