The “Planetary Emergency”

Has the IPCC implicitly called it off? Yes.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from Judy Curry. But expect AlGore to continue to be anti-science.

[Update a few minutes more later]

More from Andrew Montford:

The real story may not be in the IPCC rowback on temperature ranges, or its cack-handed “explanations” for the stalling temperatures. It may in fact all be in this table. Be sure to look for yourself. Every single catastrophic scenario bar one has a rating of “Very unlikely” or “Exceptionally unlikely” and/or has “low confidence”. The only disaster scenario that the IPCC consider at all likely in the possible lifetimes of many of us alive now is “Disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice”, which itself has a ‘likely’ rating and liable to occur by mid century with medium confidence. As the litany of climate disasters go, that’s it.

This prompted me to put a question to him, which was the first I’d been able to raise via the chair all day (I’d tried in several talks). I said to Matt:

“What the IPCC says, and what the media says it says are poles apart. Your talk is a perfect example of this. Low liklihood and low confidence for almost every nightmare scenario. Yet this isn’t reflected at all in the media. Many people here have expressed concern at the influence of climate sceptics. Wouldn’t climate scientists’ time be better spent reining in those in the media producing irresponsible, hysterical, screaming headlines?”

Tumbleweed followed for several seconds. Then Matt said:

“Not my responsibility”.

No. Of course not.

18 thoughts on “The “Planetary Emergency””

    1. The fundamental weakness of the IPCC is credibility. There’s only so much they can claim before they lose it and hence, lose the power they have. Because for decades after a bad claim, their critics would be able to point at the claim.

      I see them as an adversarial agent like a lawyer in a court trial. What they grudgingly admit which is harmful to their case is probably closer to the truth. Here, they admit that the temperature sensitivity of a doubling of carbon dioxide may be lower than they previously claimed and that the disaster scenarios may be much further off than they originally claimed.

  1. “The real story may not be in the IPCC rowback on temperature ranges,”

    So sounds like Montford agrees that temperature has been rising and the rate of increase has slowed.

      1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/

        While the evidence does support the claim that the Earth’s radiative balance hasn’t changed, the rate of this greater absorption of energy by the ocean will, on average, increase with any further increase in lower tropospheric temperatures, which should surely ensure that the rate of increase in surface temperatures will decline throughout this century.

          1. LOL, the Immaculate Convection. Whereby heat suddenly appeared in the depths, bypassing the upper layer intermediary, all within a space of a decade or two when normal ocean overturning takes centuries, and supposedly induced by increasing IR back-radiation when longwave radiation does not penetrate sea water more than a few mm at best.

            Massive flail.

          2. You have a reading comprehension problem.

            “supposedly induced by increasing IR back-radiation when longwave radiation does not penetrate sea water more than a few mm at best.”

            Ever been to the sea? Ever seen the waves? You understand that the ocean surface is in constant motion, mixing continuously?

          3. I know you won’t believe me Bart, but if you have a concrete kiln which is lit, the walls of the kiln will heat from the inside, as the heat travels deeper through the walls, each layer will warm significantly in turn, eventually the outer layers will start to warm – but, when this starts to happen, the rate of warming in the inner layers will actually have declined, it will be as if the heat has traveled from the inside of the kiln to the outside while only slightly warming the layers between.

            As I said, I know you wont believe me, so call me a liar, or call it magic.
            You believe whatever you want to believe.

          4. His: “supposedly induced by increasing IR back-radiation when longwave radiation does not penetrate sea water more than a few mm at best.” I take as a reference to the claim that IR back-radiation cannot transfer energy from the atmosphere to the ocean because IR radiation does not penetrate sea water more than a few microns.

            I’ve always been doubtful of the claim that heat can’t get from the surface to the deeper ocean inside of decades, I’d expect fluids to allow faster heat transfer than solids given that both conduction and fluid movement are in play, so why is heat transfer of around 10cm/hr hard to believe?

          5. Andrew W October 6, 2013 at 4:26 pm

            “Ever been to the sea? Ever seen the waves? You understand that the ocean surface is in constant motion, mixing continuously?”

            Again, not to the depths. THC takes centuries to overturn, not decades.

            Andrew W October 7, 2013 at 12:16 am

            “…when this starts to happen, the rate of warming in the inner layers will actually have declined, it will be as if the heat has traveled from the inside of the kiln to the outside while only slightly warming the layers between.”

            This is conduction, not convection. And, you have already conceded that the heat source has stabilized. Moreover, in this particular kiln, the inner layers never showed any warming.

            Leland October 7, 2013 at 5:35 am

            Yes.

            Andrew W October 7, 2013 at 6:22 am

            “I’ve always been doubtful of the claim that heat can’t get from the surface to the deeper ocean inside of decades, I’d expect fluids to allow faster heat transfer than solids given that both conduction and fluid movement are in play…”

            fluid movement of heat = convection. Convection is far more powerful than conduction, to the point that you can effectively ignore the latter. And, again, we are talking the oceans, which are huge. Overturning of heated waters takes centuries. And, most of that heat comes from short wave radiation, which penetrates farther than LW.

            This is a massive, flailing, Hail Mary pass to rescue AGW. Even if all of the above were not true, and the heat were somehow being teleported into the depths, there is no reason it would have started now, and not been the case all along.

  2. “Again, not to the depths. THC takes centuries to overturn, not decades.”

    Again your reading comprehension fails you, I haven’t argued that wave action stirs the ocean to any depth.

    “This is conduction, not convection.”

    And in the ocean both conduction and fluid movement transfer heat.

    And, you have already conceded that the heat source has stabilized.

    Here you even fail to comprehend your own words, the point is there continues to be a net heat source above previous levels.

    “Moreover, in this particular kiln, the inner layers never showed any warming.”

    Does one weep or laugh? Warming in the upper ocean has continued.

    fluid movement of heat = convection.

    No! Fluid movement as the result of heat = convection.
    The water in your car engine to the radiator transfers heat, that movement is not though the result of convection.

    “.. there is no reason it would have started now, and not been the case all along.

    Bizarre, you argue that it takes centuries for the heat to get to depth, I argue decades, then you try to have it both ways and argue that if it takes decades, the heating at depth should have been the case all along.

  3. “2nd law of thermodynamics”

    Only God knows how you seen the transfer of heat from warm to cold as being in breach of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

    1. Only God knows how you seen the transfer of heat from warm to cold as being in breach of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

      I guess so, since I didn’t make that claim.

      Look, you already shown a complete misunderstanding of heat transfer when you responded to Bart. You don’t even know basics. And now you are falsely attributing arguments to me. It’s obvious you don’t understand the subject. You don’t know heat transfer. You don’t even know how deep wave action goes in large bodies of water. So now you are resulting to childish arguments.

      There is no reason to accept 10cm/hr heat transfer. First, the units have nothing to do with heat transfer. Second, I presume you mean 1(heat/power unit: BTU, kW, something you don’t say) transferring at 10cm per hour; but why would that be true for all circumstances of bodies of water? Or be true even for a small population of large bodies like oceans, across the globe. The 2nd law of thermodynamics suggests you will have inefficiency in heat transfer. Such inefficiency can be measured in some systems, but there are many variables in regards to the ocean to ever come up with an efficiency measured in centimeters when talking about something like the Pacific Ocean. So not only do I buy a meaningless number with arbitrary units not related to heat transfer. I also do not believe you have the precision to measure efficiency at that level.

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