Diminishing Returns and "THE DOUBLING"

The Ecconomist which until recently had been very much in the alarmist camp in the global warming debate but has recently taken a more neutral tone, has just published a chart purported to be from the forthcoming fifth assessment IPCC report. The chart shows their projections of climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2.

This is the measure used by researchers of how much they expect the world’s average temperature to increase in response to particular increases in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to one table from the unpublished report, which was seen by The Economist, at CO2 concentrations of between 425 parts per million and 485 ppm, temperatures in 2100 would be 1.3-1.7°C above their pre-industrial levels. That seems lower than the IPCC’s previous assessment, made in 2007. Then, it thought concentrations of 445-490 ppm were likely to result in a rise in temperature of 2.0-2.4°C.

Here is the chart

 Given that the IPCC and other global warmists use 280 ppm as the "pre-industrial" level of atmospheric CO2, an actual doubling by their hypothesis will happen when CO2 reaches the 560 ppm level . So if this chart is their actual projection, a doubling of CO2 "from pre-industrial" levels will now cause a warming of between 2.0-2.4 deg C.

Note that the two figures that have been so much a part of the global warming narrative are starting to come into sink. First is the arbitrary "doubling of CO2" which has been the great Cassandra of the warmist for so many years and the more recent goal set in Copenhagen in 2009 to keep temperatures at  a two degree rise  globally. What a coincidence that once a political goal was set, the science followed.



We must however be ever mindful that according to the IPCC we have already warmed by .74 deg C due to increased CO2 levels. Therefore if their chart is correct, a doubling of CO2 will increase our temperatures an additional 1.26-1.66 deg C

This is very fortunate for the IPCC and their believers since temperatures have remained rather flat over the past decade. In order to reach their previous projections, the globe would have had to become quite feverish indeed to maintain the illusion uh trend .

What were those previous projections? Actually the IPCC spelled it out quite nicely for us in their last assessment. From AR4

3.8°C ± 0.78°C in the SAR (17 models), 3.5°C ± 0.92°C in the TAR (15 models) and in this assessment [AR4] 3.26°C ± 0.69°C (18 models).

To review, the IPCC has lowered their projections of warming in each of their assessment reports from 3.86 to 3.5 to 3.26 and if the chart above is to believed they are now lowering it again to a maximum of 2.4 deg C.

So have they lowered all the hyperbole about the consequences of their projected lower temperatures? Will a temperature increase of 2.4 deg C have the same direeffects as a temperature increase of 3.86 or even 3.26? Will Al Gore update his docu drama, will all the scientist go back and revise their endless studies on the effects of temperture increases derivied from climate models with the now out dated sensitivity figures?  Will the media retract and update all their stories on the multitude of coming disasters? I guess we will have to await the next report to see how much less the oceans are going to rise, etc due to this lessening of the doomsday gases effect upon the globe.

But here is the interesting part of this new information to me, there is math involved so watch out, and the math is ultimately what is catching up to the theory. You see, despite the fact that the temperatures the warmist have been predicting have not been keeping up with their ever changing projections, the increased CO2 has. Which ought to disprove the theory in itself, but this monster is going to die a slow and painful death.

Over the past decade atmospheric CO2 has increased, on average, by 2.1 ppm per year and of course like everything else in the climate change world, that is accelerating! But for the time being we will pretend that it is not accelerating,  we will just assume that the 2.1 ppm will be the average increase until we reach "THE DOUBLING"- sounds like a Stephen King novel doesn't it?

At 2.1 ppm a year we will reach "THE DOUBLING" sometime in 2090. In order to reach the "old" projection of  3.26 deg C minus .74 (already warmed)=2.52 deg C divided by 77(years)=.032 deg C  average increase in temperatures per year. Year in year out, year over year increases would have had to average .032  "growth" in order for their temperature projections to be correct for theier predictions on "THE DOUBLING".  Fortunately for them with the new projections  that growth curve falls considerably, 2.deg C minus .74=1.66 divided by 77 (years)= .022 deg C per year average. The new temperature projections the yearly average from almost a third of a degree per decade down to around a fifth of a degree per decade. This lessening will  make it much easier for the warmist to, with a straight face, assert that such in such is "falling in line with projections."

The problem for the warmist in either case  is that if the concentration of atmospheric CO2 does increase faster than the current trend which is likely, then the time line to "THE DOUBLING" shortens and the temperatures, in order to meet their projections, must increase per year accordingly.

The theory really has nothing at all to do with time except as it relates to atmospheric CO2. This is why  the warmist always talk about the effects of warming in calender years. Such as " September ice-free sometime during the years 2054 to 2058".  If people started comparing tempertures to CO2 levels the disconnect from the actual theory would be far more obvious. Better that the effects be somewhere "out there" in the future than having people comparing temperature to CO2, which after all is the whole foundation to the theory in the first place. If this was not the case why not just say that when we reach XXX ppm of CO2 this event will happen? They can not do that because as you see the CO2 level correlation to specific temperture projections is always changing,  the question is, is it changing due to new scientific "insights" or to cover up the fact that they have over estimated  in the past and now must lower the projections in an attempt to "hide the decline"?

To show just how bizarre and how truly unscientific this all is let's take the above recent pronouncement about the polar ice caps melting and analyze it. Using our 2.1 ppm per year average, in 45 years (2058) the atmospheric CO2 levels will be 492.5 ppm. Now was that study done using the old warming projections or the soon to be new and improved lower projections?

According to the article:

Many researchers using many models and simulations have sought to project when that might happen, as global warming projections have now made it a near certainty. In this new effort, the research team used a climate modal called Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Phase 5 is the latest version of the model, which is why the team chose to use it.

Well there you have it folks, "many researchers using many models" have used the super most neatest model to determine that the global warming projections will give us an ice free North Pole in 2054-2058. Santa needs to retire to Florida, if its not under water. Since these "many researchers" used the latest version of climate models one would assume the new model would have the new figures factored in for the lessened climate sensitivity...right? I mean if they didn't wouldn't that projection be off by a few years?

Of course it was just a few years ago that we were told that the arctic could be ice free by...last year, 2012.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?

It would appear the "worst case scenarios" of their computer models are not quite what they used to be, now are they? In fact despite the chicken little scientist sitting around playing their computer games with our emotions, money and future the better the "scenarios" seem to get, 3.86, 3.5, 3.26, 2.4,(?).  They better watch out they are on the verge of scenarioing themselves right out of a theory and a job.

 The more billions upon billions of tax dollars we throw at the problem the less the problem seems to become. Not because we have actually solved anything whatsoever, CO2 emmisions are still acceleraing after all, but simply because the problem, if you can call it that,  was never as big as originally advertised while the effects continue to grow more cataclysmic in the telling.

If  2.4 deg C is the new projection for "THE DOUBLING" and CO2 levels continue to rise at their current trend or increase, it will be simple math (it always has been) to determine if these "scientist" are really scientist at all or just charlatans out to game the public for prestige and gain. By 2023 the global average temperature should be about a fifth of a degree warmer than it is today about .22 deg C.

To put that in perspective according to satellite temperature readings since 1979  global temperatures have risen at  a.14 degrees per decade trend which goes to show how far off their previous projections of .32 per decade were. In order to meet these new reduced climate sensitivity projections, global warming will have to accelerate by 50%  more than has been the trend over the past 34 years, not to mention the virtually flat trend of the last decade. For every year it does not meet that average increase it will have to accelerate even faster to catch up.

OR

 They will have to do another assessment report and lower the sensitivity even further.

My money is on that,

 if they are still in business.