Global Warming (Photo credit: mirjoran)  As Professor of Meteorology Dr. Richard Lindzen at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences observed, “The latest IPCC report truly sank to the level of hilarious incoherence – it is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.” The banner claim of this 2013 Summary for Policymakers (AR5) release is that “Human influence is extremely likely to be dominant cause of observed warming since the middle of the last century.”  This “extremely likely” was ratcheted up from “very likely” they claimed in their previous 2007 report. At the same time, the IPCC actually admitted that its 2007 report estimate of greenhouse gas influence had been significantly exaggerated. One can only wonder how they have become more confident that at least more than half of the temperature rise since the mid-20th century has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions, when at the same time they are less certain about climate sensitivity to CO2.  Making life even more difficult for that climate cartel is having to explain why the global climate has flat-lined over at least the past 16 years despite increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, something they euphemistically refer to as a “pause”.  Political bureaucrats from different countries reportedly split between those who demanded that the temperature standstill be tackled head-on, versus those such as Germany, Hungary, who wanted it totally ignored. Some, including the U.S. favoring disclosure, argued that skeptics would have a field day if mention of this chilling realty was omitted altogether.  One lead author, Jochem Marotzke, told reporters that the issue surfaced late in their review process, and that there was a tendency for each of the 14 teams to think that others were addressing it. Others admitted they had no plausible explanation to offer. Working group co-chair Thomas Stocker said: “I’m afraid to say there is not a lot of published literature that allows us to delve deeper into the required depth of this emerging scientific question.” He cited a lack of adequate measurements of ocean heating, especially in the deep ocean as a scientific hindrance.  Yet, delving deeply into the depth of desperation, they didn’t all let that lack of scientific literature stop them from trying.  IPCC Credibility Takes a Another Big Dive:  Some beleaguered IPCC participants wasted no time latching onto a hail-Mary hypothesis advanced by New Zealander Kevin Trenberth that the oceans ate their recent global warming temperatures. As Trenberth speculates, “The oceans can at times soak up a lot of heat. Some goes into the deep oceans where it can stay for centuries [and where lamentably, there are no reliable temperature measurements]. But heat absorbed closer to the surface can easily flow back into the air.”  And how does IPCC defend at this hypothesis? Well, perhaps you already guessed the answer. Of course! They developed some hypothetical, unproven guess-work models. Those models will also have to account for that lack of deep ocean temperature measurements in formulating their analysis. In addition, they will have to explain why sea surface temperatures and the upper heat content didn’t increase over the last decade by nearly enough to account for the “missing heat” that those greenhouse gas emissions were originally supposed to have trapped in the Earth’s climate system, yet couldn’t be found.  Shedding Some Sunlight on Climate Change  IPCC’s AR5 report devotes two pages of discussion on climate influences of “solar irradiance”. They conclude that even if such solar activity decreases, it won’t matter nearly as much as an increased “forcing” of greenhouse gases. While this might possibly be true, it doesn’t take the Sun’s strong probable climate influence out of the equation at all. As noted by climatologist Judith Curry who chairs the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, “…the solar-climate connection is probably a lot more complex than this statement implies.”  While the IPCC focusses upon influences of variations in solar irradiance (analogous to turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb), there is another much more powerful way the Sun can impact climate. This occurs through periodic short and long-term changes in cosmic ray activity evidenced by the frequency of sunspots. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles coming from exploding stars that influence the amount of cloud cover.  In an essay titled “While the Sun Sleeps”, Henrick Svensmark, a leading researcher in this area, explains: “The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are visual signs of the Sun’s magnetic activity.” He notes that “Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. But after about 1300, solar activity declined, and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age.”  Svensmark and others point out that over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since that medieval warmth 1,000 years ago. At least that was the case until recently. Now it appears that the Sun has changed again, returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum”, a condition which occurred during the multi-century-long Little Ice Age. So maybe, as a precautionary measure, it might be prudent not to sell your flannel long John underwear on eBay just yet.
Apparently no one, and particularly not IPCC, can be trusted to tell us what turn the climate will take next, or in which direction.