Academia, Environment, International, Politics, Science

Report: There is a 99.999% Certainty That Humans Driving Global Warming

earth-screensaver_largeThere is a new report on global climate change this week that addresses many of the claims being raised against the theory by critics. Despite the overwhelming agreement of the scientific community, people continue to cite anecdotal observations of cool temperatures to refute predictions. The new report crunches the climate numbers and concludes that there is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

The research published in Climate Risk Management by Philip Kokica, Steven Crimpc, and Mark Howdend is reportedly the first to quantify the probability of historical changes in global temperatures. They directly address the arguments promulgated by climate change critics:

December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th century monthly average, with February 1985 the last time mean temperature fell below this value. Even given these and other extraordinary statistics, public acceptance of human induced climate change and confidence in the supporting science has declined since 2007. The degree of uncertainty as to whether observed climate changes are due to human activity or are part of natural systems fluctuations remains a major stumbling block to effective adaptation action and risk management. Previous approaches to attribute change include qualitative expert-assessment approaches such as used in IPCC reports and use of ‘fingerprinting’ methods based on global climate models. Here we develop an alternative approach which provides a rigorous probabilistic statistical assessment of the link between observed climate changes and human activities in a way that can inform formal climate risk assessment. We construct and validate a time series model of anomalous global temperatures to June 2010, using rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as other causal factors including solar radiation, volcanic forcing and the El Niño Southern Oscillation. When the effect of GHGs is removed, bootstrap simulation of the model reveals that there is less than a one in one hundred thousand chance of observing an unbroken sequence of 304 months (our analysis extends to June 2010) with mean surface temperature exceeding the 20th century average. We also show that one would expect a far greater number of short periods of falling global temperatures (as observed since 1998) if climate change was not occurring. This approach to assessing probabilities of human influence on global temperature could be transferred to other climate variables and extremes allowing enhanced formal risk assessment of climate change.

They note that July 2014 was the 353rd consecutive month in which global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th-century monthly average. Notably, anyone born after February 1985 has not lived a single month where the global temperature was below the long-term average for that month. Their analysis put the probability of getting the same run of “warmer-than-average months without the human influence was less than 1 chance in 100,000.”

We identified periods of declining temperature by using a moving 10-year window (1950 to 1959, 1951 to 1960, 1952 to 1961, etc.) through the entire 60-year record. We identified 11 such short time periods where global temperatures declined.

Our analysis showed that in the absence of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, there would have been more than twice as many periods of short-term cooling than are found in the observed data.

It is an interesting paper that I recommend to you. I am obviously already sold on the concept of climate change and strongly disagree with those fighting efforts to control the pollution linked to the change. However, we can have a civil discourse on the subject and I believe that this is a credible report worthy of inclusion in that ongoing debate.

363 thoughts on “Report: There is a 99.999% Certainty That Humans Driving Global Warming”

  1. rainparade:

    By definition, I do have an open mind. I accepted anthropogenic climate change without question for years. When I heard criticism, I investigated it myself, and discovered well documented trouble with the data that the IPCC itself admits.

    And, since I have stated that I have not decided either way, because of the ethical problems with the study, again, by definition, I have an open mind. I need the study to be fixed before I can come to any conclusion.

    And I do understand that human activity affects the globe. We have polluted the ENTIRE ocean, for example, and goat grazing and harvesting timber decertified east regions of continents.

  3. Darren Smith – I am familiar with the Year Without a Summer. Many people starved. That was from large particulates from a volcanic eruption. A similar even is predicted to occur if there is a nuclear war. The ash would block the sun and chill the planet. That is also one of the reasons why the dinosaurs are believed to have gone extinct. A massive cloud of ash from a huge asteroid suddenly chilled the Earth, killed off a lot of plant life, and triggered mass extinctions. Any life form who breathed the fine particles of ash close to the impact site smothered.

    Since past predicts present, there are concerns about some of our potential super volcanoes. Eventually, one will blow it’s top, but there’s no way to predict. Could be 20,000 years, could be 2 million.

  4. rainparade – “Jim22: fracking has become politicized

    Fracking has become politicized because the process is stealing or otherwise depriving citizens of their drinking water. Citizens turn to their elected officials for some measure of protection or relief from oppressive and destructive corporate behavior in the form of regulations and restrictions.

    BTW, Dick Cheney was the first to politicize fracking when he snuck virtual immunity for the fracking industry by an unsuspecting public.”

    And your point is?

    “Fracking kills, and it doesn’t just kill us. It kills the land, nature and, eventually, the whole world.” – Yoko Ono

    She forgot to put in that it kills puppies and beats baby seals to death! I love hearing from “artists” who live off of others money and don’t have a care in the world.

    1. Jim22 – Yoko Ono is a twit. And using quotes around ‘artist’ to describe her is absolutely correct. She has two claims to fame 1) posing naked or near naked with John Lennon and 2) causing the breakup of the Beatles.

  5. Paul C. Schulte – “Max-1 – sticking someone’s head under H2O and leaving it there for 5 minutes will also do damage. That does not mean H2O is a pollutant.”

    The solution to pollution is dilution.

    Does a beaver give a dam about how he affects his environment?

  6. Greenland used to be, you know, green. That’s how it got it’s name. Then it became glaciated. Then the glaciers melted and Greenland was green again. Then it became glaciated.

    See the trend here? All of it occurred before the invention of the power plant and the SUV.

    1. Michael Haz – the Vikings left Greenland because it got too cold for them to grow crops to survive on. Think they called it The Little Ice Age.

  7. Annie – I can tell from the way his is using his information that he lacks independent knowledge and is not using independent thought.

  8. Annie – I am always concerned by people who lack knowledge but pretend they know the subject. They do know what they have been told, but in the case of rainparade, he/she/it is only repeating the talking points of the ‘global warming’ psuedo-scientists, i.e., Michael Mann.

  9. Annie: Thanks for the warm welcome. I have to disagree with you about manmade gases, however. I’m aware of at least several gases put out by women. too.

  10. Karen: It simply isn’t true that debate over anthropogenic climate change is shut down. Neither is it true that there are any “issues” with the collection of data. Nor do you have an open mind.

  11. Centinel: You are incorrect about higher levels of CO2 improving growing conditions for plantlife. This is an issue that was put to rest long ago by agronomists looking to increase crop yields. Studies have shown no significant increase in plant growth or vigor with elevated levels of CO2, and in fact there’s a fall off in production.

  15. Lastly… IMO from all the data I’m reading, we are but two generations away from having to explain to children what a starfish WAS… and why they no longer live in our oceans.

  16. May, June, July 2014… HOTTEST OCEAN TEMPS

    July Ocean Temperature Hits Record High—Again
    http://ecowatch.com/2014/08/18/ocean-temperature-record-high/

    The National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the average temperature was 62.56 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.06 degrees above the 20th-century average. The ocean surfaces also reached that temperature in July 2009. It’s the third straight month this year that ocean surface temperatures set a record.
    (continued)

  18. New study finds fringe global warming contrarians get disproportionate media attention
    30% of fringe climate scientists who say carbon pollution causes little global warming report frequent media coverage, vs. just 15% of mainstream climate scientists
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/aug/11/fringe-global-warming-contrarians-disproportionate-media?CMP=twt_gu

    A new study led by Bart Verheggen surveyed 1,868 scientists studying various aspects of climate change, asking them several questions mainly focused on what’s causing global warming. They survey also asked the respondents,

    How frequently have you featured in the media regarding your views on climate change?

    The answers to this question reflect whether the media is really fair and balanced on the subject of global warming. A truly balanced media would give equally proportional attention and coverage to climate scientists in the mainstream and on the fringes. For example, if 20% of contrarian climate scientists reported frequent media attention, a fair and balanced media would also give frequent coverage to 20% of mainstream climate scientists.

    Instead, fringe contrarian climate scientists reported that they receive frequent media coverage twice as often as mainstream climate scientists.
    (continued)

  20. For those that believe that the ‘science isn’t settled’…
    … A rudimentary explanation about:

    CLIMATE MODELING

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