One of the most persistent claims in the climate debate is that global warming leads to more extreme weather. Green groups and even such respectable outlets as Scientific American declare that “extreme weather is a product of climate change.”And Lomborg believes in anthropogenic global warming.
And the meme seems irresistible as a political shortcut to action. President Obama has explicitly linked a warming climate to “more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes.” The White House warned this summer of “increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events that come with climate change.”
Yet this is not supported by science.
Update: Paranoid models were not quite up to snuff:
Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that the world has been warming at only just over half the rate claimed by the IPCC in its last assessment, published in 2007Back then, it said that the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade – a figure it claimed was in line with the forecasts made by computer climate models.
But the new report says the true figure since 1951 has been only 0.12C per decade – a rate far below even the lowest computer prediction.
The 31-page ‘summary for policymakers’ is based on a more technical 2,000-page analysis which will be issued at the same time. It also surprisingly reveals: IPCC scientists accept their forecast computers may have exaggerated the effect of increased carbon emissions on world temperatures – and not taken enough notice of natural variability.
My major beef with Lomborg is that he gives any credence to anthropogenic global warming.
ReplyDeleteBelief is immaterial to science which ought to be obvious to Lomborg and yet it is not. His objections to global warming policy are that it's not clear whether fighting global warming is the best use of resources which seems like a pretty objective view but then he capitulates to global warmers on essentially zero evidence of its scientific validity.