Falsifying projections from WUWT

It is becoming less fashionable to deny climate science these days. As the Paris meeting approaches, more deniers are shifting a tad away from the extreme end of denial. Even James Inhofe, one of the extremist fake sceptics in the USA, favourably quoted Dr James Hansen in a recent op-ed piece promoting nuclear power as a way to reduce emissions.

Anthony Watts at WUWT if anything has shifted toward, not away from, extremist denial. Every now and again he'll publish an article in which a person claims to accept global warming - to a point. That point being that they don't accept that it has or will warm as much as has and will.

Today he's allowed an article from one such science denier, Richard J. Petschauer (archived here). I think he's trying to portray himself as a "reasonable person", though his ideas aren't reasonable at all.

Where is the cooling, Ira Glickstein? It's a travesty...

Today I came across a comment on WUWT by the Village Idiot.  Village Idiot was responding to an article by Ira Glickstein looking at the differences in projections in the various IPCC reports (archived here, update here).

Village Idiot says "it's a travesty":

October 10, 2013 at 11:58 pm
As you so rightly say, Ira, all the signs and portents are there in the sun, heavens and sea. They have been for years. Now, I’m a non-expert on matters of climate, but I find it’s a travesty that we can’t account for the lack of cooling at the moment, which was prophesied by High Priest Don, and posted on the Village notice board back in 2008:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/agu2.png

Where is all Easterbrook’s cold hiding? I think some of its going into the extra ice in the Antarctic. Any other suggestions?

What about the cooling?

Some time ago I put together a collection of various alarmist predictions from WUWT including Denier Don's 2008 prediction. Or to go directly, you can  click here for an archived copy of the Denier Don's 2008 prediction at WUWT itself.  At the time Don wrote:

The sun’s recent behavior suggests we are likely heading for a deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period and ought to be looking ahead to cope with it.

Below is the image of Denier Don's predicted cooling.  I've highlighted his "deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period" and shown Don's prediction compared to 2012 global surface temperature.  Yes, it's messy because Don's charts are kinky and have all sorts of odd stuff (like his "warm" and "cold" and "cool" categories).  Click to enlarge:

Source: Adapted from Easterbrook (2008) at WUWT

What is causing the warming?

I looked back to see what Ira Glickstein has done in the past at WUWT.  Two and a half years ago he took a poll of WUWT readers (archived here) to see how much they thought global warming of 0.8 degrees Celsius should be apportioned to three things.  The results in degree Celsisus were as follows - all to 3 decimal places!

• human (AGW) 0.179 (0 to +0.7) - Ira = 0.100
• natural cycles 0.331 (0 to 0.55) - Ira = 0.400
• data bias 0.275 (0 to 0.65) - Ira = 0.300

It's a fairly good example of wishful thinking, particularly the emphasis many people put on data bias.

A quick search didn't lead me to any quantitative prediction Ira has made in the past in relation to global surface temperature.  However, for the record, he has today made a prediction for the temperature in 2035.  He predicts no change from the current surface temperature between now and 2035.

Comparing IPCC projections

Ira did an interesting comparison of projections from previous IPCC reports with those of the current report.  I don't think he was correct in highlighting the mean of the projections, but that's a relatively minor quibble.

Rather than show his chart, I made up one of my own into an animation, flipping through the previous and current projections and showing Ira's projection compared to the current AR5 range. As always, click the image to see the larger version.

Adapted from TFE.3, Figure 1: IPCC WG1 Technical Summary (page TS-96)

Illogical conspiracy ideation

Ira does make the common misplaced complaint:

I’m optimistic about the future! Unlike some of the Alarmists and Warmists who actually hope for a climate catastrophe to justify their decades of shrill Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) warnings, I’d prefer a future without such problems. Indeed, I hope that the cooling trends listed above do not result in excessive cooling which would be far more dangerous than the moderate warming we have experienced over the past century.

Attributing nefarious intent, as Ira does, is a feature of conspiracy ideation.  I'm not saying that Ira is a conspiracy theorist, but he's clearly inclined towards it by saying that "Alarmists and Warmists" actually hope for a climate catastrophe.  Why are science deniers so silly about this.  Why on earth would people who understand science be wanting to reduce carbon emissions if we were "hoping for a climate catastrophe"?  We'd be working against achieving our goal!  Logic is not a strong suit of science deniers.

---o--- Update: Ira Glickstein has taken the trouble to write a comment below, explaining that he is indeed more than merely 'inclined' towards conspiracy ideation. ---o---

And it's odd how deniers are unable to face facts.  Cooling trends? What cooling trends, Ira?

Data source: NASA

How hot do we want to get?

Before moving on to the comments, it's worth looking at the carbon budget to figure out how hot we want to get, from the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers (page SPM-35):

Source: Adapted from IPCC AR5 SPM

From the WUWT comments

So far there haven't been very many comments at WUWT (archived here, update here).  I guess most readers are still asleep.  There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on the matter of "projections" versus "predictions".  Then the Village Idiot chimed in with his "where is the cooling hiding" question.  

The playground monitor, richardscourtney tried to get people to behave in the manner in which richardscourtney thinks they should behave and say things that only richardscourtney approves of, writing (this time without shouting a single word):

October 11, 2013 at 1:24 am

Ira Glickstein:

Thankyou for this contribution.

It is to be hoped your presentation will evoke the serious discussion it deserves concerning the failure of past IPCC predictions and the adherence of IPCC AR5 to ECS estimates which are obviously too high.

I am sorry such discussion has been inhibited by the start of the thread being trolled by the ‘red herrings’ of Terry Oldberg and Village Idiot. Take pleasure from the knowledge that they would not have bothered to try side-tracking the thread if your point were not made well.
Oldberg knows he is spouting nonsense because it has been explained to him several times on many WUWT threads. The Idiot only ever spouts nonsense with intention of disrupting threads.

Terry Oldberg was explaining to people the difference between a projection and a prediction.  It looks as if richardscourtney has decided that when the IPCC says "projection" it really means "prediction". (The man would be impossible to communicate with if he were to substitute his own meaning to everything one were to say.)

Deniers are a very patient lot.  J.Seifert is still expecting Denier Don's cooling to come out of hiding sooner or later and says "it's just a matter of some more time" for "detailed celestial mechanics" to unveil the hidden cooling (is that a reference to God in the ++:

October 11, 2013 at 2:17 am
Point 3 is the major climate driver:

It says: “” 3) We seem to be entering a downturn in the multi-decadal cycle of warming and cooling. ……. An approximately 60-year cycle of warming and cooling seems to be superimposed on that general warming trend ……..”"

This 60 year cycle is explained by Nic. Scafetta in his recent papers. In coming years,
science will take a closer look into this cycle nd will determine its detailed celestial mechanics….

its just a matter of some more time.

As PDO and AMO enter cold phases, there is no somewhere hiding missing heat, rather
less incoming heat, due to astronomical changes in the Earth´s orbit.

Izen notes that Ira Glickstein's prediction is in conflict with paleo evidence and points to other problems with Ira's prediction, which is the bit in italics (extract, you can read the rest here):

October 11, 2013 at 2:48 am

1) IPCC ECS estimates are two or three times too high. I believe the true ECS is closer to 1°C than the 2°C to 3°C claimed by the official climate Team.

That belief is on direct contradiction with evidence from the paleoclimate. It is very difficult to make such low ECS values compatible with the glacial cycles.

2) Daytime clouds, thunderstorms and related natural phenomena have net cooling effects. The way these phenomena are modeled by the IPCC models is basically wrong. I subscribe to the Thermostat Hypothesis put forth in 2009 by Willis Eschenbach that these phenomena counteract some of the warming effects of greenhouse gasses.

As Dr Spencer has pointed out the thermostat hypothesis was proposed by many other before willis Eschenbach co opted it. Empirical observation has failed to find any supporting evidence for such negative feedbacks ever since Lindzen and the failure of the iris hypothesis.

PS I'd take my hat off to Village Idiot if I wore a hat.  She or he provides a source of well-targeted humour to alleviate the boredom of wading through mindless comments from the scientific illiterati at WUWT.