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Has global warming been exaggerated?
Sep. 30th, 2017 12:20 amLast week a number of newspapers ran stories claiming that a new study proved that global warming had been exaggerated, and that urgent action was not required. These stories were wrong. How can I be so sure? Because (once again) the authors of the study which was meant to be the source for these claims, said that these stories completely misrepresented their study. Here is their response:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/when-media-sceptics-misrepresent-our-climate-research-we-must-speak-out
"So after reasonably accurate initial reporting, suddenly our paper was about a downgrading of the threat of climate change, when it was actually nothing of the kind: our predictions for warming rates over the coming decades are identical to those of the IPCC"
The background to all this is that the Paris agreement aims to keep temperature rise below 2° C, and ideally below 1.5° C (as compared to preindustrial levels). At the time, a lot of people were surprised at the inclusion of the latter target as it was thought to be almost impossible to achieve, given that we're already most of the way to 1.5C. The new study suggests that it may be just about possible to limit warming to 1.5° C, *IF* we implement emissions cuts at a much faster rate than is currently happening. In reality, emissions cuts are not even happening fast enough to attain the 2° C target. Bear in mind that the difference in temperature between now and the last ice age is 'only' 4.5° C. On our current trajectory, we are facing a rise of at least 3° C, and the authors of the new study make it clear that their findings do not contradict this.
The newspapers which are most blatantly misrepresenting what the study says are the same ones which spent years perpetuating the myth that vaccines cause autism - something that never had any actual evidence behind it in the first place. A number of people died as a direct result of the drop in vaccination rates which followed these papers' scaremongering. More suffered permanent disability, including blindness and deafness, as a result of measles complications. Doctors and established medical organisations urged these newspapers to report actual facts, but instead, journalists with no scientific literacy preferred to get their information from a tiny group of "rogue" scientists - just as they do today with climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/when-media-sceptics-misrepresent-our-climate-research-we-must-speak-out
"So after reasonably accurate initial reporting, suddenly our paper was about a downgrading of the threat of climate change, when it was actually nothing of the kind: our predictions for warming rates over the coming decades are identical to those of the IPCC"
"Writing in Breitbart, James Delingpole announced that our paper “concedes that it is now almost impossible that the doomsday predictions made in the last IPCC assessment report of 1.5C warming above pre-industrial levels by 2022 will come true.” Which would be exciting, except that the 2013 IPCC report made no such prediction. In fact, the IPCC specifically assessed that temperatures in the 2020s would be 0.9-1.3C warmer than pre-industrial, the lower end of which is already looking conservative. Anyone who had troubled to read our paper would have found this “IPCC AR5 Ch11 projection” helpfully labelled on two of our figures, and clearly consistent with our new results."
The background to all this is that the Paris agreement aims to keep temperature rise below 2° C, and ideally below 1.5° C (as compared to preindustrial levels). At the time, a lot of people were surprised at the inclusion of the latter target as it was thought to be almost impossible to achieve, given that we're already most of the way to 1.5C. The new study suggests that it may be just about possible to limit warming to 1.5° C, *IF* we implement emissions cuts at a much faster rate than is currently happening. In reality, emissions cuts are not even happening fast enough to attain the 2° C target. Bear in mind that the difference in temperature between now and the last ice age is 'only' 4.5° C. On our current trajectory, we are facing a rise of at least 3° C, and the authors of the new study make it clear that their findings do not contradict this.
The newspapers which are most blatantly misrepresenting what the study says are the same ones which spent years perpetuating the myth that vaccines cause autism - something that never had any actual evidence behind it in the first place. A number of people died as a direct result of the drop in vaccination rates which followed these papers' scaremongering. More suffered permanent disability, including blindness and deafness, as a result of measles complications. Doctors and established medical organisations urged these newspapers to report actual facts, but instead, journalists with no scientific literacy preferred to get their information from a tiny group of "rogue" scientists - just as they do today with climate change.
