Hiatus confirmed as scientists finally admit climate model
fail by Michael Bastasch, 2/26/16
A group of scientists recently put
out a new study confirming the 15-year “hiatus” in global warming. That study
made headlines, but what went largely unnoticed was a major admission made by
the paper’s authors: the climate models were wrong. “There is this mismatch between what
the climate models are producing and what the observations are showing,” John
Fyfe, Canadian climate modeler and lead author of the new paper, told
Nature. “We can’t ignore it.” “Reality has deviated from our
expectations – it is perfectly normal to try and understand this difference,”
Ed Hawkins, co-author of the study and United Kingdom climate scientist, echoed
in a blog post.
This is a huge admission by climate
scientists and a big victory for skeptics of man-made global warming who have
for years been pointing to a mismatch between climate model predictions and
actual temperature observations. “Overall, the paper is an admission
by prominent members of the ‘mainstream’ scientific community that the earth’s
surface temperature over the past two decades or so has not evolved in a way
that was well-anticipated by either the scientific community and/or the climate
models they rely on,” Chip Kappenberger, climate scientist at the libertarian
Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News foundation.
“Something that the skeptic have
been pointing out for years,” Knappenberger said.
Knappenberger and fellow Cato
climate scientist Patrick Michaels have been prominent critics of climate
models relied upon by “mainstream” scientists
because they say the models have not accurately predicted global temperature
rises for the past six decades.
In a recent paper, Michaels and
Knappenberger compared observed global surface temperature warming rates since
1950 to predictions made by 108 climate models used by government climate
scientists. What they found was the models projected much higher warming rates
than actually occurred.
Michaels and Knappenberger aren’t
alone. Satellite-derived temperature readings have shown a “hiatus” in global
warming for at least the last 18 years, despite rising carbon dioxide
emissions. While some scientists have tried to
discredit satellite readings, they have been unable to explain the lack of
significant warming in recent years. “When a theory contradicts the
facts” you need to change the theory, climate
scientist John Christy told Congress in January hearing. “The real world is not going along with rapid warming. The
models need to go back to the drawing board.” Christy and his colleague Roy Spencer
compile satellite-derived temperature readings at the University of Alabama,
Huntsville. Their satellite
data has shown no warming for about two decades, and has been cited by researchers skeptical of claims of
catastrophic global warming.
“The bulk atmospheric temperature is
where the signal is the largest,” Christy said in the hearing, referring to the
greenhouse gas effect. “We have measurements for that — it doesn’t match up
with the models.” “Because this result challenges the
current theory of greenhouse warming in relatively straightforward fashion,
there have been several well-funded attacks on those of us who build and use
such datasets and on the datasets themselves,” Christy said.
Now, skepticism seems to have won
the day — at least in terms of convincing other scientists there’s a big
problem with climate models. Fyfe’s study — which was co-authored
by Michael Mann of “hockey stick” curve fame — contradicts a study by National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists claiming
there was no global warming hiatus. “Overall, there is compelling
evidence that there has been a temporary slowdown in observed global surface
warming,” Hawkins wrote in a blog post about the study, noting “the most recent
observed 15-year trends are all positive, but lower than most previous similar
trends in the past few decades” which is a “clear demonstration that the
rate of change has slowed since its peak.”
But even with the admission, some
skeptics are still critical because the study’s authors employed research methods
they have been critical of in the past. “All of this said, the authors used
techniques to demonstrate a slowdown, that when employed by the skeptics, are
harshly criticized,” Knappenberger said. “This seems to me to indicate that the
mainstream community gives a free pass to some researchers more so than
others.”
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