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Originally Posted by Retrograde
Hilarious - you completely disregard a peer-reviewed paper published in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals despite admitting you haven't even read it!
On the other hand in the last GW thread you referenced an unscientific op-ed from the Heartland Institute (a right-wing think-tank funded by fossil-fuel interests) as if it represented real science.
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I don't recollect citing anything from the Heartland Institute, but am happy to be corrected.
What I did cite was a paper from the Global Policy Warming Foundation "A Sensitive Matter" N.Lewis & M, Crok 2014 which gave an explanation as to why the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report changed the range of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) range from the 4th Assessment Report's 2C-4.5C to 1.5C- 4.5C, and why it chose for the first time not to give a best estimate of ECS, which in the previous four reports had been 3C (that is, if atmospheric CO2 doubled, the best estimate was that temperature would increase by 3C).
That paper wasn't evidence of anything - as the evidence was in the 5th Assessment Report itself, where they expanded the Range of ECS and for the first time chose not to give a best estimate of ECS, citing only that there exists a greater range of ECS results from more recent research papers.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the content of the Lewis and Crok paper is largely irrelevant. The IPCC states in 5th Assessment report that recent studies give lower figures for ECS, and they accordingly increase their range for ECS to incorporate the lower 1.5C figure, and for the first time decline to give the best estimate ECS, where the 3C figure had been a mainstay of the previous reports. The likelihood must have increased that things aren't as bad as stated in prior reports, regardless of what they then wrote in their Executive Summary.
As for my completely disregarding a peer-reviewed paper published in
one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals which effectively says that the models are excellent at reproducing past and current events, except that 95% give the wrong predictions because they don't take account of a major factor, the Pacific Oscillation which they can't predict, - well - yes, I'll happily disregard it.
Pacific Oscillation is a known event. When one programs a simulation, one gets a random number generator, to throw the event and its effects in at random at the expected frequency. How can one knowingly leave such a significant factor out?
What has me far more interested, rather than why all the dud models are supposedly really fine, are the two models that are still on track - which haven't been shown to be incorrect, because they didn't predict the high warming that the other ones did. They do predict that warming will take off in another four or five years. Unfortunately, it'll be another 10 years before I'll either be having another chuckle or eating my words.
Regards,
Renato