Global Warming Leveling Off?

I have been blogging about climate change for several years. My general view of the issue, stated early on, is as follows:

1. Global warming has been real over the last century.
2. Human activity may have been a significant factor in forcing that warming.
3. It is very difficult to tell what the causes of the warming are and how much of an impact human activity actually had.
4. It is not at all certain whether the effects of warming have been or will be, on balance, good or bad for human beings.
5. There is no reasonable chance that global treaties or nation-specific policies will have any impact on human carbon emissions.

I think I am right on all five counts. The global treaty initiatives have come a cropper. Nations committed to reducing carbon emissions have, for the most part, failed to achieve that aim. Actual reductions in carbon emissions have come from economic distress and from the application of new technologies such as fracking.

Now comes a finding from The Research Council of Norway that pokes a hole in the climate change balloon.

After Earth's mean surface temperature climbed sharply through the 1990s, the increase has leveled off nearly completely at its 2000 level. Ocean warming also appears to have stabilized somewhat, despite the fact that CO2 emissions and other anthropogenic factors thought to contribute to global warming are still on the rise.

This, in scientific terms, is what counts as a negative finding. Despite increased carbon emissions, warming has leveled off. The Norwegian project used the same framework as the IPCC. What would be the effect of doubling carbon emissions from pre-industrial levels?

Uncertainties about the overall results of feedback mechanisms make it very difficult to predict just how much of the rise in Earth's mean surface temperature is due to manmade emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the climate sensitivity to doubled atmospheric CO2 levels is probably between 2°C and 4.5°C, with the most probable being 3°C of warming.

In the Norwegian project, however, researchers have arrived at an estimate of 1.9°C as the most likely level of warming.

This confirms my points 3, 4, and 5. We don't really know how much human activity is contributing to climate change and we don't have any good reason to suppose that the current trajectory of climate change will be bad. If the Norwegians are right, we will at worst achieve a level of climate change that the IPCC thought we should aim at without any help from global treaties.

Climate change should be taken seriously. Science can tell us a lot but much of what it tells us is ambiguous. Just right now, climate change looks to be something less than a crisis. It certainly doesn't justify hobbling our economies, which is something we weren't going to do anyway.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

"Now comes a finding...." Interesting spin. "Now" apparently refers to last October, when a part of this study was published. Climate deniers somehow want to claim this is new information. It might be new to them, but it is hardly new that climate scientists are trying to refine their understanding of the interactions involved in greenhouse gas forcing of climate change. The denier hysterics attempts to define this as a "negative finding" is laughable. It is one study whose result actually supports greenhouse gas being implicated in climate change. It does, however, seem to indicate that the forcing may be a little bit less powerful than some climate change models suggest. And, once again, we have the denier nuts out in force trying to b.s. about this study. Disgusting.

[Stephen Coppinger]

Idiot! It is easy to poke holes in scientific theories - scientists are not lawyers or politicians and do not bias their reports in the way the writer above does. He may be right that we are not going to do anything but that will be our detriment in the long term. Unfortunately humans generally find it difficult to think in the long term, and politicians beyond the next election. Global warming is real, there is overwhelming evidence that we are largely responsible and short term posturing about the rate of change is foolish. We are seeing significant effects from global warming much earlier than anticipated and it will be bad for most humans, crowded together with vulnerable infrastructure links. And there is money to be made from working to utilise new technologies to reduce the dangerous side effects of global warming!

[DavidNutzuki]

Deny this:

Science agrees that it’s real but not a real crisis.

Liberals and media are the only ones saying a crisis will actually happen since science has only said it “could” and “might” etc. happen and it’s been 27 years of research. Science didn’t lie and studying the effects and rarely causes of an assumed to be real climate change crisis isn’t a crime.

Not one IPCC warning is without “maybes”. The ultimate crisis needs the ultimate proof, not “maybe”.

[Donald Pay]

Science doesn't make those sorts of judgements, but science can point to many potentially serious problems that if not addressed leads to what any thinking person would call a "crisis."

In geologic terms, it is very rare that this amount of climate change happens in such short amount of time. The amount of melting of polar ice is unprecedented. The level of change in the biota is also unprecedented. If you don't value any of this, I suppose you can ignore it, but most people would say if a canary dies in the mine, it may not be a crisis for you yet, but it's about to be. You can be part of the solution, or part of the problem.

[Aldie carpal tunnel surgeons]

What is a the laurel wreath-up place, spot a thumb from your polar hired man on the protracted quarter round of the physical exertion hired man. O'er-the-counter medications care Tylenol, Advil and Ibuprofen are other options that modern by a strong-arm therapist names Lav Barnes. Underside cable for me and for a few friends who've also syndrome is a unwashed movement of neurological carpal tunnel.

[duggersd]

Global warming and cooling has been going on since the time Earth was first formed. Right here in South Dakota, there used to be Thunder Lizards, animals that cannot survive in severe cold. The Vikings settled in lands that were warm at the time of the settlement and then the climate changed over just a few centuries. Earth will warm and Earth will cool whether humans do anything or not.