This document summarizes the key points of a presentation arguing that climate sensitivity to increased greenhouse gases is lower than estimated by previous climate models. It notes that climate models have overpredicted warming compared to actual temperature observations. It discusses the logarithmic relationship between carbon dioxide levels and temperature change, as well as evidence that climate sensitivity is on the lower end of estimates. The document concludes by arguing that concerns about extreme sea level rise are overblown based on comparisons to past interglacial periods when temperatures were higher than present.
Patrick Michaels: Lukewarming The New Climate Science that Changes Everything
2. GLOBAL LUKEWARMING
The New Climate Science that Changes Everything
Patrick J. Michaels
Director,
Center for the Study of Science,
Cato Institute
******
CEQLS, Bratislava
June 20, 2016
8. It’s not new
When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken
into account…most GCMs produce a greater mean
warming than has been observed, unless a lower
climate sensitivity is used…There is growing evidence
that increases in sulfate aerosols are partially
counteracting the [warming] due to increases in
greenhouse gases.
--Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1995
9. In science,…novelty emerges only with difficulty,
manifested by resistance, against a background
provided by expectation. Initially, only the anticipated
and the usual are experienced even under
circumstances where anomaly is later to be observed.
--Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions
13. Ben Santer to Phil Jones
10/9/2009
Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll
be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very
tempted.
26. Modelled vs. Observed Trends
Source: Michaels, P.J., and P.C. Knappenberger, 2014. Quantifying the Lack of Consistency between Climate Model
Projections and Observations of the Evolution of the Earth’s Average Surface Temperature since the Mid-20th
Century.
2014 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, December 16-19, 2014.
30. Collection of Low Equilibrium
Climate Sensitivity
Determinations
(published since 2011)
31. Flashy
“If humanity follows a Business-as-Usual
course with global warming of at least 2-3°C,
we should anticipate the likelihood of an
eventual sea level rise 22 of 25 meters ± 10
meters. It is not possible to say just how long it
would take for sea level to change, as ice
sheet disintegration begins slowly until
feedbacks are strong enough to evoke a highly
non-linear cataclysmic response...
It is my opinion that 2-3°C global warming
would likely cause a sea level rise of at least
~6 m within a century.”
NASA’ James Hansen
32. THE GREENLAND SCENARIO
--Ice flow from Greenland enhanced by meltwater
--Instead of two inches of sea-level rise from Greenland by
2100 we get 20 feet.
--Is warming there be unprecedented?
33. “Considering these different lines of evidence, a picture
begins to evolve suggesting that Arctic sea ice cover
was strongly reduced during most of the early
Holocene; there appears even to have been periods of
ice free summers in large parts of the central Arctic
Ocean.”
Ice-free Arctic Ocean in the current interglacial
Jakobsson et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, 2010.
34. “Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges
on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice
cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some
6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have
been periodically ice free.”
Ice-free Arctic Ocean in the current interglacial
-Geological Survey of Norway, Press Release, 2008
35. The Penultimate Interglacial
• 118,000 YEARS AGO WAS 6-8°C WARMER IN
SUMMER THAN 20TH
CENTURY AVERAGE (THE
EEMIAN PERIOD)
• THE THICKEST ICE IS APPROXIMATELY 11,000 FEET
IN DEPTH
• 6,000 YEARS OF THE “EEMIAN” TEMPERATURES
MAY HAVE CHANGED THE DEPTH 1,000 FEET.
36. A little math…
Dahl-Jensen (2013) Eemian ice core:
6ºC X 6,000 summers = 36,000 degree-summers
Climate Model worst case:
5ºC X 500 summers = 2,500 degree-summers
44. Randy Schekman
2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
How journals like Nature, Cell, and Science are damaging science
—London Guardian 12/10/13
46. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, January 17. 1961
Famous statement on “Military-Industrial
Complex”
In the councils of government, we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
47. Un-noticed next section:
The free university, historically the fountainhead of free
ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of
the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes
virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity…
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in
respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal
and opposite danger that public policy could itself
become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by
Federal employment, project allocations, and the power
of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.