# Leaked IPCC report: 90% confidence in AGW is now 95% -- and sea level will rise! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 23, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002 "2013-08-23T20:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/421 "2013-09-27T00:04:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So now we’re quoting ThinkProgress instead of the IPCC? And I note that the chart in that link suggests that the IPCC is now considered conservative as compared to ‘most informed opinion’? I can remember a time when you cited the IPCC as the unimpeachable source of information. Now that they’re backing off the more extreme predictions and their median models don’t look so scary, they’ve become passe’. I wonder how long it will be before they become tools of the right wing? Maybe you can find a Koch brothers influence in there somewhere. And here you show to all that you did not read the thread, I already mentioned that the IPCC is conservative, the overall point remains that most contrarians still call what the IPCC does is “alarmism” > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And I find the notion that we can stabilize CO2 at 350ppm for .12% of GDP growth to be laughable, since we haven’t even figured out what a workable framework for CO2 reduction would look like, and we can’t get the worst offenders to even come to the table for negotiations. And the notion that global macroeconomics can be predicted with that kind of accuracy is laughable. Get back to me when macroeconomists can predict the effect of policy changes in a single country within 1-2% of GDP. Sure, just tell everyone that there is no solution, actually we had this conversation before and your FUD remains the same. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m not talking about the scientists, but about the presentation of their material to the public. For example, in the past the IPCC’s ‘guidelines for policy makers’ made claims that weren’t supported by the science in their own report. The actual scientists are more careful. The bureaucrats with an agenda - not so much. Cite for that? This should be good, because as it is painfully clear you are still ignoring the huge bias your sources of information have against any solutions. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So you’re agreeing with me that politicization of the debate is affecting the science? Just disagreeing on which direction it’s being pushed? Yep, and where that push and spin is coming from are… the same sources you rely on. One of the larger points I make when climate change pops up is that this also shows clear evidence that, besides the usual big media suspects from the right, the mainstream demonstrates to all that it is not liberal (as most of the sources you rely on also tell you). > **[TV Media Ignore Climate Change In Coverage Of Record July Heat](https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/tv-media-ignore-climate-change-coverage-record-july-heat)** > > Scientists say that human-induced climate change made this year's record heat more likely, and project that extreme heat will become more common in the United States. But a Media Matters analysis of media coverage of record-breaking heat in July... As I noticed, it is mostly MSNBC the one that I have noticed one could point as being liberal nowadays. > **[Media Fails Again On Climate Change Coverage During Massive Heat Waves](https://www.desmog.com/2012/08/15/media-fails-again-climate-change-coverage-during-massive-heat-waves/)** > > North America just witnessed the hottest month in the history of record keeping (about 117 years). The month of July shattered every previous record, but was certainly not a freak occurrence. So far, the first 7 months of this year have been the... > [@](#): > > But this isn’t the first time that the media has failed in their coverage of climate and environment-related events. In January of this year, Media Matters put together a report showing that media outlets were almost twice as likely to host Keystone XL proponents in their coverage of that issue. A report from the organization last year also showed that climate skeptics and anti-EPA carpers were more likely to receive airtime than those who acknowledge climate change science and support strong environmental safeguards. > > The poor media coverage could be the main reason why American voters don’t believe that climate and environment issues are important in this year’s elections, with only 21% saying that combatting climate change is important to them. Canadians, on the other hand, have clearly learned more than Americans simply by observation, as a new poll shows that only 2% of Canadians believe that climate change is a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/422 "2013-09-27T00:17:23Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The ocean heating hypothesis is just that: A _hypothesis_. Scientists are still looking for the data to confirm it. And even if it’s been around a long time, that doesn’t preclude the possibility that it was seized upon as an explanation while other explanations that do not conform to the warming theory are ignored, or at least that not as much effort is being put into finding them. > **[Why ocean heat can’t drive climate change, only chase it](https://skepticalscience.com/ocean-and-global-warming-intermediate.htm)** > > \Oceans are warming across the globe. In fact, globally oceans are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 x 10\21\ Joules per year - equivalent to 127,000 nuclear plants (which have an average output of 1 gigawatt) pouring their energy... > [@](#): > > What the science says… > > Oceans are warming across the globe. In fact, globally oceans are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 x 1021 Joules per year - equivalent to 127,000 nuclear plants (which have an average output of 1 gigawatt) pouring their energy directly into the world’s oceans. This tells us the planet is in energy imbalance - more energy is coming in than radiating back out to space. > [@](#): > > Other studies > > In fact, ocean observations confirm both global warming and its cause. Barnett 2007 compares observations of ocean temperatures to results from the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) and finds “model-produced signals are indistinguishable from the observations”. This suggests “the observed ocean heat-content changes are consistent with those expected from anthropogenic forcing, which broadens the basis for claims that an anthropogenic signal has been detected in the global climate system.” Let me guess, same sources you rely on told you that they are still looking for the data? I would not be surprised that in many cases what we have is contrarian reports spinning good science to claim the opposite of what the scientists report to fool many into the FUD. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Selection bias and publication bias are real things, and they happen all the time. They’re also insidious and good scientists can fall prey to it. I’m not saying that’s what’s happened in this case, but that the conditions around the debate are such that the risk is high so we have to be careful. Again, after more than 100 years of this and seeing that most of your points depend on ignorance, the ones I made stand; the contrarian sources of information are the ones that have made an industry of their selection bias, it is way pass the time that we all should ignore them and demand our elected leaders to stop using them to come with no solutions at all. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/423 "2013-09-27T00:59:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > That’s a reasonable point. But the fact remains that when you look at who is on the side of ‘science’ here, it’s almost wholly the people who believe the science is pushing for policy changes that they already wanted long before they heard of global warming. Taxing energy, redistributing wealth, more government control of industry and behavior, more power to extranational organizations, etc. And the people opposed are generally made up of people who are opposed to those types of regulations and institutions. The science itself is caught in the middle of a larger political battle. That’s the point I was really trying to make. . . . Well, back atcha: yes, that is a reasonable point. However, it is an indictment of politics, not of science. You can say, “The scientists are pushing for expensive and unpopular reforms, and we should resist these changes” is valid. To say “…therefore the climate isn’t really changing” is invalid. Yet this is a major part of the dissent from the reforms being recommended. “It would cost too much money to cut back on emissions…therefore the glaciers are melting because of natural causes, not man-made causes.” That’s hellishly illogical…and yet it is a significant part of the dissent. I’m not accusing you specifically; you didn’t construct that syllogism. But it has been thrown out there. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/424 "2013-09-27T08:14:24Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > It’s because its a noisy system. Why did you use 1998 as cut point? The answer it that that particular point was at the peak of the[strongest el nino of the 20th century](http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/warming_world), it was an anomalously high temperature. Back around 1998, for the most part warmists were NOT claiming that the temperature was anomalously high. i.e. for the most part it was treated as confirming evidence of their hypothesis. Anyway, how can you be so confident in the “noisy system” hypothesis and so dismissive of the “global warming has been exaggerated” hypothesis? Looks to me like you are epicycling. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/425 "2013-09-27T13:38:28Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Back around 1998, for the most part warmists were NOT claiming that the temperature was anomalously high. i.e. for the most part it was treated as confirming evidence of their hypothesis. > > Anyway, how can you be so confident in the “noisy system” hypothesis and so dismissive of the “global warming has been exaggerated” hypothesis? > > Looks to me like you are epicycling. And another one that ignores the 70s when convenient. Suffice to say that back then an even longer slowdown was taken by popular media to be a sign that an ice age was coming, in reality most scientists reported that warming was coming. Just another example of cherrypicking to make a lousy contrarian point. > **[Double Standard](https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/double-standard/)** > > Since 1975, global average surface air temperature has increased at a rate of 0.17 deg.C/decade (estimated by linear regression using either the NASA GISS or HadCRUT4 data sets). But the rate of in… > [@](#): > > Just a few years ago, when Rahmstorf et al. (2007) compared climate observations to computer model projections, they noticed the faster-than-expected warming leading up to 2006. It was faster than expected and faster than projected by those dreaded “computer models” used by the IPCC. According to the data, global average surface temperature was on a “mad dash” to extreme heat. > > How did these evil denizens of global warming react? Did they use that result to push world government based on socialism, so that they could destroy our economy by taxing the super-rich out of some of their hardly-earned riches? Did they run screaming through the streets yelling about how we’re all going to suffer spontaneous combustion by the year 2100? > > No. Instead, they attempted to understand the result. > > And what explanation, some bunnies may wonder, crossed their minds first? What was their first instinct regarding how this mad dash of global warming might have come about? This: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > The first candidate reason is intrinsic variability within the climate system. > > > > ``` > > Wow. When the data indicated surface warming faster than expected, the first explanation offered by those greedy bastards was natural variation. > [@](#): > > Isn’t that what Willard Tony would say? Maybe not — maybe he wouldn’t blame the extra-fast warming on natural variability at all, he’d just claim that the temperature record isn’t reliable. If it shows extra-fast warming, that is — when the temperature record shows extra-slow warming it’s scientific proof. > > It’s kinda like the changes in Arctic sea ice. When it takes a nose-dive like in 2007 and again in 2012, that gets blamed on “weather.” But when it makes an up-tick like 2013 — recovery!!! > > I think I finally understand the Aunt Judy/Willard Tony approach to science. When data says we have a problem, either it’s just “natural variability,” or the data are either faulty or fraudulent. But whenever data says we don’t have a problem — even if it’s just a single year’s data — voila! Scientific proof. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/426 "2013-09-27T13:56:48Z")
1998 not mentioned even once. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/427 "2013-09-27T14:07:02Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > 1998 not mentioned even once. Because it was pointed many times before that it was a strawman too, scientists reported how natural variability was a big factor for 1998 to be that warm. > **['Global warming stopped in 1998'--Only if you flagrantly cherry pick](https://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-stopped-in-1998/)** > > (Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide) Objection: Global temperatures have been trending down since 1998. Global warming is over. Answer: At the time, 1998 was a record high year in both the CRU and the NASA GISS analyses. In... > [@](#): > > At the time, 1998 was a record high year in both the CRU and the NASA GISS analyses. In fact, it blew away the previous record by .2 degrees C. (That previous record went all the way back to 1997, by the way!) > > According to NASA, it was elevated far above the trend line because 1998 was the year of the strongest El Nino of the century. Choosing that year as a starting point is a classic cherry pick and demonstrates why it is necessary to remove chaotic year-to year-variability (aka: weather) by smoothing out the data. Looking at CRU’s graph below, you can see the result of that smoothing in black. Gee, what an evil thing to do, a data point that would benefit the “alarmists” was actually minimized by the “greedy” scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/428 "2013-09-27T17:15:35Z")
So 1995 is ok? What’s the non-Niña non–big-volcano year that is ok? ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/429 "2013-09-27T17:38:21Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Back around 1998, for the most part warmists were NOT claiming that the temperature was anomalously high. i.e. for the most part it was treated as confirming evidence of their hypothesis. > > Anyway, how can you be so confident in the “noisy system” hypothesis and so dismissive of the “global warming has been exaggerated” hypothesis? True dat. 1998 went from “the final proof on AGW the super-mega-hot year on all the world!!!11!” to “cherry-picked nonsense by oil shills” > [@](#): > > **Looks to me like you are epicycling**. I’m gonna print that quote on a t-shirt ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/430 "2013-09-27T18:41:27Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > So 1995 is ok? > What’s the non-Niña non–big-volcano year that is ok? As the escalator graph points out, you have to take many years into consideration, > **[The Escalator](https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47)** > > Examines the science and arguments of global warming skepticism. Common objections like 'global warming is caused by the sun', 'temperature has changed naturally in the past' or 'other planets are warming too' are examined to see what the science... And related to this, it is clear you never want to explain why is it that all previous La Niña years, that are the coldest years in the cycles, are getting warmer. > **[2011: World’s 10th warmest year, warmest year with La Niña event, lowest...](https://skepticalscience.com/2011-Global-Climate-Status_WMO.html)** > > The following is a reprint of a news release isssued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Nov 29, 2011, with a few minor additions by Skeptical Science. BTW an epicycle is an astronomical and mathematical term, I guess it is better than the denier republican politicians in one state that proclaimed that there was an \*\*astrological \*\*reason for the warming. [http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/02/25/205564/south-dakota-legislators-tell-schools-to-teach-‘astrological’-explanation-for-global-warming/](http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/02/25/205564/south-dakota-legislators-tell-schools-to-teach-%E2%80%98astrological%E2%80%99-explanation-for-global-warming/) ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/431 "2013-09-27T21:02:12Z")
GIGObuster, you have the patience of Job. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/432 "2013-09-27T21:32:26Z")
And the faith as well. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/433 "2013-09-27T21:54:52Z")
As pointed before, when contrarians reach for the “you follow religion” point, it only shows that they don’t have any good points left, no easy pickings left too. [http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/02/10/207497/charles-krauthammer-global-warming-is-a-religion-gore/](http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/02/10/207497/charles-krauthammer-global-warming-is-a-religion-gore/) > [@](#): > > That would be Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who like his colleague George Will, is a climate science denier. Of course, it is Krauthammer and Will whose denial can never be falsified because it isn’t actually based on science, but rather ideology (see Krauthammer: The real reason conservatives don’t believe in climate science and below). > > The scientific literature is clear that indeed global warming will cause more snow “” especially in warm years (see “An amazing, though clearly little-known, scientific fact: We get more snow storms in warm years!“). Indeed, \*\*the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) U.S. Climate Impacts Report from 2009 reviewed that literature and concluded: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > Cold-season storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent. > > > > ``` > > But because Krauthammer doesn’t have the most basic understanding of climate science — more warming means more water vapor in the atmosphere available for more intense storms — he not only labels all of climate science a religion, he falls victim to the full Gore Derangement Syndrome that has infected conservatives like they’re in some sort of zombie apocalypse\*\* (see Stop the madness: Mark Kirk, a U.S. Senator, blames his climate flip-flop on “¦ Al Gore’s personal life). And thank you for that compliment **BlackKnight**. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/434 "2013-09-28T04:02:59Z")
What’s the non-Niña non–big-volcano year that is ok? (BTW, the answer is a four-digit number, not unrelated quotes or even fully-related ones) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/435 "2013-09-28T04:28:11Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > What’s the non-Niña non–big-volcano year that is ok? > > (BTW, the answer is a four-digit number, not unrelated quotes or even fully-related ones) Ok for what? > **[Did global warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?](https://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008-intermediate.htm)** > > \2007's dramatic cooling is driven by strong La Nina conditions which historically has caused similar drops in global temperature. It is also exacerbated by unusually low solar activity.\ > [@](#): > > Did global warming stop in [del]1998[/del], [del]1995[/del], [del]2002[/del], [del]2007[/del], [del]2010[/del]? > [@](#): > > The flaw in this interpretation is in drawing conclusions about long term climate change over a relatively short period of time. Only over a period of decades can you confidently discern climate trends. Otherwise, you run the danger of mistaking weather for climate. > > Nevertheless, several important questions remain - what’s caused the warming of global surface temperatures to slow in the short-term? > Solar Minimum > > The general consensus among skeptic blogs is that diminished solar activity is the cause. The sun is currently at solar minimum - cycle 23 just ended and cycle 24 is having trouble kicking along. It’s as cool as it gets in the solar cycle. > > However, a temperature drop of 0.6°C would require a dramatic reduction in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). According to theoretical calculations at Atmoz, TSI would need to fall to 1347.65 W/m2 to produce a global cooling of 0.6°C. In other words, 13 W/m2 less than current levels. This is ludicrously large considering the solar cycle varies only around 1.3 W/m2. > > Alternatively, Camp 2007 adopts an empirical approach to calculate solar influence on global temperature. He determines the solar cycle contributes 0.18°C cooling to global temperatures as the sun moves from maximum to minimum. Employing back of a napkin calculations, TSI would need to fall roughly 4.3 W/m2 to provide 0.6°C of cooling. > > Either way, TSI needs to drop considerably to be considered the driver of 2007 cooling. So what has the sun been doing over the last few years? > Figure 1: TSI Composite and Sunspot Numbers (graph courtesy Greg Kopp). > > Satellite measurements show no dramatic drop in TSI over the past several years. Instead, the solar cycle is following its usual 11 year cycle, flattening out as it reaches solar minimum. So if not the sun, what’s causing the cooling? > La Niña > > Currently, the Pacific Ocean is in a La Niña phase. During La Niña, cold waters upwell to cool large areas of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This has the effect of cooling the atmosphere. During the La Niña episode of 1999, global temperatures dropped around 0.5°C. > > The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is a measure of La Niña. Positive SOI corresponds to a La Niña phase. In 2006, the Pacific Ocean was in El Niño phase (negative SOI). However, in late 2006, El Niño subsided and in mid 2007, crossed into La Niña phase. La Niña peaked around January 2008 and is the strongest La Niña since 1999. In the Eastern Pacific, sea-surface temperatures are about two degrees colder than normal over an area the size of the United States. > Figure 2: Southern Oscillation Index (graph courtesy bom.giv.au). > > In fact there was a preponderance of El Niño events in the 1990s and a preponderance of La Niña events since 2000. If we just look at the surface warming trend for El Niño years, for La Niña years, and for neutral years, in each case the trend is very consistent (Figure 3). > > ENSO temps > > Figure 3: NOAA annual global surface temperatures from 1968 through 2012 with La Niña years in blue, El Niño years in red, ENSO neutral years in black, and volcanic years as orange triangles. Linear trends for 1968–2012 for each of the three categories (excluding volcanic years) are shown in the final frame. > Signal vs. Noise > > Ultimately arguments that global warming has magically stopped are based on a failure to differentiate between short-term noise and long-term global warming signal (Figure 4). ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/436 "2013-09-28T04:36:44Z")
Since it’s been mentioned several times in several AGW threads that 1998 is a evil-oil-shill-denier-of-death cherry picked year to show the obviously non-existant pause I wonder, for the third time on this thread I ask: **What’s the non-Niña, non-big-volcano year that is OK?** (i.e., the year that would show that temperatures have not increased or have decreased from THAT year to now and that would not be considered cherry-picked) \*\* (BTW, the answer is a four-digit number, not unrelated quotes or even fully-related ones)\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/437 "2013-09-28T05:01:12Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > . . . The general consensus among skeptic blogs is that diminished solar activity is the cause. . . . Isn’t the sun’s energy (as it hits the earth’s surface) directly measurable? If the sun were suddenly dimmed, even by a fraction of a per cent, wouldn’t that be seen, directly and immediately, by any of a hundred solar observatories? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/438 "2013-09-28T05:32:54Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Since it’s been mentioned several times in several AGW threads that 1998 is a evil-oil-shill-denier-of-death cherry picked year to show the obviously non-existant pause I wonder, for the third time on this thread I ask: > > **What’s the non-Niña, non-big-volcano year that is OK?** (i.e., the year that would show that temperatures have not increased or have decreased from THAT year to now and that would not be considered cherry-picked) > \*\* > (BTW, the answer is a four-digit number, not unrelated quotes or even fully-related ones)\*\* Have you ever heard of “it takes two to tango”? Well more than two years are used, and no, no serious researcher picks a year and calls it a day. 😉 Besides being folly to stick to one \*\*recent \*\*year to get what you want, what climate scientists look for is the long term trend, of course the contrarian media wants to ignore what H. L. Mencken said: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” One of the things I learned is that there are also calculations made of where the temperature would be if there was no human made CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere, as many past skeptics that looked at the evidence and got convinced can tell you, we should also had seen temperatures reaching the levels seen in the 50s [![](https://skepticalscience.com/pics/KnuttiAttributionGraph.png) ](https://skepticalscience.com/pics/KnuttiAttributionGraph.png) Instead, the surface “pause” seen recently remains higher than all the temperatures from the past decades. And when one adds the ocean heat, it is really fishy to tell others that the warming has stopped. This issue of the quest for an specific surface reading in a year to dismiss the whole thing is a red herring. You are only repeating the same non-experiment that the entertainment media attempted to do in the 60s-70s during the long pause of those days, again, a super majority of the papers published then predicted that warming was going to come or continue. Today the climate scientists report that it is really foolish to be complacent in the current “pause” that is happening mostly in the surface. And they are telling us that with the help of better tools and resources than when they started reporting about this more than 100 years ago. > **[RealClimate: Frontpage](https://www.realclimate.org/)** > > RealClimate:Climate science from climate scientists... > [@](#): > > The new IPCC climate report > > The time has come: the new IPCC report is here! After several years of work by over 800 scientists from around the world, and after days of extensive discussion at the IPCC plenary meeting in Stockholm, the Summary for Policymakers was formally adopted at 5 o’clock this morning. Congratulations to all the colleagues who were there and worked night shifts. The full text of the report will be available online beginning of next week. Realclimate summarizes the key findings and shows the most interesting graphs. > > Global warming > > It is now considered even more certain (\> 95%) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Natural internal variability and natural external forcings (eg the sun) have contributed virtually nothing to the warming since 1950 – the share of these factors was narrowed down by IPCC to ± 0.1 degrees. The measured temperature evolution is shown in the following graph. > > Figure 1 The measured global temperature curve from several data sets. Top: annual values. ​​Bottom: averaged values ​​over a decade. > > Those who have these data before their eyes can recognize immediately how misguided the big media attention for the “wiggles” of the curves towards the end has been. Short-term variations like this have always existed, and they always will. These are mostly random, they are (at least so far) not predictable, and the IPCC has never claimed to be able to make predictions for short periods of 10-15 years, precisely because these are dominated by such natural variations. > > The last 30 years were probably the warmest since at least 1,400 years. This is a result from improved proxy data. In the 3rd IPCC report this could only be said about the last thousand years, in the 4th about the last 1,300 years. > > The future warming by 2100 – with comparable emission scenarios – is about the same as in the previous report. For the highest scenario, the best-estimate warming by 2100 is still 4 °C (see the following chart). ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/439 "2013-09-28T06:45:35Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Isn’t the sun’s energy (as it hits the earth’s surface) directly measurable? Of course. And it changes depending on where you are, when it is, what the clouds are like, air pollution, and of course with the seasons. From the surface of the earth there is no way to measure all the sun’s energy, as even with clear air and no clouds, most of the energy never makes it anywhere close to ground level. Since 1979 [satellite data](http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/) has given us measurements of TSI, and before that the visible portion was measured by recording [the reflection from Neptune and Uranus](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1959LowOB...4...99J). Best scientific data shows the visible portion varies by 2 percent, while ultraviolet can vary by much larger amounts. But it seems the magnetic field changes may be the real climate connection, and it’s influence on cosmic rays hitting the earth varies the cloudiness of the atmosphere, which really changes the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002/440 "2013-09-28T07:10:59Z")
Regarding the cosmic rays, I remember that there was a big brouhaha of them being another “final nail in the coffin” for the scientific idea that the current heat increase was being caused by human emitted CO2 and other gases. There are so many “final” nails that it is a contradiction when they have to come with others; I mean, if they were the final ones, why it is necessary to make new ones? The answer is that the so called “final” nails were not what the contrarian media told to their fans. [http://climatecrocks.com/2011/08/31/from-the-horses-mouth-the-new-study-on-cosmic-rays-and-climate/](http://climatecrocks.com/2011/08/31/from-the-horses-mouth-the-new-study-on-cosmic-rays-and-climate/) And of course, there is still the assumption that scientific reports and research like that are not seen by the IPCC, they are, as the latest report shows: [http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2535](http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2535) > [@](#): > > The influence of cosmic rays on climate over the past century was too weak to be detected, they said. In short, the report shows little support for a significant natural component to global warming since 1950. In fact, natural effects may well have made Earth cooler than it otherwise would have been. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leaked-ipcc-report-90-confidence-in-agw-is-now-95-and-sea-level-will-rise/667002.md?page=23)