The CLINTEL “There is no Climate Emergency” Manifesto puts it this way: “Stop with the Misleading Computer Models” and I agree completely. It is clear by now that these models predict temperatures that appear much too high. No policies should be based on them and the ones that are should be revoked.
For background on CLINTEL and their Manifesto, see my recent article here:
The Manifesto, by Professor Guus Berkhout, is here: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/63030622/there-is-no-climate-emergency
A climate model is nothing more than an attempt to describe the reality using the theoretical knowledge, assumptions and approximations of the involved model makers. As such its validity needs to be continuously tested against observations and if it fails those tests it means that the model makers are wrong. Professor Berkhout’s Manifesto points out that the mainstream climate models have in fact been tested and they all fail the tests, already for 30 years.
Manifesto’s figure 3a shows John Christy’s telling analysis of the last 100+ major computer simulations versus real world observations. A similar graphic can be found online here: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/climate-models-vs-observations.jpg
Tests clearly show that the models are running dramatically hotter than reality. This exaggeration has led to the description of a future full of doom and gloom. If climate researchers would have followed genuine validation tests, the models would have now been falsified and updated.
Instead the projected global warming gets more and more scary. An old saying says: ‘Mankind suffers most because of the suffering he fears’. Hence, the more scary the models the higher the impact on the public. The Manifesto puts it succinctly: “trusting the models means trusting the model makers.”
To see the huge significance of this graphic we need to take a quick trip through the political geography of climate modeling. On top is the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC. The IPCC does not execute any climate modeling itself. The actual computer simulations are carried out by various government modeling centers around the world.
The actual model runs are dictated by the UN World Climate Research Program and coordinated by the Climate Model Intercomparison Project or CMIP, which runs out of the U.S. Energy Department. The latter does not follow US policy but basically answers to the UN.
These massively coordinated modeling exercises take years to set up and run, so they are timed to fit into the IPCC’s five year reporting cycle. The last big drill was CMIP5 and it is those results that are shown diverging from reality in the Manifesto figure. Each line represents a specific model.
It is to be expected that the modelers would be trying to get the modeling resultscloser to reality, thereby showing progress of their research but – looking at the different outcomes over time – that is not happening. In fact early reports tell us that the CMIP6 models are running even hotter than the CMIP5 ones, a lot hotter in fact. This result will let the IPCC announce that the climate emergency is even worse than we thought, which the alarmists can then use to push for tougher climate policies.
For governments these frightening modeling outcomes are welcome because they call for more authority. Not surprisingly governments are obsessed with modeling and modeling centers are very well funded. They run the biggest supercomputers that a lot of money can buy.
Bear in mind that hotter modeling results are reached by 1) increased climate sensitivity due to positive cloud feedbacks and 2) increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the scenarios. It is interesting to observe there is considerable skepticism over these new hot results within the modeling community itself. We may see the community of modelers divided into moderates and radicals over this issue, just as the policy community has divided. Such a division is not a surprise as a further increase in the exaggeration of global warming brings modeling results even further away from measurements.
In addition, according to the IPCC theory increased global warming (IPCC working group 1) will increase climate-driven natural disasters (IPCC working group 2). But an increase of natural disasters due to global warming is not observed in reality. It too only exists in the output of computer models and it is the basis for the purported emergency, which simply does not exist. As the Manifesto title says: “There is no Climate Emergency.”
The difference between the real world and the modeled world has already existed for 30 years. Unfortunately, instead of getting smaller due to a proper validation process, this difference has become bigger. Actually, with respect to natural disasters the last decade was probably the safest decade in the history of mankind, for data see: htttps://www.emdat.be/.
The embarrassing conclusion is that in the past 30 years the climate models became worse instead of better. It is sad to say but it means that current model makers cannot be trusted. Looking at wasting 30 valuable years, professor Berkhout’s advice is: “Let us start all over again.” Only this time include natural variability based on actual historic data, increase and improve measurement capabilities and replace mitigation by adaptation. Adaptation always works, whatever the causes of change are.
As the CLINTEL Manifesto says — “Mass application of poorly validated climate models on a global scale may be the biggest mistake of mankind in its recent history.”
This is the second article that David has written for CLINTEL.