Hi,

The news that CO2 levels are likely to rise alarmingly high very soon has been published by the <a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4210629.stm'>BBC news</a> website.

Seems us CPDN crunchers are famous now.

Don't know if it'll mean that the yanks will at last take note and sign up for Kyoto.

Timbo

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regards,
Tim

UK BOINC Team Founder
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A bit exaggerating that article, I think.

quote
Global temperatures could rise by as much as eleven degrees Celsius, according to one of the largest climate prediction projects ever run.
end of quote

It may be true, that one of the 27000 models got 11 K warmer, but the variability and the mean values are not that much different to previous studies.
The simulations are run more often than before so there are more extreme findings.
Looking <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/science/secondresults.php">here</a> suggests that it's extremly unlikly that the temperature will rise more than 8 K.

BTW: We are in <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/science/strategy.php">stage 1</a> with the goal to "Identify suitable ranges of parameters"

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<a href="http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=1574">see here</a>

we've got two threads going on the same topic

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_________________________________

well although the 11 degree increase is a very low probability -- it could happen! ;-) (or perhaps :-( is better). I think what is "groundbreaking" (at least for "headline news") is that CPDN actually reports the high temps whereas it seems that most studies &amp; projects shy away from reporting the extremes (I'm just speaking as an "amateur" mind you). But of course we CPDNers aren't afraid of reporting things that may not be popular! ;-)

Nature article <a href="http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7024/abs/nature03301_fs.html&amp;dynoptions=doi1106810484">here</a>

But you need a subscription to read more than the abstract :-(

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&gt; Nature article <a> href="http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7024/abs/nature03301_fs.html&amp;dynoptions=doi1106810484"&gt;here</a>
&gt;
&gt; But you need a subscription to read more than the abstract :-(
&gt;
Hi,

You can now read the full paper from our website, by downloading it from:
http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_first_results.pdf

This is linked to from the News page, and from Climate Science/Publications.

Hannah

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&gt; Hi,
&gt;
&gt; You can now read the full paper from our website, by downloading it from:
&gt; http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_first_results.pdf
&gt;
&gt; This is linked to from the News page, and from Climate Science/Publications.
&gt;
&gt; Hannah
&gt;
If you see any other stories about the project in the media, please do let us know. Either post to this forum about it, or email Sylvia (sknight[at]atm[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk.

Cheers,
Hannah

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I saw Myles Allen on the BBC 6:00 news also at 10:00. There was also a piece on ceefax news p120 which did mention climateprediction.net.

---

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Groan.....

BBC News item:
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4203021.stm"> Science sceptics meet on climate</a>

Marj

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_________________________________

quote:Inflated' threat

Results from one of the largest climate prediction projects ever run, which were published on Thursday in the journal Nature, suggest temperatures around the world could rise by as much as 11C.

Previous predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that global average temperatures would increase this century by 1.5-5.5C, with sea levels rising by anywhere from 9 to 88 cm.
/end of quote.

Well, journalists - the same here in today newspaper.
As i do interpret IPCC, it suggests most probable scenario...and CPDN is not far from it. According to arcticle in Nature (see Sylvia's link), the 11C rise has a low chance to happen (e.g 5% models shows +8C or more) but it is still realistic.

&gt; Groan.....
&gt;
&gt; BBC News item:
&gt; <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4203021.stm"> Science sceptics
&gt; meet on climate</a>
&gt;
&gt; Marj

&gt; well although the 11 degree increase is a very low probability -- it could
&gt; happen! ;-) (or perhaps :-( is better). I think what is "groundbreaking" (at
&gt; least for "headline news") is that CPDN actually reports the high temps
&gt; whereas it seems that most studies &amp; projects shy away from reporting the
&gt; extremes (I'm just speaking as an "amateur" mind you). But of course we
&gt; CPDNers aren't afraid of reporting things that may not be popular! ;-)
&gt;
&gt;

Ok, you are right. I have to read the nature article first. Thanks for making it available for public.:-)
But I was a bit suprised when I heard the news on the radio yesterday (in Germany). I took a look at http://www.climateprediction.net/science/secondresults.php which made me think that over 10K are impossible.

EDIT: Reading the methods in the article, makes things clearer (e.g. where the 11 K come from)

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I suspect that the blame for the rather disproportionate emphasis on the extreme end of the range lies with Nature for overhyping the article for commercial reasons.

As for link provided by Marj, I don't understand the motivations but it has become a familiar part of the scene. To say that the campaign is driven by commercial interests is too simplistic. We saw the same kind of thing over HIV/AIDS, for example. It's a form of anti-rationalism dressed up in scientific garb; it is closely mirrored by the campaign against evolutionary theory. It is dangerous mainly because most journalists, at any rate in the UK, have little scientific understanding and cannot even cope with the simplest statistics.

---

&gt; If you see any other stories about the project in the media, please do let us
&gt; know. Either post to this forum about it, or email Sylvia
&gt; (sknight[at]atm[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk.

On every german newspaper or online mag I saw CPDN make it on the front page. Even in the local newspapers that have very low quality. So the nature article made a big impact here in Germany.

It only made me quite angry that nearly every headline said: "It gets warmer by up to 11.5 degrees." Noone, but one newspaper told about probabilities. I think the blame for that is partly on the press release posted by the CPDN team, which also only focus on the maximum value. In my opinion posting such stuff is not responsible. At least the article in Nature gives a proper dicussion of the result.

chris

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&gt;
&gt; Ok, you are right. I have to read the nature article first. Thanks for making
&gt; it available for public.:-)
&gt; But I was a bit suprised when I heard the news on the radio yesterday (in
&gt; Germany). I took a look at
&gt; http://www.climateprediction.net/science/secondresults.php which made me think
&gt; that over 10K are impossible.
&gt;
&gt;
The secondresults page shows some models going up to over 22 degrees at the end of phase 3 from (probably around) 14. That is an increase of 8 but those models are still clearly going up. The climate sensitivity is derived from the equilibrium temperature levels. The models have not reached equilibrium levels but the trend can be continued with an exponential extrapolation and errors from doing this are small. By doing this, the CP team have got climate sensitivities of more than 11.

I think it is important to note that just running the model does not make it realistic. It takes further analysis of the results by the CP team. They have done a lot of analysis to show that the models are resonably capable of modelling current climate. It might be expected that the really high sensitivity models are fairly unlikely and would be less able to model current climate. However there is no such trend; it is only the very low sensitivity models that seem less able to model current climate. Almost all models seem at least as good as for the CMIP II models. The best model had a climate sensitivity of around 3.5. However, taking the average performance of all the models with about that sensitivity seems no better than the average performance of model with sensitivity of over 8.

This is only one test and I assume that the models the IPCC used to quote the 1.4 to 5.8 range have been used to do a hindcast. Further tests of performance will follow and may not show the same similar performance of high sensitivity models.

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&gt; I suspect that the blame for the rather disproportionate emphasis on the
&gt; extreme end of the range lies with Nature for overhyping the article for
&gt; commercial reasons.

Not entirely. The real news in the story is that we've** found sensible climate models with much higher sensitivities than have previously been found. So it turns out that a much wider range of model behaviours - particularly at the vigorous end of the spectrum - have been identified, and are considered (at this stage) physically plausible. [I wish I had put it that tightly in my (reasonably awful) interviews...]

**When I say we I mean all of us involved in the experiment as participants and researchers.

Dave

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Another speaker at the London conference is Professor Fred Singer, a former director of the US Weather Satellite Service.

Drought is not linked to greenhouse gas emissions, speakers say
<b>Asked whether global warming posed a threat, he told the BBC: "It's certainly not a cause for alarm. The greenhouse warming from increased gas emissions is, as far as we can tell, insignificant.

"It's unlikely to be appreciable even a century from now, and we can easily adapt to it.</b>

"The IPCC's predictions are based entirely on models, not observations. You must either improve the models or prove the observations are wrong."

I know its maybe not the right way to react but it just makes me so angry. Anyone who deals with the issues involved with this kind of attitude is playing games with the future. Any rational and sensible indivudual takes precautions against the risk of catastrophic events occurring even if they think there is a low probability it will happen. I'd like to bet they've all got life insurance so that their families will be provided for if anything should happen to them.

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_________________________________

&gt; It only made me quite angry that nearly every headline said: "It gets warmer
&gt; by up to 11.5 degrees." Noone, but one newspaper told about probabilities. I
&gt; think the blame for that is partly on the press release posted by the CPDN
&gt; team, which also only focus on the maximum value. In my opinion posting such
&gt; stuff is not responsible. At least the article in Nature gives a proper
&gt; dicussion of the result.
&gt;
&gt; chris
&gt;

If the results show a larger range than the IPCC have suggested is it irresponsible to include this or suppress this in the paper?

If you do include it, then it seems to me inevitable that the press in looking for a news story (as opposed to scientific advance) will concentrate on the major difference to the IPCC range which is clearly at the top end of the range. It is just the way the press is.

---

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The US oil industry funded Global Climate Coalition have arrived in the UK today to start their "no action required" lobbying. Article in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1399383,00.html">Guardian</a>.

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&gt; If you see any other stories about the project in the media, please do let us
&gt; know. Either post to this forum about it, or email Sylvia
&gt; (sknight[at]atm[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk.

You've got an indirect mention in an interesting article on realclimate.org <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114">What if ... the "Hockey Stick" were wrong?</a>.

A couple of comments have been added so far (one adding a link to the paper, the other questioning the validity of the findings).

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer