Following up on my article calling for skeptics of climate alarmism to comment on the hyper-alarmist draft National Climate Assessment, here are a few glaring examples of their favorite fallacy. It is the fallacy of stating mere speculation as though it were established fact. Not surprisingly much of this junk comes out of computer models.
As with the previous article, I am posting a few of the so-called “Key Messages” from the draft, complete with line numbers, which is how it appears in the text. These line numbers must be included in any comment on the Message.
The point this time is that these Key Messages exhibit certain repetitive fallacies, which need to be called out. There is a method to their madness.
Here is a Key Message from Chapter 2, which is the climate science chapter:
“Chapter 2. Our Changing Climate
Page 60
6 Key Message 2: Future Warming Depends on Human Emissions and Earth’s Response
7 Key Message 2: Earth’s climate will continue to change over this century and beyond. Past mid
8century, how much climate changes will depend primarily on global emissions of greenhouse
9 gases and on the response of Earth’s climate system to human-induced warming. With
10 significant reductions in emissions, global temperature increase could be limited to 3.6°F
11 (2°C) or less compared to preindustrial temperatures. Without significant reductions, annual
12 average global temperatures could increase by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century
13 compared to preindustrial.“
These are of course the completely conjectural predictions from the computer climate models. In fact the prediction of 5 degrees C or more is at the very hot end of the IPCC range. This is not surprising because the National Climate Assessment is far more alarmist than the already alarmist IPCC reports.
Here is another whopper from the supposedly science chapter:
“Chapter 2. Our Changing Climate
Page 62
35 Key Message 4: Global Sea Level Rise
36 Key Message 4: Global average sea level has risen by about 7–8 inches since 1900 as oceans
37 have warmed and land-based ice has melted. Global mean sea level is very likely to continue
38 to rise, by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100 relative to
Page 63
1 present-day levels. Recent studies suggest a rise of 6 to 10 feet by 2100 is physically possible.”
So global sea level rise has been about 8 inches in the last 117 years but it may be up to 120 inches in the next 82 years. That is roughly 20 times faster. And the basis for this wild conjecture is, you guessed it, computer models.
In fact the draft Climate Assessment Key Messages are loaded with cases of merely speculative computer outputs being stated as established facts about the real world.
Text analysis of the comment draft for just a few model related word occurrences gives this result:
Occurrences of “model” and its variants — 902.
“Simulation” and its variants — 118.
CMIP (the modeling done for the IPCC) — 78.
Total occurrences — 1098.
Hence the report is demonstrably modeling intensive.
But the speculation gets even wilder at the end of Chapter 2. Here we read that these wild model-based extremes are understated! I am not making this up. Here is the Key Message:
“Chapter 2. Our Changing Climate
Page 76
33 Key Message 10: Potential Surprises in Future Climate
34 Key Message 10: The climate change resulting from human emissions of carbon dioxide will
35 persist for decades to millennia. Self-reinforcing cycles within the climate system have the
36 potential to accelerate human-induced change and even shift the Earth’s climate system into
37 new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past. Future changes
38 outside the range projected by climate models cannot be ruled out, and due to their
39 systematic tendency to underestimate temperature change during past warm periods, models
Page 77
1 may be more likely to underestimate than to overestimate long-term future change.“
The more people who point out how nonsensical this extreme alarmism is, the better, so I urge skeptics to add their comments. Every comment counts.
US draft National Climate Assessment, page 60.
“Without significant reductions, annual 12 average global temperatures could increase by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century”
If pigs had wings, they could fly. Try putting that into a model and you would find that the model would predict flying pigs. You need only one additional assumption, that pigs have wings.
In my opinion, the climate models rely on only one assumption, that CO2 drives climate change.
With this one assumption we get some alarming projections of future climate–which the modelers claim are not predictions at all, but scenarios based on the assumptions they have used to run the models. However, the modelers do not agree on the role of clouds.
The importance of clouds can be see in the fact that a cloudless sky reflects on average about 0.05 to 0,075 (5% to 7.5%) of visible sunlight. However, the
Let us pray:
ALGORE is my shepherd; I shall not think.
He maketh me lie down in Greeneth pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still-freezing waters.
He selleth my soul for CO2:
He leadeth me in the paths of self-righteousness for his own sake.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of reason
I will fear all logic: for thou art with me and thinking for me
Thy Gore’s family oil fortune and thy 10,000 square Gorey foot mansion, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a movie in the presence of contradictory evidence:
Thou anointest mine head with nonsense; my obedience runneth over.
Surely blind faith and hysteria shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of ALGORE forever……….