Will Someone Please Just Admit We Know Little Or Nothing About the Climate and Models Tells Us Nothing of Practical Use?

A few studies have come out recently that show just how little we know about climate and how none of the various predictions put out by Al Gore, John Kerry, the UN and other climate fanatics are reliable predictors of anything.

One of these is a study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment. It’s titled “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet.” [Editor’s Note: Will someone please tell me why titles aren’t capitalized anymore and everything else today is over-capitalized?]

Like most academic works now, it more math than anything else, but quite usefully in this case. Here are the abstract and the most relevant parts of the discussion (emphasis added):

The global mean surface temperature is widely studied to monitor climate change. A current debate centers around whether there has been a recent (post-1970s) surge/acceleration in the warming rate. Here we investigate whether an acceleration in the warming rate is detectable from a statistical perspective. We use changepoint models, which are statistical techniques specifically designed for identifying structural changes in time series. Four global mean surface temperature records over 1850–2023 are scrutinized within.

Our results show limited evidence for a warming surge; in most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023. As such, we estimate the minimum changes in the warming trend required for a surge to be detectable. Across all datasets, an increase of at least 55% is needed for a warming surge to be detectable at the present time…

Global mean surface temperature (GMST) series are crucial for monitoring global warming. The warming can be quantified by a change from a base period (e.g. pre-industrial), or by the rate of change (the warming rate) over a time interval. The GMST naturally fluctuates in time, displaying short periods of accelerated or decelerated warming…

These fluctuations may happen in the presence of long-term warming and can arise due to short-term variability (or noise) in the surface temperatures. Here, trend means the long-term change in mean temperatures and noise contains fluctuations about the trend…

GMST series fluctuate in time due to short-term variability, often creating the appearance of surges and/or slowdowns in warming. While these fluctuations may mimic an increase/decrease in the warming trend, they can simply arise from random noise in the series.

This is important considering the warming hiatus discussion over the last decade and the more recent alleged warming acceleration. Formal detection of surges and pauses should account for noise (or short-term variability) and the additional uncertainty of identifying the changepoint times (unless the timing of a changepoint is suggested by independent model/theory/observations).

Here, several changepoint models were used to assess whether an acceleration in warming has occurred since 1970. Different changepoint model types were considered to assess sensitivity to model choice. After accounting for short-term variability in the GMST (characterized by an autoregressive process), a warming surge could not be reliably detected anytime after 1970…

While our focus is on whether there has been a continued acceleration in the rate of global warming, our analysis recognizes how unusual surface temperature anomalies were in 2023. Our model fit shows that the 2023 anomaly is larger than the 99th percentile of the expected mean, indicating a large departure from the current warming trend…

The fact that trend changes in GMST records were not detected after the 1970s does not rule out that some small changes may have occurred; indeed, the records may be too short (or changes not large enough) to be detectable amidst the short-term variability. As such, a simulation study was conducted to assess when a warming surge will become detectable in the future.

A change in the warming rate on the order of 35% around 2010 becomes detectable circa 2035. This is the case for both an acceleration or a slowdown in warming.

The obvious conclusion is this: if it takes a 55% increase in the rate to be detectable at the present time and a 35% increase can only be detected 25 years later than none of the models we keep reading about mean anything whatsoever. And, that’s before trying to determine what’s natural and what’s man-made! This study suggests no increase in the warming rate since 1970, so that certainly suggests a natural trend, if anything, but we shouldn’t pretend to know either way because, in reality, we know hardly anything.

That is except for one thing: the reliability of all those models, which brings to mind this article at Behind the Black and the following chart:

The chart is self-explanatory and the story includes references to various studies demonstrating the impact of CO2 on the climate is way over-stated. The climate narrative constructed by Gore, Kerry, et al, in other words, is falling apart. Experts always overvalue their expertise and so do their customers, clients and true believers. It’s nothing new and has to run its course every time but we are no approaching the reality that we know nothing much at all.

#Climate #GlobalWarmingSurge #Temperature #CO2 #Models

Hat Tip: R.K.