There has been little or no attempt by the media to explain the actual science behind global warming. The reason for this is probably because the scientific explanation actually shows that, while the effect is real, the alarming extent of it is not backed up, and it would not hold up to scrutiny. The explanation in the link below is clear and simple.
Climate alarmists and their political hangers on want you to believe that the small amount of warming is somehow magnified by a number of knock-on effects which are far from clear and simple.
Computing has replaced bull entrails, but with no identifiable improvement in the quality of climatological prognostications
Complexity and perplexity go together like a horse and carriage, or in this case, like the climate and a modeller. When probability claims masquerade as genuine predictions about reality, and international agencies and governments promote alarmism at every opportunity, when confirmation bias distorts the search for truth, the outcome is the “climate change” hyperbole and “saving-the-planet” activism that is now disrupting every aspect of our lives.
Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
There is a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.
A temporary reprieve from a French-fry fate is possible. But hold the champagne. The world is still going to exceed1.5°C “with increasing frequency”. Unless we prostrate ourselves with more fervour at the altar of NetZero it could become permanent. Whatever happens, like Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca, we will always have Paris.
WMO’s Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas:
This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency.
A warming El Niño is “expected to develop in the coming months”. So, dear reader, mark your calendar. It will “combine with human-induced climate change” and “push global temperatures into uncharted territory”. This will have “far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared,” he said.
Have modellers so mastered the arcane art of calculating probabilities they can now conjure up such precise short-term predictions?
The WMO press release went on to claim:
There is only a 32% chance that the five-year mean will exceed the 1.5°C threshold, according to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO lead centre for such predictions.
The chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C has risen steadily since 2015, when it was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 10% chance of exceedance.
Hold it right there. There apparently is “a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.” Yet there is only a 32% chance that the global temperature over this period will exceed the 1.5°C threshold. The probability of a two-sided coin landing on heads is ½, or 50%. Interesting.
A paper published three years ago concluded:
“For the period 2017 to 2021 we predict a 38% and 10% chance, respectively, of monthly or yearly temperatures exceeding 1.5 °C, with virtually no chance of the 5-year mean being above the threshold.
“We cannot directly assess the reliability of forecasts of the probability of exceeding 1.5 °C because this event has not yet occurred in the observations.” Predicted Chance That Global Warming Will Temporarily Exceed 1.5 °C (Geophysical Research Letters, October 12, 2018)
The authors, nevertheless, wouldupdate their forecasts “every year to provide policy makers with advanced warning of the evolving probability and duration of future warming events.”
What if the planet does exceed an arbitrary number selected by UN agencies in Paris? Would the world be more afraid – or resigned – than it is today? What if the global “climate”, whatever that is, is beyond human control? Surely that’s the biggest elephant in the greenhouse.
As for the timing, cometh the hour, cometh the prediction. The WMO Global Annual to Decadal Update 2023-2027 was released just five days before the 19th session of the World Meteorological Congress began in Geneva this week. (See WMO events).
One of WMO’s top priorities is implementing the UN Early Warnings for All Initiative. On World Meteorological Day last March, the UN Secretary-General announced “a new call to action to ensure every person on Earth is protected by MHEWS (Multi-hazard early warning systems) within five years: the Early Warning Systems Initiative (EWS4ALL)”.
Too many cooks tend to spoil the broth. Perish the thought, but perhaps too many modellers are trying to predict the unpredictable: natural and climatic variability.
Not so, says the WMO: “Retrospective forecasts, or hindcasts, covering the period 1960-2018 are used to estimate forecast skill. Confidence in forecasts of global mean temperature is high since hindcasts show very high skill in all measures.” Accurately forecasting the future, however, is surely a bigger challenge than hindcasting the past.
The new update includes a section evaluating forecasts for the previous five years (page 16). A mixed bag of outcomes indeed. The “ensemble” models, for example, did not “capture” the “cold anomalies in Antarctica and eastern Asia”. And so on and so forth.
As for complexity, there’s never been any shortage of it in the CC space. According to UK Met Office: “The evolution of climate in the near term, out to a decade or two ahead, is the combination of natural climate variability and human-forced climate change. Changes in natural variability are large enough from one decade to the next to temporarily exacerbate or counter underlying anthropogenic trends [presumably assumed in model simulations].”
How the two phenomena are quantified remains a mystery, at least to me. Even after reading the World Climate Research Programme on the Grand Challenges of Near-Term Climate Prediction I am, alas, none the wiser. For some reason, they ended last year, possibly because too many experts had Covid or apocalypse fatigue syndrome. Hardly surprising, given this ambitious Concept Note.
One aspect most modellers seem to agree on is that “decadal predictions need to take into account both initial conditions of the climate system as well as the evolution of long-term forcings. (See Fig. 2 (Box 11.1) in AR5-WG1.)
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center describes their dilemma here and here:
Certain limitations, such as imperfect parameterizations and inaccurate initial conditions, introduce biases in the climate models, i.e. cause them to have differences with the observations. All models exhibit to some extent biases.
Furthermore:
at sub-seasonal to interannual time scales, climate predictability is thought to arise significantly from the knowledge of initial conditions. Initializing climate models with observationally-based estimates is a very challenging task scientifically, but also technically.
Accurate near-term predictions from climate models rely, among others, on a realistic specification of initial conditions. The problem is simple to state, but difficult to address for two reasons: (1) the observational coverage is sparse, (2) climate models “live” in their preferred state.
Such perplexity is not new. A lot of folk have had it, including the late Stephen Schneider (1945-2010). A distinguished environmental researcher at Stanford University’s Woods Institute, he was an author for four early IPCC assessment reports, a “core member” for two of them.
At the time, he was perplexed by the “significant uncertainties” that “bedevil components of the science”, “plague projections of climate change and its consequences”, and challenge the traditional scientific method of directly testing hypotheses (‘normal’ science). Schneider’s solution: to change ‘the culture of science’ by developing a language that would convey the gravity of the situation “properly” to policy makers.
As climate uncertainty was (and for me still is) so intractable — and incomprehensible to the public — Schneider introduced the rhetoric of risk management – “framing a judgement about acceptable and unacceptable risks” – and pseudo-probability. While he claimed he was “uncomfortable” with this “value judgement” approach – he was even “more uncomfortable ignoring the problems altogether because they don’t fit neatly into our paradigm of ‘objective’ falsifiable research based on already known empirical data.”
He proposed a new subjective paradigm of “surprises’ in global climate scenarios, one with “perhaps extreme outcomes or tipping points which lead to unusually rapid changes of state”; while admitting that, “by definition, very little in climate science is more uncertain than the possibility of ‘surprises’.”
According to Schneider, “despite the worry that discussions of surprises and non-linearities could be taken out of context by extreme elements in the press and NGOs [but apparently not by the IPCC], we were able to include a small section on the need for both more formal and subjective treatments of uncertainties and outright surprises in the IPCC Second Assessment Report in 1995.”
“As a result the very last sentence of the IPCC Working Group 1 1995 Summary for Policy Makers addresses the abrupt non-linearity issue. This made much more in-depth assessment in subsequent IPCC reports possible, simply by noting [that is assuming, not proving] that: ‘When rapidly forced, non-linear systems are especially subject to unexpected behaviour.”
This was a pivotal moment in the history of climate alarmism. Schneider had smuggled a Trojan horse into the IPCC, with a contrived “language for risk” inside it. It was a language derived from his personal (and the IPCC’s) “value frame” and was adopted in subsequent reports. They now had, he wrote triumphantly, “licence to pursue risk assessment of uncertain probability but high consequence possibilities in more depth; but how should we go about it?” How, indeed?
It took a long time for him to “negotiate” agreement with climate scientists on precise “numbers and words” in the Third Assessment Report cycle. “There were some people who still felt they could not apply a quantitative scale to issues that were too speculative or ‘too subjective’ for real scientists to indulge in ‘speculating on probabilities not directly measured’. One critic said: ‘Assigning confidence by group discussion, even if informed by the available evidence, was like doing seat-of-the-pants statistics over a good beer.’”
Schneider’s Royal Society essay nevertheless concluded: “Despite the large uncertainties in many parts of the climate science and policy assessments to date, uncertainty is no longer a responsible justification for delay.”
How can one argue the more uncertain a phenomenon, the greater the risk to us and the planet? Yet they did and are still doing it today.
That said, at least Schneider was sceptical about modelling. “There are many scientists who dispute that it is only humans controlling the climate thermostat,” he wrote. “Heat exchanges from the tropics to the poles, ocean currents of countless durations and size, changing amounts of heat from the sun, all operate in a chaotic non-linear manner to make climate modelling a largely fruitless, if politically necessary, activity.”
Given the vast uncertainties in both climate science and impacts estimations, we should slow down the rate at which we disturb the climate system — that is, reduce the likelihood of “imaginable conditions for surprise”. This can both buy time to understand better what may happen — a process that will take many more decades of research, at least — and to develop lower-cost decarbonization options so that the costs of mitigation can be reduced well below those that would occur if there were no policies in place to provide incentives to reduce emissions and invent cleaner alternatives. Abating the pressure on the climate system, developing alternative energy systems, and otherwise reducing our overconsumption (see Arrow et al., 2003) are the only clear “insurance policy” we have against a number of potentially dangerous irreversibilities and abrupt nonlinear events.
To deal with such questions, the policy community needs to understand both the potential for surprises and how difficult it is for integrated assessment models (IAMs) to credibly evaluate the probabilities of currently imaginable “surprises,” let alone those not currently envisioned.
As for “abrupt nonlinear events” that would “qualify as dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” use your imagination. It’s easy to find an “extreme weather event” in natural variability. They happen somewhere in the world almost every day. Bamboozling folk with data or simulations that may, or may not, describe reality can be fun too. Astrologers, readers of entrails and other prognosticators made a lucrative living from it, even when their so-called facts and predictions were “value-laden”, and riddled with confirmation bias.
Schneider again:
Whether a few generations of people demanding higher material standards of living and using the atmosphere as an unpriced sewer to more rapidly achieve such growth–oriented goals is “ethical” is a value-laden debate that will no doubt heat up as greenhouse gas builds up…and references to the “precautionary principle” will undoubtedly mark this debate.
The rest is history: the history of how dodgy “post-normal” science joined up with a pseudo-scientific “precautionary principle” to corrupt the UN, IPCC and WMO and, despite the “vast uncertainties”, ultimately created the NetZero decarbonising monster that is disrupting countries – and energy markets – everywhere on the bogus pretext of “fighting climate change”.
Alaska was once seen as a beacon of hope in the AGW coal mine: but after four cold winters in a row, culminating in a historically cold winter season in 2022-23, The Last Climate Frontier has certainly lost that status – the catastrophists will now have to look elsewhere to bolster their narrative.
According to NOAA’s data, and despite the agency’s official forecasts that consistently heralded “warmer than average” seasons, the last four winters in Alaska have shown a strong cooling trend.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is also off its rocker. It predicted a “much milder than normal winter” for 2022-23 with below average snowfall. That was wrong on both fronts. Historic snowfall totals of more than 250 cm fell across much of Alaska, and Anchorage set a new record for leftover snow that stayed on the ground well into April.
April was also a historically cold month across Alaska, with an average temperature of -8.7 degrees Celsius, which is 5.5 degrees Celsius below the multi-decadal norm and the fourth coldest April in 99 years of NOAA records.
The snow has now continued into May, tumbling even more records.
Icy polar air masses continue to dominate large parts of Australia – most recently in the west. Moreover, a continent-wide cold air outbreak from Antarctica is expected in the second half of this week.
Australia is cooling, and the proof is in measurements: For the past six years, it has been colder than average Down Under, and the list of cities that have recorded the coldest seasons since records began is growing (such as Brisbane last winter).
May 2023 continues this cooling trend, with the lowest May temperatures on record already recorded in a number of locations early in the month – including Cooma, Omeo, Bombala and Canberra. In Sydney last Sunday, the lowest temperature recorded at the start of autumn in 85 years (since 1938) was 7.1°C.
Over the weekend, it was the West’s turn to freeze.
Large parts of Western Australia just experienced the coldest May morning in at least two decades. On both Sunday and Monday morning, the temperature in Broome, for example, dropped to 11.5 °C, the lowest autumn reading since 1999.
3. May snow in Europe – even in Spain
Meteorological summer may be just around the corner, but Europe’s higher altitudes are seeing further and unusually heavy snowfall – and the media have been characteristically silent despite all their clamouring for “snowless winters”.
In the French Alps, Tignes and Les 2 Alpes received huge amounts of snow at the beginning of May, and accumulations have continued to rise since then. More recently, it was Austria’s turn to experience a late winter onset, with Hintertux, for example, reporting half a metre of new snow in the last few days alone.
4. The heavy May snow in Europe not limited to Alps
Large parts of Scandinavia have been buried in the recent off-season, as have the mountains of northern Spain, where several centimetres of snow have accumulated in recent days – following absurd MSM warmth reports of an early season heatwave.
Parts of the Iberian Peninsula have recently been hit by a polar cold snap that has led to “unusual snowfall” in La Raya, a mountainous region in the Principality of Asturias in northwestern Spain, Reuters reports.
The year 2023 has been cold and wet in the UK so far, and spring still refuses to start in mid-May.
Even mainstream meteorologists can’t explain why winter’s grim conditions are still dragging on, and are themselves shocked by “all the severe frosts we’ve had this spring”.
BBC meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker said that people approach him in the street and ask when spring will finally arrive. What have we done to deserve this cold, gloomy weather dragging on for so long?
According to Schafernaker, the answer lies in the history books, particularly the weather conditions of the 1970s and 1980s.
The BBC meteorologist actually explains it in terms of global warming: “From time to time we revert to previous weather patterns, and that’s what we’re experiencing this year … But thanks largely to climate change, temperatures have been creeping up – snow has become less frequent, and spring has occasionally brought very warm weather. And we have got used to that.”
6.Surprising May snow in the Gulmarg region of Kashmir
The Indian region of Kashmir is still experiencing wintry conditions in June.
The ski resort of Gulmarg in the Kashmir Valley continues to surprise tourists with massive snowfall and freezing cold. In Apharwat, there is still 30 cm of snow on the slopes, attracting thousands of tourists every day.
“We are experiencing a winter season in the middle of summer; I did not expect such severe cold,” said one tourist.
In May, there was a dramatic change in the weather, and the higher elevations of the Kashmir Valley saw rare off-season snowfall. Temperatures also remain well below normal, allowing the ski season to be extended all around.
7. Frost hits Europe In large parts of Europe it is freezing cold. What’s more, despite the mainstream’s cries of “No snow!”, the continent’s higher elevations have continued to receive copious amounts of late spring snow.
Much of central and eastern Europe has been exceptionally cold over the past few nights, and despite “The Science” predicting an impending devastating drought, rain has returned (in the form of heavy snowfall in the Alps and Pyrenees).
A recent Reuters article says there is little chance that the rains will address the underlying drought: “At this time of year we can only have spotty and localised storms that will not address the rainfall deficit,” said Jorge Olcina, professor of geographic analysis at the University of Alicante, a mouthpiece for the AGW and darling of the MSM.
Well, the rains are here, Olcina, and they are proving to be heavy, persistent and widespread – especially in the regions that “The Science” claims to be most concerned about: Spain, Portugal and southern France.
Getting back to the cold records: Low-lying areas of France and Germany have been experiencing frost lately, which was not in keeping with the season. In the small town of Wittingen (71 m above sea level), for example, a new May record of -1.6 °C was set. At least 16 low-lying stations across Germany, including the metropolis of Hanover, also experienced rare late frosts.
Snow is predicted for Scandinavia, the Alps and the Pyrenees into June – amazing!
8. Deadly snowstorm in Mongolia
Mongolia endured a brutal and deadly winter of 2022-23 that resulted in massive livestock losses and the suffering of 212,000 people, according to Save the Children. Now, in late spring, the country continues to be battered by deadly snowstorms.
Currently, 13 of Mongolia’s 21 provinces are experiencing a “dzud” – a natural phenomenon unique to Mongolia in which heavy snowfall and extreme cold lead to a shortage of grazing land for livestock. Between 1940 and 2015, official “dzud declarations” were made twice a decade. In recent years, however, dzuds have increased in frequency and now occur annually.
As with the increasing “cold waves” in India, the AGW party has no answer to this phenomenon.
As Xinhua reports, the return of winter in the country has also caused extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure such as roads and power lines.
The cold and snow have also killed many animals, NEMA added, contributing to the huge winter losses.
“The climate is very different from when I was a child,” Delgerbat said in early May. “When I was young, the snow had melted around this time and it was already spring, but now spring comes so late.”
Iowa Climate Science Education 