here comes the next ice age

[rightleft22]

As it concerns the debate on Climate Change I think the intent of those that oppose the idea (oppose any thought of economic disruption - fear economic change) is Omission bias
Confuse the issue so we keep on talking while avoiding any action.

The fact is having policies that aim at clean water, air, energy... (having a debate on such possible policies) can make sense on its own, environmentally and economical, without requiring a resolution to the debate on Climate Change. Those that are linking the two debates aren't being honest with themselves.

As long as we stay stuck in the Climate Change 'he said she said' debate nothing will change which is exactly what many people want

[wmLambert]

Au contraire... "...I think the intent of those that oppose the idea (oppose any thought of economic disruption - fear economic change) is Omission bias."

Ridiculous. All Climate scientist agree we are currently in an interglacial pause within an ice age. Any warming is good, to offset the loss of growing seasons and farmland to provide food. Want fact? China is buying land worldwide all around the equator to control land that may be necessary to grow food for their populations. They are doing that now, because they realize the future threat is not warming - but cooling. All those thousands of Climatic Cooling articles that documented the science on cooling was deleted by one of the Wikilinks founders, just to make his unproved opinions less precarious.  Don't ask me for links. Ask that founder.

[NobleHunter]

Thousands of links, eh? Can't find them on the Wayback Machine?

[DonaldD]

All those thousands of Climatic Cooling articles that documented the science on cooling was deleted by one of the Wikilinks founders, just to make his unproved opinions less precarious.  Don't ask me for links. Ask that founder.

Here ya go, wmLambert: The Solution

[DonaldD]

The fact is having policies that aim at clean water, air, energy... (having a debate on such possible policies) can make sense on its own, environmentally and economical, without requiring a resolution to the debate on Climate Change. Those that are linking the two debates aren't being honest with themselves.

As long as we stay stuck in the Climate Change 'he said she said' debate nothing will change which is exactly what many people want

Unfortunately, "having policies that aim at clean water, air, energy" is just another way to avoid taking action on the highest priority issues.  CO2 is a great and necessary fertilizer, and clean coal is clean energy, after all...

And I would dispute the "nothing will change" position: the vast majority of the countries in the world now have policies to reduce their carbon footprint, and this sea change has been the result of explaining climate change and pushing back on misinformation.  Sure, those policies are not as 'radical' as scientists have agreed are necessary, but change at that level is always slow.  Heck even the USA had reasonable policies prior to the current administration, and will likely return to such under the next administration.

Even in the recalcitrant USA, more than 2/3 of Americans are at least "somewhat worried" about climate change, and that number is unlikely to drop any time soon.

[rightleft22]

Ridiculous. All Climate scientist agree we are currently in an interglacial pause within an ice age. Any warming is good, to offset the loss of growing seasons and farmland to provide food. Want fact? China is buying land worldwide all around the equator to control land that may be necessary to grow food for their populations. They are doing that now, because they realize the future threat is not warming - but cooling. All those thousands of Climatic Cooling articles that documented the science on cooling was deleted by one of the Wikilinks founders, just to make his unproved opinions less precarious.  Don't ask me for links. Ask that founder.

Notice in my remark that I qualified the Climate Change deniers (globe warming or cooling would qualify as Climate Change) with their real fear of economic disruption.
My point was that as long as we stay stuck in the debate of Climate Change is it or isn't it happening... the end effect is that we will do nothing.

You do make a point in noting that China does plan for the future where in the west six months is considered long term planning

[rightleft22]

Unfortunately, "having policies that aim at clean water, air, energy" is just another way to avoid taking action on the highest priority issues.  CO2 is a great and necessary fertilizer, and clean coal is clean energy, after all...

I agree having policies doesn't always mean action.
The problem as I see it is that we can't even talk about steps to move in the direction of clean without the debate of climate change. The position of many of those that I know that deny climate change is that if its not happening we don't have to change and we can go on abusing the planet as we see fit - keep the money flowing.

Our oceans are a mess with or without climate change and we should be able to talk about that without bring up climate change.

[Seriati]

The biggest problem in arguing climate science is that it isn't settled as a matter of science - there's no experiment, there's no way to eliminate other causes.

That may be because you continue to ignore the experimental data, and the specific evidence that eliminates other causes.

No.  It's because there is no climate experiment.  I've walked this through multiple times, including on this thread. 

Point out the experimental study of the climate.  Experimentation in climate sciences is of necessity focused and tiny and not necessarily capable of being generalized to the climate as a whole. 

For instance:

• Humanity is generating measurable quantities of CO2, and emitting that CO2 into the atmosphere.
• CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing due to these human emissions (emission volumes themselves can be estimated, and human emitted CO2 has a particular signature and can be isolated from naturally occurring CO2.)
• Satellites find that less energy at CO2 wavelengths is escaping into space.
• Surface measurements of CO2 wavelength radiation is increasing.
• These changes are consistent with those expected as a result of the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

This is an experiment to which we have been subjecting the planet for decades now.

This is not an experiment. 

But it could be a proxy for an experiment, if we really understood everything connected to the climate in enough detail that we could "control" for the outside influences.  Instead you have nearly infinite uncontrolled variables.   Its observational data not experimental.  I find that when people need to generate credibility in area where there is a defect in the argument they start redefining things and misconstruing them, which is exactly what's going on there. 

And why bother?  Is it really terrible to make an argument based on observational data and admit there's some uncertainty?

The killer is that this has been brought up a number of times at Ornery, yet still we get responses from the three wise monkeys as if the examples have never been presented.  There are none so blind as those who will not see...

Me:  You have no proof that monkeys are controlling Washington.

You:  Washington is acting just like we'd expect if it were controlled by monkeys.  And look at the data, I can prove that monkeys exist, and that they will eat bananas, ergo you're a blind fool if you don't accept that my facts prove my opinion and that there's no other possible explanation of how Washington is acting in a universe that includes monkeys.

That's not to say that your argument is literally that bad, just an example of how its misstructured.  Pointing to detailed charts and studies on a related or similar topic doesn't make your central argument correct.  I think we all agree that scientists are working diligently on studying the climate, on determining the actual impacts of humans on the climate and on trying to model what's going on.  I think we all understand that they build the models based on the best understanding of the environment that they can (unless you buy into the argument that they are manipulating it for politics/academic credibility).  But they are still models.  The fact that you can kick but on Call of Duty doesn't make you a soldier, nor is a real human going to limit their responses just to what an AI will throw at you.

The models can't generate a predictive result that deviates from the assumptions we put into them.

As for the rest of that post (including "they don't know the probability on any of that") let me once again direct you to the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (2013 version this time)

Lol.  Again, they don't know the probability on any of that.  They don't actually understand the mechanisms involved to the extent that would let them know with any certainty whether there are corrective mechanisms that will reverse or undo these changes, or even over correct for them (and we know they exist from the entrances and exits into glacial periods, and even ice ages).  They are smart and they are constructing theories and trying to understand.  It would be foolish to ignore them, but ascribing them certainty is a delusional belief.

Finally, you wrote this

but wait, shouldn't we spend some of that money to detect near Earth orbit objects and redirect them?  No time for that foolishness

I really hope that this was ironic, because the other option is too sad.

That was a joke, that kind of accurately paints a picture of those on the left.  One existential crisis is useful to remake the world in a socialist image, the other not so much, ergo the first is the "real" crisis that no expense can be spared to fight and the second can be ignored.  I mean heck, if you want to get serious on existential crises, where's the funding into understanding volcanism and plate techtonics?  That Yellowstone Caldera is going to wipe out this country at some point and it'l be virtually impossible to mitigate after the fact (unlike climate change, for which we don't really know how easy it would be to mitigate after the fact.  In fact, it's entirely possible that it's cheaper and more effective to mitigate after the fact - we just don't credibly know and it seems risky to bank on it).

It's entirely possible that what we should be doing is "breaking" the climate to try and maintain a homeostasis that woudn't exist in nature. 

In the meantime if you want me to take you seriously on this, propose solutions that aren't leftist.  Tell me how you'd solve the problem and in doing so give power to the right.  If it's really a matter of life and death, surely even giving control to the other side should be worth it.

[Seriati]

As it concerns the debate on Climate Change I think the intent of those that oppose the idea (oppose any thought of economic disruption - fear economic change) is Omission bias
Confuse the issue so we keep on talking while avoiding any action.

I think that's an incorrect analysis.  I've seen zero evidence that anyone believes that harmful effects occur and is trying to avoid correcting them.  We put in place air quality controls long before we understood the risk of warming.  We put in anti-pollution controls when we understood impacts pollutants have on life without even thinking about the overall environment.

The evil mustache twirling CEO may be out there, but I doubt it.

The fact is having policies that aim at clean water, air, energy... (having a debate on such possible policies) can make sense on its own, environmentally and economical, without requiring a resolution to the debate on Climate Change. Those that are linking the two debates aren't being honest with themselves.

I agree that green makes an independent sense.  But I thin you are misconstruing who is linking the debates.  There is no mandate for fighting climate change on an International level, there's just a mandate for redistribution.  The linking of the two is solely to try and pressure first world countries into economic redistribution by targeting their passionate citizens (who've already pioneered the way into clean tech).

As long as we stay stuck in the Climate Change 'he said she said' debate nothing will change which is exactly what many people want

Who wants that exactly?  Seriously, bogey men are not out there.

Industry is already making big money from environmental action.  The right is not anti-fixing the environment, that's just propaganda.

[Seriati]

And I would dispute the "nothing will change" position: the vast majority of the countries in the world now have policies to reduce their carbon footprint, and this sea change has been the result of explaining climate change and pushing back on misinformation.

I'm not sure you know when you are spreading false information.  Outside of Europe, virtually no country in the world is on a downwards carbon trajectory.  The US is going down, but it was going higher for longer than Europe.  N.Korea is down - they switched to more nuclear and have less industry, similarly many of the former states of the USSR are down because they have less industry.  And that's kind of it, everyone else is generally sharply increasing.

Deluding yourself to think that Paris Accords where they "promised" in non-binding promises things that still increase carbon are  "reducing their carbon footprint," is just that - make believe.

Sure, those policies are not as 'radical' as scientists have agreed are necessary, but change at that level is always slow.  Heck even the USA had reasonable policies prior to the current administration, and will likely return to such under the next administration.

The US still has reasonable policies.  It's still environmental death to cut production in the cleanest factories in the world to allow "economic" redistribution to production in the worst.   But please tell us how pursuing the US cuts more policies are going to help.

Even in the recalcitrant USA, more than 2/3 of Americans are at least "somewhat worried" about climate change, and that number is unlikely to drop any time soon.

Good lord. US is one of the world leaders in carbon cutting, and is the leader in green tech development.  You laud the rest of the world where economics are ALWAYS given primacy over pollution.  It's one of those backwards thinking things the left does where they 'splain things for so long they actually come to support policies that DIRECTLY undermine the supposed goals justifying the policies.

[rightleft22]

But I thin you are misconstruing who is linking the debates.

For that just go to any article that has anything to do with a specific issue of the environment and observe the comments and watch how quickly it goes to arguing about Climate change even if the article isn't about that.

Any discussion I've ever had with a climate deniers end in the same way. You can't prove its happening, and even if you do prove its happening you can't prove human activity is having any impact on it. So shut up, no reason to *censored* with the economy. The economy being the real concern.

Watch how proud Trump is about removing regulations so dishwashers could use more water then they need to.  I know its not a real issues any company that isn't trying make their products as efficiently as possible won't last. But its the message he's sending behind the silly statement.  We can use and abuse earth's resources as we wish what matters money.

FYI talk to any hard core evangelist and climate denier they will make you cry.

Good lord. US is one of the world leaders in carbon cutting,

To clarify I'm taking about the debates. I know behind the scenes companies aren't being stupid, changes are happening. Just don't tell anyone involved in the Climate debate

[Seriati]

But I thin you are misconstruing who is linking the debates.

For that just go to any article that has anything to do with a specific issue of the environment and observe the comments and watch how quickly it goes to arguing about Climate change even if the article isn't about that.

Or one could just read any write up on climate change.  Given that the position is always a call for "urgent action" which is rarely a call for consideration of a range of responses.  Or look at any "climate change" treaty - which have little to do with the environment.   Or the green new deal which is majority not climate related.

Any discussion I've ever had with a climate deniers end in the same way. You can't prove its happening, and even if you do prove its happening you can't prove human activity is having any impact on it. So shut up, no reason to *censored* with the economy. The economy being the real concern.

So don't have discussions with climate "deniers."  That's a small group.

Watch how proud Trump is about removing regulations so dishwashers could use more water then they need to.  I know its not a real issues any company that isn't trying make their products as efficiently as possible won't last. But its the message he's sending behind the silly statement.  We can use and abuse earth's resources as we wish what matters money.

See I think the message he's sending is one that anyone that washes their own clothes or dishes understands.  The amount of water used in a modern washer often doesn't clean the clothes or dishes.  One has to wonder what the chemical load really is for washing clothes with little water and little agitation.  Doesn't it seem like maybe more water and safer soap could have a better result?  Particular if we do better on waste water treatment.

FYI talk to any hard core evangelist and climate denier they will make you cry.

Talking to anyone that has a closed mind will make your head hurt.  Doesn't matter which side their are on.  Atheists are as irrational (as a matter of logic) as hard core evangelists, and climate deniers are little worse than irrational climate activists.

[DonaldD]

This is not an experiment.

Of course it is - it's a natural experiment.  It's why I asked you what you defined as an experiment.  I expect you do not believe that plate tectonics is a thing, either.

Lol.  Again, they don't know the probability on any of that.

You don't believe them, of course.  But that doesn't mean they have have not provided probabilities for referenced attributions and ranges of effects, or that those probability ranges are in significant doubt.

That you can't understand how the previously referenced, and relatively straightforward, experiment shows how human activity is affecting the Earth's energy balance suggests that you simply aren't open to the science.

[Fenring]

This is not an experiment.

Of course it is - it's a natural experiment.  It's why I asked you what you defined as an experiment.  I expect you do not believe that plate tectonics is a thing, either.

It's important to distinguish between huge natural phenomena where really all we can do is draw data and try to make models, versus being able to run conclusive lab experiments. I don't think the standard anyone is asking for is to create an Earth-sized artificial planet, and that this is the only valid experiment. But on the other hand if the only experiments available are much smaller-scale, and necessarily not involving all the real elements that exist in the world, then the experiments can only help try to figure out the system; but they can't be said to be a solution unless a general theory emerges that, as Seriati has mentioned, has predictive power.

We have similar situations in astrophysics, where obviously we cannot go into the sun's core to really determine what makes a star go. That actually does mean that we have to be cautious about making claims that "all scientists are in agreement that nuclear fusion fuels stars." We actually do not know that! But it's the model I've heard the most that is the most supported, which is fine for now. I would be super-surprised to hear it referred to as 'settled science', even though it's what's been taught in classrooms for decades already. We really cannot conduct experiments that can really validate whether this is the case, although to be sure tons of data is always going to be compared to theoretical models of how a fusion-powered star might work. The question is always going to be - do we really understand how fusion would work in a star, or are we shaping the peg-hole to fit the only peg we have?

It is appropriate to have a leading model, even one that lacks conclusive experiments, and which contains many variables that we probably can't account for. We keep that in mind while for the time being treating the theory as valid while we work. There is no need to call anything 'settled' to employ a theoretical model. Nothing is lost, other than time, by utilizing a model that may be obsoleted (or refuted) down the line. Normally this is ok; but in the climate science arena once again the issue becomes the 10-year countdown, and the call to make huge sacrifices now based on an early model. I call it early in the sense that this field has not been around for all that long.

[DonaldD]

and that this is the only valid experiment.

No, it really isn't.  It hasn't been for geology as just one example (over which we control none of the variables, and it certainly isn't for the effects of CO2, where we actually are responsible for the input variable (although we cannot go back a re-do the experiment).

Redefining words like this for partisan reasons is not helpful.  Oh, and by the way, "lab experiments" are not actually "conclusive" either.

And of course our understanding of the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere has predictive power: we've been validating those effects for decades now. Leaving one's head in the sand in the face of evidence is not actually a reasonable position, no matter how much one pretends to be reasonable...

[Seriati]

This is not an experiment.

Of course it is - it's a natural experiment.  It's why I asked you what you defined as an experiment.  I expect you do not believe that plate tectonics is a thing, either.

That's a bizarre thing to assert.  Plate tectonics (which I referenced myself) is observational.  Do we understand much about them?  Some yes some no.

It's not a natural experiment either, there is no control and there is only one study subject (ie, N=1).  Again, you don't seem to understand what you're talking about notwithstanding that you seem entitled to be rude about it.  It is possible that we could advance to the point where we have sufficient ability to account for other factors such that we could run an open climate experiment and get a meaningful result.  For the time being though, we aren't there.  We have a deductive result based on observations.

Lol.  Again, they don't know the probability on any of that.

You don't believe them, of course.  But that doesn't mean they have have not provided probabilities for referenced attributions and ranges of effects, or that those probability ranges are in significant doubt.

Lol.  They can provide it all they want, they're speculating out their asses.  There is little "significant" doubt that their modeled projections match their modeled assumptions, there is enormous doubt that their modeled assumptions match the reality in play or that their certainty extends to reality.  Or to put another way, there are very likely no "probabilities" in what will happen, only certainties that change as events feeding into them alter.

They don't understand the existing interactions enough to make a projection, and they can't understanding the mechanisms they haven't seen operate.

That you can't understand how the previously referenced, and relatively straightforward, experiment shows how human activity is affecting the Earth's energy balance suggests that you simply aren't open to the science.

That you can't understand the difference between questioning of what the science can prove and can't prove and failing to "understand" or be open to science, shows that you  shouldn't be lecturing others on the topic.

[DonaldD]

It's not a natural experiment either, there is no control and there is only one study subject (ie, N=1).

By definition, natural experiments do not have a control.  What do you think a natural experiment is?

And if by "one study subject" you meant only a single iteration of the experiment, then this is also incorrect.  We observe the variables over separate periods of time; we continue to do so.  The results from 1990 can be compared to 1991 or 2017; the results from the 1980s can be compared to the 2000s.

[Fenring]

and that this is the only valid experiment.

No, it really isn't.

You...may want to reread my comment

Redefining words like this for partisan reasons is not helpful.  Oh, and by the way, "lab experiments" are not actually "conclusive" either.

ibid. And also I find it amusing, in a mildly galling sort of way, to be called a partisan on this issue when I'm much closer to being a pro-environment evil-corporation person than I am a 'leave industry alone' person. Although we're taking a similar tack on this one issue Seriati and I are probably very far apart in terms of our leanings in this arena. But funny that any objection is called "partisan". You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means...

[Seriati]

How about you take a look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_experiment, and in particular note the difference between a natural experiment and an observational study.

There are controls in a natural experiment, which is part of what separates it from an observational study.  Again, it seems like you're using terms without understanding what they man.

N=1 because we have one climate.  We don't have a control group.  Using different time periods is not a replacement for having more subjects.  Or to put another way a study with 50 subjects for a random variable is better than a study with a single person treating 50 weeks as separate persons.  I am not sure there's a point in this, you seem very convince of your conclusions even if not warranted.

[DonaldD]

How about you take a look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_experiment, and in particular note the difference between a natural experiment and an observational study.

There are controls in a natural experiment, which is part of what separates it from an observational study.  Again, it seems like you're using terms without understanding what they man.

Did you even read the article to which you just linked, or just not understand it?

A natural experiment is an empirical study in which individuals (or clusters of individuals) are exposed to the experimental and control conditions that are determined by nature or by other factors outside the control of the investigators. The process governing the exposures arguably resembles random assignment. Thus, natural experiments are observational studies and are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomized experiment.

There was even an example provided:

Of course, the exposure to the polluted water was not under the control of any scientist. Therefore, this exposure has been recognized as being a natural experiment.^[6][7][8]

Right there in your link - it was a natural experiment exactly because the exposure  was "not under the control of any scientist"

<edit>
Oh, and a natural experiment is, by definition, an observational study.  Observational studies may also be non-experimental, which is what you might have been thinking of.

[DonaldD]

They can provide it all they want, they're speculating out their asses.

I get it - thousands of scientists, whose full time job is the analysis of data, are all wrong and making stuff up, because Seriati, who doesn't even know what an experiment is even when linking to the actual article says so.

[Crunch]

They can provide it all they want, they're speculating out their asses.

I get it - thousands of scientists, whose full time job is the analysis of data, are all wrong and making stuff up, because Seriati, who doesn't even know what an experiment is even when linking to the actual article says so.

Appeal to authority, Lysenkoism at its finest.

There are thousands of scientists that disagrees with AGW. Why are they not accounted for in your logical fallacy?

[DonaldD]

Appeal to authority, Lysenkoism at its finest.

Don't be foolish.  Firstly, this was a response to Seriati's claim that these scientists were incorrect - pointing out what Seriati was claiming cannot be an appeal to authority in and of itself.  Secondly, appeals to authority are not necessarily fallacious when the authorities are actual experts or, as in this case, a broad scientific consensus.

[Seriati]

How about you take a look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_experiment, and in particular note the difference between a natural experiment and an observational study.

There are controls in a natural experiment, which is part of what separates it from an observational study.  Again, it seems like you're using terms without understanding what they man.

Did you even read the article to which you just linked, or just not understand it?

I am utterly fascinated when someone takes some time to read a link, only to come back with proof they didn't understand anything they read.  You missed pretty much the entire point of what a Natural Experiment is.  It's a situation where nature assigns the subjects to the "control" group and the "study" group.  It's literally a situation where some process of the environment operates to separate out subjects on the specific factor to be studied, by exposing only those subjects to the study question.

You seemed to have missed EVERY PART OF WHAT IT IS other than that it occurs in nature.

A natural experiment is an empirical study in which individuals (or clusters of individuals) are exposed to the experimental and control conditions that are determined by nature or by other factors outside the control of the investigators. The process governing the exposures arguably resembles random assignment. Thus, natural experiments are observational studies and are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomized experiment.

So you quoted, and bolded the parts that referenced control in a way that you think supports your position, and ignored the part that undermines it?  "A natural experiment is an empirical study in which individuals (or clusters of individuals) are exposed to the experimental and control conditions that are determined by nature..." 

Notice the reference to experimental and control conditions.  The part that is "out of control" is the assignment process - which is normally made through randomized selection of subjects to the groups to reduce risk of other influences.  And that's exactly the point the pieces you decided to bold explains.   

In each of the examples there is a control group that is naturally not exposed to the experimental condition (the control group) and a group that is naturally exposed (the test group). 

There was even an example provided:

Of course, the exposure to the polluted water was not under the control of any scientist. Therefore, this exposure has been recognized as being a natural experiment.^[6][7][8]

Right there in your link - it was a natural experiment exactly because the exposure  was "not under the control of any scientist"

Amazing, you managed to grab a part of a paragraph that you think backs you and somehow ignore the rest that undermines you:

In this example, Snow discovered a strong association between the use of the water from the pump, and deaths and illnesses due to cholera. Snow found that the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company, which supplied water to districts with high attack rates, obtained the water from the Thames downstream from where raw sewage was discharged into the river. By contrast, districts that were supplied water by the Lambeth Waterworks Company, which obtained water upstream from the points of sewage discharge, had low attack rates. Given the near-haphazard patchwork development of the water supply in mid-nineteenth century London, Snow viewed the developments as "an experiment...on the grandest scale."[5] Of course, the exposure to the polluted water was not under the control of any scientist. Therefore, this exposure has been recognized as being a natural experiment.

The control group was supplied with Lambeth water, the experimental groups with Southwark and Vauxhall water.  The Scientist didn't pick whose water was supplied by each company, effectively randomizing the water given to the entire population.  That's what's meant by a natural experiment - that nature allocates between the test condition and the control condition.

That has nothing to do with climate science where there is no control group, only the experimental group.   

Oh, and a natural experiment is, by definition, an observational study.  Observational studies may also be non-experimental, which is what you might have been thinking of.

Yep, natural experiments are observational (so are actually experiments by the way - or did you think no one takes the results from them), but they are distinct from other observational studies in that through nature they actual separate into control and experimental groups, which allows for causative conclusions.  Observational studies do not so allow.

So, by my read you've literally just proven you don't understand even the basic concept, notwithstanding that you brought it up.  I think your claim that climate science is a natural experiment is almost certainly false, but you've given no actual argument on that front.  Just asserting that it's "in nature" isn't remotely on point.

They can provide it all they want, they're speculating out their asses.

I get it - thousands of scientists, whose full time job is the analysis of data, are all wrong and making stuff up, because Seriati, who doesn't even know what an experiment is even when linking to the actual article says so.

I don't know what to tell you.  Do you believe fortune tellers too?

You really don't understand what a climate model is if you think it generates predictive power over calamaties with certainty.  A probability estimate is by definition a guess.  Unless you have an extensive data set showing the event's actual occurrence it's a wild ass guess.  It took weather satellites that could see the clouds and rain before weather prediction got to be worth anything, and even now it's hardly certain.  Predicting a long term climate trend is extrapolating form dark ages tech, closer to reading sheep guts than satellite data.

[/quote]

Appeal to authority, Lysenkoism at its finest.

Don't be foolish.  Firstly, this was a response to Seriati's claim that these scientists were incorrect - pointing out what Seriati was claiming cannot be an appeal to authority in and of itself.  Secondly, appeals to authority are not necessarily fallacious when the authorities are actual experts or, as in this case, a broad scientific consensus.

Lol, interesting read there on Lysenkoism.  Hadn't heard of that one.  Not sure it's really appropriate, though you may have a point on how the science gets used by the politicians, I think the scientists are honest and not the "true believers" that argue about it on message boards.  I think certain posters understand headlines better than the facts behind them, leading them to make conclusions that the scientists themselves know are not accurate.

[Crunch]

Let’s walk through this from the Scientific American, Jan 2019:

While much of the human concern about climate change focuses on its effects over land—rising air temperatures, changes in weather patterns and so on—accurate estimates of ocean warming are deeply important to scientists’ understanding of global warming. Determining how fast the oceans are warming helps scientists calculate how sensitive the planet is to greenhouse gas emissions and how quickly it may warm in the future.

“The ocean, in many ways, is the best thermometer we have for the planet,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of the new analysis.

Ok, the ocean is the thermometer. What’s it saying?

As the new review reports, multiple studies now agree that the oceans are warming at a faster rate than older estimates suggested. And these revised calculations also match up better with climate model simulations than previous estimates, giving scientists more confidence that model projections for the future are on track.

And if the models are accurate, continuing to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate could result in dire consequences for the global oceans. As the new analysis points out, models suggest that a business-as-usual climate scenario could cause nearly 1.5 degrees of ocean warming—the equivalent of nearly a foot of sea-level rise by the end of the century.

Now, this is important. They are saying the oceans will warm by 1.5C in 80 years. That’s the consensus. It’s what environmentalists believe and what they base their worldview and politics on.

Taken together, the research suggests that the oceans are heating up about 40 percent faster than previously estimated by the IPCC. Since the 1950s, studies generally suggest that the oceans have been absorbing at least 10 times as much energy annually, measured in joules, as humans consume worldwide in a year.

That’s a lot of joules, right?

The problem with that is it’s all bull*censored*. It’s impossible to heat the ocean that much. We have real ways to determine what it would take to heat the oceans with proven math and science.

In a nutshell, water takes a lot of energy to heat up, and air doesn’t contain much. In fact, on a volume/volume basis, the ratio of heat capacities is about 3300 to 1. This means that to heat 1 litre of water by 1˚C it would take 3300 litres of air that was 2˚C hotter, or 1 litre of air that was about 3300˚C hotter!

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. If you ran a cold bath and then tried to heat it by putting a dozen heaters in the room, does anyone believe that the water would ever get hot?

The problem gets even stickier when you consider the size of the ocean. Basically, there is too much water and not enough air.

The ocean contains a colossal 1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres of water! To heat it, even by a small amount, takes a staggering amount of energy. To heat it by a mere 1˚C, for example, an astonishing 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy are required.

Let’s put this amount of energy in perspective. If we all turned off all our appliances and went and lived in caves, and then devoted every coal, nuclear, gas, hydro, wind and solar power plant to just heating the ocean, it would take a breathtaking 32,000 years to heat the ocean by just this 1˚C!

In short, our influence on our climate, even if we really tried, is miniscule!

So it makes sense to ask the question – if the ocean were to be heated by ‘greenhouse warming’ of the atmosphere, how hot would the air have to get? If the entire ocean is heated by 1˚C, how much would the air have to be heated by to contain enough heat to do the job?

Well, unfortunately for every ton of water there is only a kilogram of air. Taking into account the relative heat capacities and absolute masses, we arrive at the astonishing figure of 4,000˚C.

That is, if we wanted to heat the entire ocean by 1˚C, and wanted to do it by heating the air above it, we’d have to heat the air to about 4,000˚C hotter than the water.

That’s real science, real math, real numbers. Anyone can run these calculations, everyone can repeat them. This is not some computer model guess, it’s the math and it’s 100%, undeniably, accurate based on well understood and accepted thermodynamics.

What environmentalists are claiming is going to happen is, literally, impossible. The atmosphere will never heat that much - or if it did we wouldn’t survive to care. The atmosphere, trapping heat through CO2 concentrations, will never trap enough heat to warm the oceans the 1.5 C environmentalists claim. Not in 80 years, not ever.

The only thing that can heat the oceans like this is the sun. The direct heat of a local star is what’s required to drive that much heating. It’s impossible for human activity to accomplish it.

[TheDrake]

You do realize that the ocean doesn't mix itself like a frosty mug of beer, yeah? When they measure ocean temperatures they are on the surface. They are not submerging a thermometer in the trenches. Or did you think that the ocean is the same temperature regardless of depth? 

[Fenring]

You do realize that the ocean doesn't mix itself like a frosty mug of beer, yeah? When they measure ocean temperatures they are on the surface. They are not submerging a thermometer in the trenches. Or did you think that the ocean is the same temperature regardless of depth? 

I don't know how they do these calculations, but it seems to me that if all that's measured is ocean surface temperature then that could be impacted by several factors other than just average air temperature. For instance I imagine a change in cloud cover would have a much larger impact on the surface temperature of large water bodies than a 0.1 degree change in air temperature would. Does anyone here know if or how they take this kind of thing into account when deciding that an increase in ocean temperature means that "the world" is heating up? I remember back when the ozone layer scare was going on in the 80's/90's that there was some concern for UV radiation and other effects; could a change in atmospheric dampening also affect how much of the sun's energy impacts on the ocean, and therefore change its temperature?

[TheDrake]

I was mistaken. I'll address the central idea raised when I am at a desktop computer.

Argo is an international collaboration that collects high-quality temperature and salinity profiles from the upper 2000m of the ice-free global ocean and currents from intermediate depths.

[TheDrake]

This is what I was thinking of.

These sea surface temperature maps are based on observations by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The satellite measures the temperature of the top millimeter of the ocean surface.

[Pete at Home]

”The only thing that can heat the oceans like this is the sun”

Well if this crunch thinks that global warming means a source for heat other than solar heat, no wonder he’s a disbeliever. LoL

[TheDrake]

So it makes sense to ask the question – if the ocean were to be heated by ‘greenhouse warming’ of the atmosphere, how hot would the air have to get? If the entire ocean is heated by 1˚C, how much would the air have to be heated by to contain enough heat to do the job?

Well, unfortunately for every ton of water there is only a kilogram of air. Taking into account the relative heat capacities and absolute masses, we arrive at the astonishing figure of 4,000˚C.

That is, if we wanted to heat the entire ocean by 1˚C, and wanted to do it by heating the air above it, we’d have to heat the air to about 4,000˚C hotter than the water.

Thermodynamics written in crayon. That's not how heat transfer works, for one thing. Radiant energy passes through the thin air striking the ocean's surface (and land) with heat that passes through the air largely undisturbed.

This moron is assuming that all the heat transfer is through conduction, which it most obviously is not. That's real science. You might also realize that convection is in play. The air doesn't hover over the ocean surface in steady-state.

Here's some remedial reading: 3 ways to transfer heat

The whole main concept is that heat that should radiate back into space gets reflected back to earth and gets trapped there heating things up.

I'm seriously astonished that anyone would think that this random chemist troll somehow uncovered a flaw in global warming theory with an introductory high school textbook.

Oops, I guess no graduate students figured this one out, but this Australian politician has set us straight!

[TheDeamon]

Speaking of "main stream science" starting to push back against the extremists.

Enter Nature

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

In the lead-up to the 2014 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), researchers developed four scenarios for what might happen to greenhouse-gas emissions and climate warming by 2100. They gave these scenarios a catchy title: Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). One describes a world in which global warming is kept well below 2 °C relative to pre-industrial temperatures (as nations later pledged to do under the Paris climate agreement in 2015); it is called RCP2.6. Another paints a dystopian future that is fossil-fuel intensive and excludes any climate mitigation policies, leading to nearly 5 °C of warming by the end of the century. That one is named RCP8.5.

RCP8.5 was intended to explore an unlikely high-risk future. But it has been widely used by some experts, policymakers and the media as something else entirely: as a likely ‘business as usual’ outcome. A sizeable portion of the literature on climate impacts refers to RCP8.5 as business as usual, implying that it is probable in the absence of stringent climate mitigation. The media then often amplifies this message, sometimes without communicating the nuances. This results in further confusion regarding probable emissions outcomes, because many climate researchers are not familiar with the details of these scenarios in the energy-modelling literature.

This is particularly problematic when the worst-case scenario is contrasted with the most optimistic one, especially in high-profile scholarly work. This includes studies by the IPCC, such as AR5 and last year’s special report on the impact of climate change on the ocean and cryosphere. The focus becomes the extremes, rather than the multitude of more likely pathways in between.

[Crunch]

The world ends in less than 12 years. What do we care about the temperatures 100 years from now?

[TheDeamon]

The world ends in less than 12 years. What do we care about the temperatures 100 years from now?

Only according to the RCP8.5 model, which only had a 3% chance of happening when it was initially created for the AR5. Since then, the decommissioning of many coal power plants in favor of Natural Gas, as well as several other changes in the energy sector have given that one a damn near 0% chance of happening outside of some rather extreme theories(meaning they have little scientific evidence--as per Nature no less--  to support them), even among the alarmists, happen to pan out.

[TheDeamon]

And then ultra-Liberal documentary legend Michael Moore sets his sights on the Green Energy Movement. (! hour 40 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

It was rather refreshing to see them bringing up points myself and others have been harping on for decades now. Disagree about certain other conclusions he drew (And a certain other thing he chose to ignore--Nuclear) but that's tangential to his main focus.

[DonaldD]

If nothing else moves you, we have to think about the world we're going to leave to Betty White

[Kasandra]

If nothing else moves you, we have to think about the world we're going to leave to Betty White

Yes, I want my grandkids to grow up and have a chance to see her host SNL again.

[TheDeamon]

The real brain teaser in much of this however, has to be some recent suggestions that "a warm arctic" so long as it stays within certain temperature bounds(warm enough to not freeze, but cold enough it doesn't thaw everything else on nearby land--easy enough for a salt-water environment), may actually trigger Glaciation, as it provides moisture and energy for snowstorms to accumulate on the adjoining landmass, potentially at a rate where accumulation begins to surpass meltoff(and moves the albedo closer to white). And as land isn't subject to warm ocean currents conveying heat energy from hundreds of miles away...

I'm not holding my breath on that, but I am very curious to see what happens with Solar Cycle 25 and 26. That said, if SC25 is less active than 24, and we're still regularly setting "top 10 warmest years" records in 6 to 7 years, we've probably got a problem.

Looks like SC25 is the precursor to a Grand Minimum at this point, it's being unusually quiet, even for our very sensitive instruments that puts what was used 50 years to shame, never mind the stuff from the 19th century or earlier. You basically have to go back to Maunder Minimum at this point to find anything to compare against.

But don't worry, it there is no conceivable way it could cause global cooling, so says NASA.

https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2953/there-is-no-impending-mini-ice-age/

But every so often, the Sun becomes quieter, experiencing much fewer sunspots and giving off less energy. This is called a "Grand Solar Minimum," and the last time this happened, it coincided with a period called the "Little Ice Age" (a period of extremely low solar activity from approximately AD 1650 to 1715 in the Northern Hemisphere, when a combination of cooling from volcanic aerosols and low solar activity produced lower surface temperatures).

Of course...

But how big of an effect might a Grand Solar Minimum have? In terms of climate forcing – a factor that could push the climate in a particular direction – solar scientists estimate it would be about -0.1 W/m2, the same impact of about three years of current carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration growth.

So it's not  threat because NASA says the Sun is going to change its focing impact by equivalent of -0.1 W/m2 nothing to worry about. Except the matter that their own chart shows a greater the 1 watt/meter squared variance with the Grand Minimum of the 17th Century. So obviously their own data says that there may be more coming this way than they're predicting, but they're going to pretend it's not going to get that far. After all, they have no direct observational/instrument records involving such events. 

After all, AGW is the answer to everything that's happening on earth, as NASA continues:

What does this mean? The warming caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from the human burning of fossil fuels is six times greater than the possible decades-long cooling from a prolonged Grand Solar Minimum.

Even if a Grand Solar Minimum were to last a century, global temperatures would continue to warm. Because more factors than just variations in the Sun’s output change global temperatures on Earth, the most dominant of those today being the warming coming from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

[DonaldD]

Assuming a grand minimum equivalent to the Maunder minimum of the 1600s, meaning a reduction of 0.25% of solar irradiance over the 20th century average, we would expect to see, using the largest uncertainty factor, a -0.3^oC reduction in temperature by 2100 (Feulner and Rahmstorf) as compared to modelled increases of 3.7^oC and 4.5^oC respectively for the IPCC A1B and A2 emission scenarios.

So yes, assuming a really deep grand minimum actually occurs, and using the outer bounds of the uncertainty, there could be a temporary offset of less than 10% of projected warming over the next century using the most likely emission scenarios.

[TheDeamon]

Except I'm fairly certain they're over emphasizing CO2/AGW in their models and under representing a number of other factors, including solar. It will be interesting to see what happens should things continue on the current trend line for solar activity.

[DonaldD]

But where does this certainty come from?  Is it from your full time job studying the changes to solar irradiance and their effects on climate?

The very first graph in the link you yourself provided should have at the very least made you question your certainty. As for waiting to see "what happens should things continue", we are currently experiencing the lowest solar irradiance for 100 years, and have seen a steep decline in irradiance for the past 30 years, yet the temperature trend completely diverges from the irradiance, and has been doing so for the past 80 years.  How much longer are you going to wait?

[TheDeamon]

The very first graph in the link you yourself provided should have at the very least made you question your certainty. As for waiting to see "what happens should things continue", we are currently experiencing the lowest solar irradiance for 100 years, and have seen a steep decline in irradiance for the past 30 years, yet the temperature trend completely diverges from the irradiance, and has been doing so for the past 80 years.  How much longer are you going to wait?

You see "the lowest solar irradiance in nearly 100 years" I see an abnormally active series of sunspot cycles and "abnormally high solar irradiance" which extends for a period of nearly 100 years. Most of the earth's surface is water, and the oceans absorbed a lot of extra solar energy over the past 100 years, probably on the order of say up to 0.25 watts per square meter? Energy which has been accumulated over nearly a century, and is going to have a time lag on being released back into space(this also isn't to mention impacts on land). SC24 was still more active than the (reconstructed/inferred) baseline for the 19th century, so in that respect it would still have a "net warming" effect albeit a slight one--basically just about enough to maintain the status quo.

Now their 11 year average is about on par with 1895 in terms of irradiance, but 1895 was a high point in that cycle, not a low.

If we're heading for a deep solar minimum, where what we are seeing right now is "the high end" of the range for the next century, I wouldn't be surprised to see strong cooling indicators in about 10 years. But for that to be valid, solar irradiance needs to continue to decline, if it goes back up, all bets are off.

[DonaldD]

Solar irradiance has been trending downwards for more than 70 years, and steeply downwards for 30 years, the exact opposite of the temperature trend.  Are you suggesting the resulting signal response for solar irradiance has a delay of more than 60 years?

[TheDeamon]

Solar irradiance has been trending downwards for more than 70 years, and steeply downwards for 30 years, the exact opposite of the temperature trend.  Are you suggesting the resulting signal response for solar irradiance has a delay of more than 60 years?

The concept in play here is a little abstract but not that difficult to grasp. Anybody who has spent sufficient time in the kitchen, or with a chemistry set should generally be able to appreciate it.

You have a starting temperature. In this case the "gold standard" is 19th Century temperature norms(which part of the 19th century may be another matter. Given that we have last gasp of the Little Ice Age, the Dalton Minimum, and "the Year Without a Summer" also present at the start of it.

You take note of the temperature of the item you're using in this "experiment" and use it for future references. But your item in question is rather large, and comprised of many different substances, some of which are at different temperatures, you use the temperature of one material as the proxy for the temperature of the item.

You then place the item on a burner/stove/heating element(proxy for solar irradiance), and you start to slowly increase the amount of heat energy being introduced into the object.

But parts of the object were much colder(and more energy dense)  than what you used as your reference, so it takes a long while before you really start to notice a change. (Oceans start to warm by fractions of a degree, glaciers start to melt and recede in response to that extra fraction of a watt per meter, which then lowers albedo which then accelerates the process further, etc)

You then periodically start turning the burner up, then down, then up again, before turning it down once more. But never do you turn the burner down to a point below your initial reference point. As such your experiment is showing a clear and conclusive trend -- your item keeps getting hotter! The temperature increase continues without respect to if you have the burner set on high, or on low. Because your item hasn't yet hit an equilibrium point in response to that new energy input, even on the lowest setting(which wasn't off).

Thing is, for the past 100 years, that bunsen burner(the sun) was never turned "off," it never went below the lowest setting. The item(earth) hasn't yet achieved equilibrium with the amount of energy the sun had imparting upon it, although it probably was getting close, which is why the difference between 1998 and every hot year since has been so incrementally small, even as solar irradiance started to decline(from 20th century norms, not the 19th century ones) about 15 years ago.

It has remained hot, and even managed to get a bit hotter, because the proverbial burner was still on.

With a Grand Solar Minimum now appearing to be rushing towards us, we have the very real prospect that for the next 2 to 3 solar cycles at a minimum, we may not even see typical 19th century levels of irradiance. Luckily, if the above oversimplification is right, we should have a lot of "thermal inertia" in the system that will likely take a decade, if not more, to work its way out of the Earth's system. The only immediate change you should see if solar irradiance has been driving things, is that we're probably going to stop setting temperature records after this year, although it could be a close run thing because of that same thermal inertia(which the "AGW effect" may be helping amplify in some respects, afterall, that's what the Greenhouse effect is all about, trapping heat).

As previously posted, if solar irradiance remains effectively unchanged, or starts to increase again, we'll continue setting records. IE "All bets are off."

The hard and solid "real world" test would be a continued decline in irradiance coupled with temperature stagnation followed by temperature decline within "a few years time" (up to a 10 year lag may be possible before it's detectable--if it took decades to really get started, taking decades to reverse course is in reason)

[DonaldD]

Do you ever ask yourself why you believe what you believe?  Why you believe that, as a guy who works, and spends so much time thinking about COVID-19, sheriffs, the constitution and Joe Biden, that your very rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics is just so much more thorough than literally thousands of people who have spent their careers, full time, thinking about these topics? That solar irradiance is somehow less understood by them than by someone with no education in the subject matter and who has invested, oh, dozens of hours into it?  That this low-hanging fruit never occurred to anybody else?

[TheDeamon]

That solar irradiance is somehow less understood by them than by someone with no education in the subject matter and who has invested, oh, dozens of hours into it?  That this low-hanging fruit never occurred to anybody else?

I think a great many people would be surprised at some of the things those models still continue to overlook. And you also continue to overlook that whole matter of the models consistently running on the hot side, often by very significant margins, and even trying to get them to correct predict the past is pretty dodgy at the best of times.

I'm reasonably comfortable in thinking its entirely possible that the individual fields have decent grasps of their respective expertise. Where you problem exists is in the integration of those disparate fields, and that's where dogma for the modelers will often trump subject expertise on the subject matter being modeled. Or in a number of other cases, even the subject matter experts freely acknowledge they lack sufficient understanding of the specific item in question to be able to model for it, so it is plugged in as a constant even though they know it is not. Or worse, the cause for some things are fully understood, like geothermal activity in regions of Antarctica causing significant ice losses in certain regions, but the experts the Media brings forth to talk about ice loss in the Antarctic never seem to mention it in anything more than as a passing acknowledgement before warning about AGW and how humans are melting the glaciers.

The models may be the "best we have" but it's still an instructive demonstration of GIGO, they've just happened to have a chance for their field(modeling) rise to prevalence in a time frame where their model's inherent biasing happens to appear to coincide with other events happening around it... And while there are considerable political influences also wishing to leverage what those models suggest for their own political ends and are happy to support the "science" that bolsters their cause often with "non-partisan government money" of course.

In the mean time, I'll hold onto the skeptic card for a few more years at least, and continue to enjoy watching "everything old is new again" as I get to see new studies pronounce that things which were previously predicted to have already happened by now back in the early 1990's are now being predicted as "could happen in the future" once again, as they continue to push for climate hysteria focused around 2030. Much like they did for the run-up to 2000. Funny how these things seem to running in generational patterns. Once a new generation comes around that doesn't remember when those claims were last used, the claims get pulled out of storage for an encore performance.

[fizz]

Well, actually past climate models have been quite accurate (in the limits of course of how much any model can be accurate about any future event... I posted other times how models are used by scientists and how they should be read).

From "Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections" https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085378

While climate models have grown substantially more complex than the early models examined here, the skill that early models have shown in successfully projecting future warming suggests that climate models are effectively capturing the processes driving the multidecadal evolution of GMST. While the relative simplicity of the models analyzed here renders their climate projections operationally obsolete, they may be useful tools for verifying or falsifying methods used to evaluate state‐of‐the‐art climate models. As climate model projections continue to mature, more signals are likely to emerge from the noise of natural variability and allow for the retrospective evaluation of other aspects of climate model projections.

Oh, if you go to generalist media, usually they tend to misinterpret what scientists are actually saying (seriously, never ever get your scientific information from generalist media, whatever the political brand, they simply don't get it: https://tapas.io/episode/18523), and if then you base your 'remembering the predictions' on Hollywood interpretations of the generalist media interpretation, yeah, things can get quite wonky.

But, yeah, those skeptics cards so often brandished around are starting to look more and more willful blindness to things the "skeptics" don't want to be true because they don't like the logical consequences.  And I say this as someone that *was* a skeptic on the relevance of this topic in the early '90, before really looking into it.

[Crunch]

Solar irradiance has been trending downwards for more than 70 years, and steeply downwards for 30 years, the exact opposite of the temperature trend.

We all know that’s not true. 

[fizz]

We all know that’s not true. 

Well, it's necessary to distinguish two phenomenons: solar irradiance meaning solar radiation on Earth surface, and solar irradiance meaning the total star energy output.

The terms used to describe the two things can get easily confounded, especially while reading simply the headline of an article or if the journalist writing the article do not understand much of the topic.

The first one, solar surface radiation, have been generally continuously increasing as a trend in the past 40 years, but this is actually one of the *symptoms* of AGW, not one of the causes, as solar surface radiation is regulated (apart from the sun of course) by cloud formation and aerosols in the atmosphere.
Here an article that analyze an example of this increase over Europe: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JD027418

The second one follow an 11 years cycle of increases and decreases, that, depending on the satellites used and the scientists analyzing it, showed either a general trend downward since the '80, or a slight upward trend from '80 to 2k, and a downward trend from 2k to now.
Here's an article were some scientists argue for the latter case, https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aa/2019/1214896/, but it's still not a settled matter.

Anyway, nobody is seriously arguing that at least from 2k to now the trend is not downward...

[DonaldD]

And you also continue to overlook that whole matter of the models consistently running on the hot side, often by very significant margins

I know this is an article of faith, but it is simply not true.

Even early models from the 1970s have been surprisingly consistent with observed future temperatures.

Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Projections Right

In a study accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a research team led by Zeke Hausfather of the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a systematic evaluation of the performance of past climate models. The team compared 17 increasingly sophisticated model projections of global average temperature developed between 1970 and 2007, including some originally developed by NASA, with actual changes in global temperature observed through the end of 2017. The observational temperature data came from multiple sources, including NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) time series, an estimate of global surface temperature change.

The results: 10 of the model projections closely matched observations. Moreover, after accounting for differences between modeled and actual changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other factors that drive climate, the number increased to 14. The authors found no evidence that the climate models evaluated either systematically overestimated or underestimated warming over the period of their projections.