Top climate scientists admit global warming forecasts were wrong
By Hayley Dixon3:45PM BST 15 Sep 2013
Top climate scientists have admitted that their global warming forecasts are wrong and world is not heating at the rate
they claimed it was in a key report.
The vast majority of scientists are persuaded that climate change
is real - where there is scope for disagreement is over the
solutions.
The IPCC maintain that they are 95 per cent certain that global
warming is caused by humans.
A leaked draft of a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change is understood to concede that the computer
predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon
emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.
The report, to be published later this month, is a six year
assessment which is seen as the gospel of climate science and is cited to justify fuel taxes and subsidies for renewable
energy.
The “summary for policymakers” of the report states that the world is warming at a rate of 0.12C per decade since 1951,
compared to a prediction of 0.13C per decade in their last assessment published in 2007.
Other admissions in the latest document include that forecast computers may not have taken enough notice of natural
variability in the climate, therefore exaggerating the effect of increased carbon emissions on world temperatures.
The governments which fund the IPCC have tabled 1,800 questions in relation to the report.
One of the central issues is believed to be why the IPCC failed to account for the “pause” in global warming, which they
admit that they did not predict in their computer models. Since 1997, world average temperatures have not shown any
statistically significant increase.
The summary also shows that scientist have now discovered that between 950 and 1250 AD, before the Industrial
Revolution, parts of the world were as warm for decades at a time as they are now.
Despite a 2012 draft stating that the world is at it’s warmest for 1,300 years, the latest document states: “'Surface
temperature reconstructions show multi-decadal intervals during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250) that were
in some regions as warm as in the late 20th Century.”
The 2007 report included predictions of a decline in Antarctic sea ice, but the latest document does not explain why this
year it is at a record high.
The 2013 report states: “'Most models simulate a small decreasing trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, in contrast to the
small increasing trend in observations ...
“There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent.'
The 2007 forecast for more intense hurricanes has also been ignored in the new document after this year was one of the
quietest hurricane seasons in history.
One of the report's authors, Professor Myles Allen, the director of Oxford University's Climate Research Network, has
said that people should not look to the IPCC for a “bible” on climate change.
Professor Allen, who admits “we need to look very carefully about what the IPCC does in future”, said that he could not
comment on the report as it was still considered to be in its draft stages.
However, he added: “It is a complete fantasy to think that you can compile an infallible or approximately infallible
report, that is just not how science works.
“It is not a bible, it is a scientific review, an assessment of the literature. Frankly both sides are seriously confused on
how science works - the critics of the IPCC and the environmentalists who credit the IPCC as if it is the gospel."
Scientist were constantly revising their research to account for new data, he said.
Despite the uncertainties and contradictions, the IPCC insists that it is more confident than ever – 95 per cent certain that global warming is mainly human’s fault.
Next week 40 of the 250 authors who contributed to the report and representatives of most of the 195 governments
that fund the IPCC will hold a meeting in Stockholm to discuss the finding to discuss any issues ahead of the publication.
The body has insisted that this is not a crisis meeting but a pre-planned discussion.