The first one appears to be TMT compared to surface T model runs. Using TLT (lower instead of middle) might be more appropriate. Also 2016 annual anomaly from UAH and RSS are both now available, another bit could be added to the end. Are the CMIP5 models global, or reduced to tropical only coverage?
Correct but as the article points out, our species does not live in the TLT. The article doesn't say. But the article points out that 'all models are wrong but can be useful.' This is the biggest take-away and why multiple runs are necessary ... enough to give a statistically valid sample. The article shows how easily innumerology is exploited to mislead. So it has merit. Bob Wilson
We don't live in TLT or TMT. We live at the surface where satellite microwave retrievals can not be done. I don't wish to say more until you tell us what we can learn from this (apparently unusually expansive) media piece. CMIP5 models are many and varied, and I have no basis to exclude any of them. But (and this puts me in the wrong camp) if they can't show 'pre-1970' -T episodes, they may not accurately foretell the future with more CO2. I have no wish to argue against BobW here, but I think that we still have a poor handle on future T and SLR, and future plant growth (crops and forests). I guess they will be within extremes envisioned by catastrophists on both flanks. I think the matter (broadly) requires more research. If anyone here thinks it does not, then just defund your national science agencies. See how well it works.
We're not arguing. We're just two of seven blind men with our first elephant. But unlike our predecessors, we listen to each other to seek enlightenment. Bob Wilson
Recent surface T and sea-level increases are not small, but neither are they shockingly large. Renewable energy slowly increases because it works in terms of money. Holding CO2 below 450 ppm looks like a lost cause to me. Holding CO2 below 500 could happen, but perhaps only following a large ice dump, or a long string of much hotter years. I think it won't be climate models that finally get us off the fossil-C path that made the 19th and 20th centuries so successful. It could only be something we have not seen yet. So, up we go, 450, 500, even maybe 600 ppm CO2. At most this will harm poorest folks that (sorry) nobody really cares about anyway. After a few more generations, future humans may not like what they were dealt, and might have an ill view towards us here now. Well, eff them because we chase money and follow our leaders. I don't accede to blindness. I sneakily lift eye-mask and look at that elephant. Time and space are not the same things.
They certainly won't unless they work better in the future than they have today. I thought it was argued that the 350 policies would hurt the poor folks the most. Rich people would have their energy but poor would lose their cars and heat. Maybe 500 we can raise up the poor without causing armageddon, but lots of people have vested interest in fighting the 350 folks. The problem is when most people can see, there is no elephant. Some people get very rich from burning fossil fuel. Some rich getting subsidies to not burn fossil fuel. Perhaps it is wise to slow the burn, and not aquiess to either billionair camp, nor cede to malthus that tech can not help. To me the clean power plan is a step in the right direction in the US, and it will be in court, but things will move. On oil burn that is anouther story and world policies need to step up and cut that burn. Maybe the US works with france and china for the next gen nuk powerplants, but let them build it there. Maybe 80% reduction is a stupid unobtainable goal, and 40% is a better one, with a lot of mitigation.
I foresee a possible minor tipping point coming let's say in 2018 or so if the 2015/2016 El Nino warming does not go back down to the prior "hiatus" trend line, then that could be a point for the models. Overall I agree as long as it appears adaption is feasible, then they may not be be a driving force. Major sea level change like 3 feet overnight would start to get some attention and change minds.
