IPCC says abrupt irreversible clathrate methane, ice sheet collapse are unlikely.

For years we’ve been warned via the media that there was a risk of irreversible global catastrophe. Is the IPCC stepping back from those forecasts too?  The words abrupt, irreversible, and tipping point didn’t make it into the Headline Points in 2013.

Reader Katabasis at Bishop Hill reports on the Royal Society meeting where abrupt and irreversible changes were discussed. Katabasis notes that in the IPCC Chapter 12 Table 12.4 many of the catastrophic changes being forecast are described as “unlikely” or “very unlikely” or even “exceptionally unlikely”. The only one now considered “likely” is that the Arctic might be ice free 40 years from now (which is a big step back from “ice free by 2013” as some commentators predicted). Moreover confidence is low.

Will IPCC authors now correct Gore, Flannery, or other commentators when they tell us that CO2 emissions will probably lead to abrupt or irreversible ice sheet collapse, or collapses of the monsoonal circulation or Atlantic currents. Note the IPCC is saying “low confidence” for  long term megadroughts, and monsoon changes, which means, “we don’t know” rather than “unlikely”. But why spend billions to prevent something you have low confidence will happen?

Table 12.4: Components in the Earth system that have been proposed in the literature as potentially being susceptible to abrupt or irreversible change. Column 2 defines whether or not a potential change can be considered to be abrupt under the AR5 definition. Column 3 states whether or not the process is irreversible in the context of abrupt change, and also gives the typical recovery time scales. Column 4 provides an assessment, if possible, of the likelihood of occurrence of abrupt change in the 21st century for the respective components or phenomena within the Earth system, for the scenarios considered in this chapter.

Source: AR5-Chapter 12. Table 12.4 page 78

Katabasis asked Matt Collins:

“What the IPCC says, and what the media says it says are poles apart. Your talk is a perfect example of this. Low liklihood and low confidence for almost every nightmare scenario. Yet this isn’t reflected at all in the media. Many people here have expressed concern at the influence of climate sceptics. Wouldn’t climate scientists’ time be better spent reining in those in the media producing irresponsible, hysterical, screaming headlines?”

Tumbleweed followed for several seconds. Then Matt said:

“Not my responsibility”.

Bishop Hill commenter matthu:

Is that Matthew Collins: Government employee? Joint Met Office Chair in Climate Change?

Is he saying that it is not his responsibility to correct widely held misconceptions about the likelihood of imminent abrupt and irreversible climate change as the result of carbon dioxide?

Even if this is being incorrectly reported by mainstream media in the UK or touted by senior government ministers as a reason for continuing to meet our international obligations i.e. by raising the price of energy?

So if he was asked a direct question about this, say on Newsnight, he would try to bypass his responsibility? No wonder the BBC finds it hard to identify sceptical scientists if even those in full possession of the facts are too cowered to stand up for the truth.

Note the IPCC definitions of irreversible and abrupt are not necessarily irreversible and may take a few decades.

Abrupt climate change is defined in AR5 as a large-scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.”

A change is said to be irreversible if the recovery timescale from this state due to natural processes is significantly longer than the time it takes for the system to reach this perturbed state.

Let’s look at that incongruous media coverage:

The Copenhagen Diagnosis November 2009 [NY Times]

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice sheets, Amazon rain forest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized. The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above preindustrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.

The Guardian,9 November 2011 World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Newsminer
“We could be at a tipping point where the climate just abruptly warms,” said Mark Z. Jacobsen, director of Stanford University’s atmosphere/energy program.

Even after the AR5 release, 30 Sept 2013 Andrew Glickson writes in The Conversation and Business Spectator:

The extreme rates of global warming experienced since about 1975 result in feedback effects from warming oceans, drying land sectors, release of methane from permafrost and Arctic lakes and release of CO2 from fires. A continuation of these processes is bound to bring on a synergy of warming processes and potential irreversible tipping points in the climate system.

“No amount of media and internet spin can alter the essential evidence for runaway climate change presented by the AR5 report…”

David Wasdell, Director of the Meridian Institute:

“The Feedback Crisis in Climate Change highlights the all-too-real possibility of runaway climate change, driven by the naturally occurring positive feedback loops of the biosphere…

Professor of Environmental Change Biology, David Bowmanlink

“Climate change in the 20th and 21st centuries constitutes an unprecedented event horizon – a shift of state in the terrestrial atmosphere. “

The Climate Commission, The critical decade, 2013:

“The most serious risks are associated with potential abrupt or irreversible changes in large features of the climate system, such as the switch to a dry state of the Indian Summer Monsoon (Lenton et al. 2008)..”

“2.5 Abrupt, non-linear and irreversible changes in the climate system

…Some changes in the climate system can be irreversible in any timeframe relevant to human affairs, such as the loss of the Greenland ice sheet.

Some of these quotes will be technically justified with clauses and subclauses. Something “very unlikely” is still possible. But where is the perspective? The IPCC doesn’t seem confident of any abrupt or irreversible changes except for the loss of Summer Arctic Ice (which they admit is not irreversible).

8.7 out of 10 based on 61 ratings

64 comments to IPCC says abrupt irreversible clathrate methane, ice sheet collapse are unlikely.

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    While the US taxpayer-funded Climate Change propaganda unit is closed for business, There’s a whole world of media wanting comment to feed the news programs. Go get ’em, boys and girls.

    50

    • #
      PhilJourdan

      I find it amazing that the government says it is “shut down” when only 40% of the people have been “laid off”.

      It shows the government is not shut down, and that it is severely bloated as to employees.

      100

      • #
        Greg

        The EPA has ‘furloughed’ 90% of its staff as non essential. That should be telling somebody something, but it won’t

        160

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Phil,

        The shutdown is very selective. Obama, for all his faults, is a shrewd politician in some respects. He knows how to maximize the damage to people’s daily lives and is doing exactly that in hope of the blame staying with Republicans. It’s a dangerous game if this goes on for very long because increasing pain is very good at getting the ignorant to pay attention to what’s really going on.

        I could hope that the 40% never come back but I’m not holding my breath.

        Now day 3 and he world is still turning.

        50

        • #
          PhilJourdan

          Roy (and apologies to Jo on the side track),

          I agree with most of your comment. However Obama is not that shrewd, or he would not be getting so blatantly petty about the shut down. Shutting down a bus turnaround? A monument that is not normally staffed? Normandy? (In France no less) Even the media (which would love to pin this on the Republicans) are scratching their heads about that.

          If Obama was smart, he would realize that time is on his side, so he would do nothing and let the hurt build. But instead, he wants the effects to be immediate, and is over playing his hand.

          And that is why his handlers sent him out of town. At least when he is playing golf at Augusta, he is not around to be making stupid mistakes.

          30

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Phil,

            You’ll notice that I said, “…in some respects.” But I can’t argue against your position because it’s hard to tell exactly who is pulling what strings.

            I still maintain that Obama came to office with a personal agenda pretty much as described in the book, THE ROOTS OF OBAMA’S RAGE, by Dinesh D’Sousa (hope I spelled it right). And he’s been doing all he thinks he can get away with toward that end. That he’s easily a stooge for the far left ideology is obvious. But I think, as I said, he’s out to maximize the pain to the public. Unfortunately for him, his narcissism’s need for approval from the group he identifies with gets in his way so he doesn’t always take the steps he wants to***. But his agenda is destructive to the USA I was born into and I no longer recognize this once great nation. Just the passage of a law requiring some 4,000 pages to state, tells a lot about the wisdom of our current “leaders”. And that it surrenders the implementation details to a bunch of varied appointed bureaucrat types to make all the rules is even more telling. No one will ever understand it all and people will suffer. But enough said, lest I turn into a rant.

            *** Example: Obama was hell bent for gun control but he got his butt kicked, even in the senate which his party controls and none of his measures were passed. After the DC Navy Yard shooting the gun control people wanted him to be out there again leading the charge — but strangely, he wasn’t. One should wonder why, no? And I think the answer is that he got his butt kicked once and because of that disapproval from his group he isn’t willing to risk the disapproval again. As far as I understand it this is typical narcissistic behavior. He is a very conflicted man sometimes.

            10

            • #
              PhilJourdan

              Roy, sorry for missing your clause. You are indeed correct (or let me say I concur with your analysis).

              To try to paint him in simplistic terms is to underestimate him (at times) and that is the most egregious error one can make. But then he does make such stupid decisions (covered with lies, not investigated by the media), that we are lulled into a false sense of his supreme stupidity. And he is not always that stupid.

              00

        • #
          Rod Stuart

          Roy, it’s your country; not mine.
          But your conversation sounds as though Obama is making decisions and things are happening unexpectedly and randomly.
          Consider that this choreography was in play well before the last election. Obama, Bohner, Pelosi, Reid are only actors playing the parts by their script.
          I find it ironic that our Alarmist Bullshit Co-operative here is threatening that this action by the GOP could precipitate another GFC, when the first one has really only started, Act one is complete, and act two is about to get underway, when in fact it is not the current government shutdown that will precipitate it; but rather the uncontrolled spending the the GOP and the Tea Party are trying to arrest that will precipitate it.
          Maybe I’m crazy Roy, but I think the script for Act II was written at Goldman Sachs, or at the last Bilderberg meeting.

          10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Rod,

            That the far left has been laying plans for a long time to get control of the country (more than 100 years in my view) seems obvious to me — almost too obvious to need stating. But the scenario you outlined is highly speculative. It’s not that easy to predict how things will go when you pull one string vs. another. Also see my reply to Phil Jourdan above.

            01

  • #
    AndyG55

    There has to be a way to get through to those people in the Liberal Government that STILL believe that there is a problem.

    But how do you make a brick listen ??????????

    123

  • #
    Galvanize

    SSSSSHHHHH! Jo.

    Table 12.4 is still only in draft form. We need to ignore it for now, and increase its chances of making the final report. We don`t want another SOD fig 1.4 disappearing act. I suspect it is another case of alarmists testing the water to see the sceptic reaction, and decide whether to publish or disappear it.

    151

  • #
    fadingfool

    So a 95% confidence in nothing happening? I can finally agree with something the IPCC have come out with…….

    51

    • #
      Reinder van Til

      Those are my thoughts too. After 20 years, billions of taxpayers money, nothing much will happen the next century. Perhaps we should rename a larger asteroid to IPCC and drop them all there. Bye and farewell IPCC! Might be even cheaper than another 20 years of those people on Earth. Perhaps Lord Monckton can figure that out for us! 🙂

      41

      • #
        Safetyguy66

        Move along folks, nothing to see here…

        Gee really? I bet none of us saw that coming. I hope Monkton is have a few sherrys and grinning knowingly to himself.

        10

  • #
    Debbie

    Huh?
    “Not my responsibility” ????????
    Seriously?
    I am sooooooooooo getting sick of all these highly paid & apparently self proclaimed irresponsible boffins!
    If they won’t correct the alarmist disinformation then who do they suppose will?
    WTF???????!!!!!!!!!!!!

    141

  • #
    Winston

    We are constantly being exhorted by academics, many not even in peripheral science fields btw, to “accept the science” or else we are heretics and deniers, worthy of being pilloried in the town square.

    Just which version of “the science” are we meant to accept: the one where they had high levels of confidence that there would be increasing severity and frequency of cyclones, droughts, melting glaciers and catastrophic sea level rise inundating coastlines globally, or the one now where they are highly confident that cyclones, droughts, melting glaciers and catastrophic sea level rise now won’t happen or are highly unlikely?

    I’m confused, I desperately want to be frightened of something, but now I can’t work out what I’m supposed to be frightened of. Thank Gaia I haven’t had that vasectomy yet.

    160

  • #

    Amidst the gloom and doom, on the weekend, the second private company to launch and dock a spacecraft at the ISS, succeeded. The same day, Elon Musk and his crew at SpaceX launched a new version of the Falcon into orbit. Many changes and still success. The game of Falcon and Dragon goes on (sf allusion to Cordwainer Smith’s “The Game of Rat and Dragon”. If you like cats you’ll love the story). I am cheered by this news. Amazing what free men and women can do!

    73

  • #
    Yonniestone

    I predict that the IPCC being irreversibly corrupt may experience an abrupt release of methane when it realizes the MSM has low confidence in their ability to prove any tipping points.

    132

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      Isn’t it the IPCC’s job to come up with scary scenarios to keep us frightened into keeping paying , for the bloated bureaucracies ? They’re not doing a very good job are they, having scarcely dreamed up any new catastrophe’s they are in serious danger of booming irrelevant.

      Who wants to know how certain they are about something that isn’t happening, or that it would be happening if only it wasn’t … hiding, cooling or lost in the noise.

      70

  • #

    Looking for help

    I’ve compiled a table which contains what I think is the essential differences between the “two sides” in the climate debate.

    I would very much appreciate comments both from skeptics and those favorable to the IPCC interpretation.

    The article is here: http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/sceptics-vs-academics/

    And comments may be left on the article.

    61

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      What’s with another attempt to stereotype sceptics ? Sceptics tend to be individuals who think for themselves, defer to neither fashion nor authority and defy categorisation, as opposed the followers that you choose to represent as ‘Academics’ – that’s so unfair.

      60

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Actually I like some of what you have done there, its pretty well thought through. I can see the veiled(barely) pi$$taking of the warmists, maybe toning that down a little would increase its credibility as a document. At the same time I see where Eddie is coming from, but I dont think we do ourselves any favours by putting down the people who have been unfortunate enough to allow their emotions and political leanings to cloud their ability to interpret data. With full sincerity I actualy feel a bit sorry for them, they are in the main well intentioned people.

      20

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        I hear tell that the road to Hell is also paved with good intentions.

        It’s not the intention that matters; it’s the honest representation, the fair hearing of both sides, the avoidance of self-interest or conflict of interest, and take money out of the equation.

        Good intentions are so fraught with hurt throughout history. Nobody should declare their good intentions without cringing.

        10

    • #
      Reinder van Til

      As if academics cannot possible be sceptics. Lots of academics are.

      00

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    I recognise the article scare is about methane clathrates near the Siberian coast. The methane from land-based permafrost is tangentially related and also shows a difference between opinion of scientists on the ground versus media reports.
    It was one year ago this week that I discovered an interesting report by the Russian State Hydrology department entitled “Concerns of “methane bomb” in Russian permafrost regions: myths and realities” which states:

    Projected by 2050 thawing of Russian permafrost will lead to an increase of methane emission by 6-8 million tonnes per year, which is comparable with the current global net-emission (20 mln.t/y), which will cause global temperature rise 0.012°С.

    Bombs are supposed to be hot, right? 🙂

    Another paper noted by alert reader Francisco estimated global natural methane emissions to the air to be 25Mt/y which is slightly higher than the Russian estimate and only diminishes the permafrost bomb status further.

    Just for fun, let’s see what SkS has to say about “Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf”:

    Such records would tend to suggest that no such releases occurred during this period of geological time despite drastic fluctuations in climate. Does that suggest that large-scale abrupt methane outbursts are rather unlikely? Leading on from that, the second problem is finding a physical mechanism by which such an abrupt release of that magnitude could actually happen: so far, on a subshelf environment where major undersea landslides are unlikely, nobody has proposed a detailed mechanism by which that could happen.

    The team who did the modelling study have attibuted the observed methane outgassing to “degradation of subsea permafrost that is due to the long-lasting warming initiated by permafrost submergence about 8000 years ago rather than from those triggered by recent Arctic climate changes”. Although they accept that severe subsea permafrost degradation will occur in about a thousand years’ time, they see the current degassing as nothing new. Which of these views will turn out to be correct?

    Since they aren’t contradictory, how about both?

    33

  • #
    ROM

    The main point here is that, although there may be defects in any specific detailed model, the general conclusion is far more robust than any specific model. At the same time, one has to make a certain disclaimer, and that is that neither analysis nor computer models are adequate to the task of predicting exactly what disaster will follow from a continuation of present trends and exactly when such a disaster will take place.

    Now, this problem puts those of us who tend to view with alarm in a somewhat curious position. We’re calling upon society to make major changes, but we cannot prove exactly what will happen and exactly when, in the absence of those kinds of changes. This particular point is often used against us by people who are optimistic and believe that one way or another, technology will let us muddle through. I think a useful way to think about this particular dilemma is in terms of the burden of proof; that is, we should ask: Are we worse off if we believe the pessimists and they are wrong, or are we worse off if we believe the optimists and they are wrong?

    Who said this, where and when?

    Answer will be provided maybe tomorrow.

    30

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Oh, get real, ROM, web searches can find those statements in a second.
      It was John Holdren at the USA Senate Committee on Commerce and Committee on Government Operations back in 1974.
      The scary part… John Holdren is currently Assistant to the President and senior adviser to Barack Obama on science and technology issues.

      40

      • #
        ROM

        Yep! You seem to know how to do web searches Andrew.

        And the main point as you have pointed out is that it is the same people who are using exactly the same false, lying, fear inducing claims to try and enhance their own status and control. And they have been doing all of that using almost identical language for some 40 or more years.
        And yet some fools out there still believe them and in Obama,s case which probably illustrates the calibre of President he isn’t, he rewards Holdren and others of a similar ilk with high positions despite the revealed lunacy of their predictions both past and present.

        60

  • #
    turnedoutnice

    The real effect of a 125 Gt Methane release (the self=absorption threshold, 2.5 times the expected worst case) is in my view ~0.2 K mean surface temperature increase.

    10

    • #

      The real effect on temperatures is…..ZERO, ZILCH, NADA.

      Methane in the atmosphere burns off almost instantaneously into water droplets.
      Fart in a jar and leave it out in the sun. All that’ll be left in a few minutes is a droplet of water.

      82

      • #
        AndyG55

        Been experimenting, have we ! 🙂

        60

      • #
        Tim

        I feel sorry for the Peer Review guys.

        30

      • #
        turnedoutnice

        A clathrate event could be sudden. As for the photolytic oxidation, I would beg to differ because a fart in a jar has lots of surface to adsorb and react upon.

        01

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Baa,

        I was going to ask, “You know this exactly how?” But Andy beat me to it. Nuts!

        I’ll not try to repeat your experiment. It looks so, well… …just plain unscientific. 😉

        Methane has been around for as long as Earth has been cool enough to allow its formation and it hasn’t done any harm yet.

        21

  • #
    gee Aye

    Oh no, we can’t use the letter c any more. What a bunch of silly bunts

    56

  • #
    George McFly......I'm your density

    Met Office: “I was at a family barbeque….”

    10

  • #
    Tim

    To borrow some hyperbole’s …

    The IPCC is rapidly reaching their very own tipping point…or should that be their irreversible event horizon? Perhaps they’re transgressing critical thresholds of believability. It could be that their last chance of combating dangerous sceptics will be “lost for ever.”

    And then there’s the potential for abrupt or irreversible changes in public acceptance in any timeframe relevant to human affairs.

    51

  • #
    pat

    u only need to look at who is funding SEJ, (includes Bloomberg, Grantham, Michigan State Uni, National Science Foundation), who are currently in Chatanooga co-ordinating their message with politicians, to see how memes are created for the MSM. in the US, there’s a nationwide protest being organised, March Against the Mainstream Media, for 16 November.

    personally, i rarely go near the MSM, except to research their latest propaganda online, and it would be great if those who are especially unhappy about the behaviour of our publicly-funded media simply switched off:

    Society of Environmental Journalists – About Us: Funding
    http://www.sej.org/about-sej/funding-sources

    20

  • #
    ROM

    Maybe our hostess Jo could include these not happening items in her headlines to this thread.
    And nary a mention of models, just science even if it is tree ring science.

    From the UK on line news source, The Register

    Modern warming trend can’t be found’ in new climate study

    Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm did show up, however

    There’s interesting news on the climate beat this week, especially given the background of the just-released IPCC AR5 report – which blames humanity for warming the planet. A new, comprehensive study examining temperatures in the Eastern Mediterranean region over the last 900 years indicates that global warming and associated climate changes actually haven’t happened there at all.

    “At several places in the Mediterranean the winter and spring temperatures indicate long-term trends which are decreasing or at least not increasing,” says Dr Ingo Heinrich from the Potsdam Helmholtz-Zentrum of the Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (German Geosciences Research Centre).

    According to a Helmholtz Centre announcement highlighting Dr Heinrich’s latest research:

    For the first time a long temperature reconstruction on the basis of stable carbon isotopes in tree rings has been achieved for the eastern Mediterranean. An exactly dated time series of almost 900 year length was established, exhibiting the medieval warm period, the little ice age between the 16th and 19th century as well as the transition into the modern warm phase … [however] the modern warming trend cannot be found in the new chronology.

    Abstract; Winter-to-spring temperature dynamics in Turkey derived from tree rings since AD 1125

    30

    • #
      Byron

      Interesting ! and being based on isotope ratios rather than tree ring width means it`s not likely to be messed about by all the variables that are conducive to growth other than temperature

      10

  • #
    Eddy Aruda

    We have been hearing this “world to end at ten, film at eleven” crap since the creation of the IPCC. The reality is the sky is not falling.

    A political body masquerading as the final arbiter of scientific truth is an insult to anyone with a triple digit IQ! Yet, these drones in the lame stream media can’t sleep at night unless they are firmly convinced that chicken little was right. If there wasn’t something for them to worry about there would probably be another Jonestown event.

    No amount of evidence will dissuade the faithful that their religion is false. If God himself descended from the heavens and appeared at the next climate confab with the truth in hand these lemmings would continue to drag us all off of a financial cliff into an economic abyss from which all but the elect would never see the light of prosperity again. Unless, of course, God could present them with another pending apocalypse and a big enough check to finance the study thereof! 😉

    231

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Epic rant, Ezekiel himself would be proud.
      Need more thumbs up. (+20)

      31

    • #
      Speedy

      Eddy

      Very true, but their God is of their own making – it is themselves. The Gores and Manns of this world have created their own universe, with their Self at its very centre. If that universe is found to be a fabrication, then what does that make them?

      Human, like the rest of us.

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      21

    • #
      gai

      It would take a mile high glacier sitting on their offices to convience ‘The Team’ and they would STILL figure out a way to blame the glaciation on CO2 and Globule Worming.(Picture globules of slime worming their way out from under the glaciers….)

      01

  • #
    pat

    here we go again:

    3 Oct: Age: Bridie Smith: Climate Council reports warmest September on record
    Australians have just lived through the warmest September since records began, according to the rebadged Climate Council.
    The latest record also makes the past 12 months the warmest documented, while 2013 is set to go down as the hottest calendar year in Australia, surpassing 2005.
    ”We’ve got high sea surface temperatures around Australia and that usually leads to warmer than average weather conditions, so if I was a betting man I would say that we are going to get the calendar record this year,” climate scientist Will Steffen said. September temperatures were almost three degrees above the long-term average, according to a Climate Council report released on Thursday…
    http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/climate-council-reports-warmest-september-on-record-20131003-2uv76.html

    can’t be bothered excerpting more than the above.

    my region was getting weather updates warning of 37 degree temps just before the latest IPCC report was released, which sounded ridiculous and didn’t happen. we got 31 degrees instead, which is what u’d expect occasionally at this time of year. on the weather channel, i’m now seeing 3 days next week – friday-sunday showing 37, 35 & 37 degrees respectively, yet i don’t feel confident that will eventuate either. anyway, someone else, with expertise, may like to fact-check the “Climate Council” claims.

    40

  • #
    Robbo_Perth

    Spot on: using technical words that have one meaning for the scientist and a different one for the general public is a classic, and usually done on purpose to deceive and at the same time pretend to be honest. The phrase “consistent with” is probably the worst offender: when I see it in a press release I know that someone is trying to manipulate the facts. To the general public and the MSM, “consistent with” means “in agreement with”, “supporting”, almost “proving”. To the scientist means that two things are not technically incompatible with each other (although they may be totally unrelated). So, as a scientist, I can announce with a clear conscience that the Hawks’ win by 15 points last Sat is perfectly consistent with every prediction of general relativity and with the solution of Einstein’s equations for a rotating black hole. In the MSM, my statement would be reported as “Hawks’ win proves Einstein right”. Is it my duty to correct this misconception? No, not at all…nudge nudge wink wink…I used the proper technical term, if some journalists have misunderstood it, it is not my fault, hehe….

    That’s why we constantly hear that pretty much every weather condition every day is “consistent with” the effects of global warming and with the scariest IPCC predictions for 2100.

    100

    • #
      Robbo_Perth

      Reminds me also of an episode during the First Gulf War (1991), when the US were trying to sell their allies batteries of supposedly infallible Patriot missiles. Every evening, a US general (or Bush sr himself) would go on TV saying that that day, Patriot missiles had intercepted 25 of 25 enemy Scud missiles… 41 out of 41… 52 out of 52… Italy and other gullible western countries were impressed and bought heaps of those expensive missiles…great business deal for the US. Months later, US generals quietly admitted that they were using the word “intercepted” in its “proper” nautical meaning (the missiles were launched from ships), that is “passing within 1 mile of another object”…it was of course not their fault if perhaps someone in the media had misunderstood, hehe….

      20

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      The phrase “consistent with” is probably the worst offender: when I see it in a press release I know that someone is trying to manipulate the facts.

      I tend to prefer “doesn’t appear inconsistent with, but then we probably haven’t looked hard enough”, when some administrative type is pressing for an agreement on something.

      42

  • #

    […] IPCC says abrupt irreversible clathrate methane, ice sheet collapse are unlikely. (joannenova.com.au) Rate this:Share this:GoogleTwitterFacebookStumbleUponRedditDiggEmailLike this:Like Loading… This entry was posted in Alarmism, IPCC, IPCC AR5 Report and tagged Abrupt climate change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. Bookmark the permalink. ← Climate Craziness of the Week: Climate Boiling Point […]

    00

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    This says that it is “very unlikely” that the Atlantic Mid Ocean Circulation MOC will collapse from GHG “forcing.”

    NO SHIT? You mean GHG Forcing won’t stop the Earth from spinning on its axis?????

    What a bunch of DENIERS these IPCC people are

    ALL THIS MONEY SPENT ON A PILE OF DENIALISM FROM THE IPCC

    20

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    I was going to say “don’t tell Michael the Realist(?) about this or he will get really despondent’, when I realised that he wouldn’t believe it anyway so fixated is he on the coming catastrophe.

    So I inserted this comment about where he will start waffling in a couple of days.

    00

  • #
    Reed Coray

    Jo wrote:

    The IPCC doesn’t seem confident of any abrupt or irreversible changes except for the loss of Summer Arctic Ice (which they admit is not irreversible).

    For one of the few times, I disagree with Jo. The IPCC may not openly declare it, but behind closed doors they are quite confident of one irreversible, if not abrupt, change–specifically, if we (the IPCC) don’t continue to scare the bejesus out of the people (or at least politicians), there will be an irreversible change in our input funding.

    41

  • #

    I used to have a car that was often “irreversible”. Until I pushed the bottom of the gear stick back into the socket of the linkage where it belonged.

    An irreversible process in thermodynamics (a branch of physics) is one which cannot be returned to its original state without loss of energy.

    All natural processes are irreversible.

    When people purporting to be scientists make out irreversibility to be something catastrophic; they’ve lost the plot.

    They couldn’t even get the basic control theory jargon correct; misappropriating “forcings” where pertubations/perturbances have bee in use throughout e.g. engineering for many decades.

    The so-called “scientists” who can’t be bothered to use the proper jargon of the sciences they mis-use, then they deserve to be pilloried and thrown from their Tower of Babel.

    91

  • #
    Skiphil

    Good comments from Pielke, Jr. on AR5 and issues of “extreme” weather events:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/03/pielke-jr-agrees-extreme-weather-to-climate-connection-is-a-dead-issue/

    11

  • #
    RoHa

    So we’re not doomed after all. How disappointing.

    11

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    IPCC tries to save a bit of “credibility” with this nonsense “table.”

    Failure, credibility is already gone. Anybody reflecting on Earth’s history can see that even mentioning this nonsense is imbecilic.

    11

  • #
    Susie

    Meanwhile back in Australia, the now defunct climate commission (now crowd funded and rebadged as The Climate Council) has produced a report on the latest IPCC report which is even more alarmist than the original report:

    http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CC.report.1.2.pdf

    At least our taxes are no longer being wasted on them.

    21

    • #
      Brian G Valentine

      ha – the only name attached to this piece of rubbish is Will Steffen, director of the ANU Climate Change Institute. (Or the only person with nerve enough to associate themselves with it; I sympathize completely with anyone associated with it wishing to remain anonymous.)

      With the Tim Flannery team booted off of the government payroll, these people had better think of doing something to get noticed pretty quickly, otherwise they will be forgotten quickly as a nightmare

      31

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      The IPCC AR5 does not give an estimate of the “most likely” value of ECS. Thus, claims that the IPCC has “downgraded” earlier estimates of ECS are not correct.

      Ha ! It’s only had to go and expand its range of possibilities by 17%, in the direction of a right answer.

      “Not downgraded” indeed.

      31

  • #
  • #
    John W

    A variety of stances.

    If someone wants to feel assured that their future and security as they perceive it is not threatened, then the chances are it will be easier for them to interpret new information to preserve the status quo. ie the view they wish to preserve.

    There has been a massive amount of research on historical cathrate ejection from the sea bed. Much of this has been used to look at the correlation of warming events and methane release.
    It is not a new area of study but there is a lot more to know. To dismiss or relegate to fantasy the effect of methane cathrate release in periods of significant warming, may give comfort to those who don’t want to know.

    Methane release can take place under a variety of circumstances with varied effects. Methane “bombs” are historically in evidence.
    To bet on such not happening is foolhardy , especially when the stakes are so high.

    A relatively small part of the worlds population are living in heavily polluting cultures and much in denial.

    00

  • #
    Oracle

    I hope lots of people download and archive these draft reports in case they are overly rewritten without just cause.

    00