Expect lots of global warming denier screaming headline titles about a new paper on climate modeling and the press release on it from Rice University. The title of that press release:
Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
Unknown processes account for much of warming in ancient hot spell
"Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong".
OMFG!!!!
But not for the reason that the deniers will parrot this.
No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. ... "In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."
Yet again, a good piece of scientific research and analysis which raises questions about whether climate models are sufficiently robust to explain climate change and all the interacting forcing functions -- both natural and manmade. Yes, it raises questions -- meaningful questions. But, not the questions that deniers will shout from the rooftops and the sorts of implications that we should expect from Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon).
Having read the press release and the published study, the quick summary:
- The study examines a 10,000 (or so) year period (Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (about 55 million years ago)) which saw a 70% increase in carbon and applies modeling seeking to examine the impact of anything from a 50% increase (400 ppm) to a quadrupling of carbon concentrations (1000 ppm+) in a several hundred year program.
- The PETM saw a 7 degree C (13 degree F) increase in temperature over 10,000 years, roughly a 1 degree F increase in temperature every 970 years. Roughly, during the anthropocene era (modern times), there has been a 1 degree F increase in temperature over the last century. Think about this, today's warming is an order of magnitude (10 times) faster than what seems to have occurred during the PETM period some 55 million years ago.
- If anything, this suggests situation might be far worse than current models predict because a 70% increase in Co2 saw a 7 degree C increase in temperature which is well beyond anything predicted by a 70% increase in Co2 levels over pre-industrial era carbon dioxide concentrations (or roughly 450 ppm).
By the way, a brief note re the study: this is an analysis based on just one, rather simple, model, not the full range of climate models. And, the world's geography was significantly different 55 million years ago (much larger Pacific), which creates questions about the relevancy of the PETM for understanding today.
In any event, a first order conclusion from reading the published study:
And, thus, OMG!!!!
The climate models might be wrong!!!!
The situation might be far worse than they predict!
Sigh ...
This is something to be seriously fearful of. Arctic Ice is receding far faster than what scientists predicted just a few years ago. Try to find a decade ago a 'scientific consensus' predicting pine bark beetles devastating North American forests -- just wasn't there. In arena after arena, the 'scientific consensus' seems to lead to 'conservative' conclusions about the path of change in the face of human-forcing of the climate system. With the reality that the models are proving wrong, too optimistic in understating actual impacts, the calls for 80 x 50 (80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050) seem almost certainly to be inadequate against what is actually required to stabilize the climate and start bringing us back toward the overall range in which modern civilization developed and has flourished.
That more aggressive, climate-friendly path is possible -- at least technically. Watching the savaging of an already inadequate climate bill makes one wonder whether it is achievable socially and politically.
Update:
2 videos to consider:
The first to give hope ... with committed and inventive people we can change the world (and not via warming.
And, 30 years ago today, President Carter gave a speech that all Americans should read and consider ... Crisis of Confidence