For the Climate Classroom Wall: actual versus doomsters' projected global mean temperatures

 The so-called settled science and the associated computer models produce the rising spaghetti spread of outputs you can see in the the diagram below just published by Roy Spencer (hat-tip Bishop Hill).  This variation is there despite the pampering of the models, and the careful orchestration and selection of their runs and outputs around the world.  The alarmed ones credit the rising temperatures to rising levels of CO2.  But they do not include CO2 in the models as an active participant in the simulations.  Instead a presumed effect of the CO2, grandly labelled an 'external forcing' despite it being clearly internal to the climate system, is added and the models are run to watch how they adjust.  The added effect is done by reducing, suddenly, the rate at which radiative energy escapes the model atmosphere.  As you might expect, and as the alarmed ones hope, model temperatures then tend to rise and thereby inspire those who wish scare children and disturb adults with tales of impending doom.

Source: Spencer

 The early part of the chart shows some alignment with estimated actual mean temperatures in the lower troposphere derived from satellite observations (UAH, RSS), but this is not due to the predictive skill of the models so much as the parameter adjustment skills of the modellers trying to get good fits to past observations.  Spencer does not report on when the forecasting part of the model outputs begin on these plots, but in the comments below his post he guesses that it may be no later than 2007.  Ignoring the 1998 spike widely attributed to a very strong El Nino, the sustained divergence of actual from model seems to begin in about 1995.

Note also that there are other forecasts of global mean temperatures that have a better track record so far than the climate models.  Here are two:

(1) Global surface temperatures projected from 2007 model runs are shown in the green band.  The blue (cyan) band is for the empirically-fitted model by Scafetta in which he merely makes a combination of past, observed cycles in temperature plus ad adjustment to reflect the overall warming of the 20th century.  The thick red line changing to thick blue is derived from observations. The thick black line shows Scafetta's model projected into the future.  So far, it is doing a lot better than the multi-million pound GCMs.   I reckon Scafetta's model could be run on a decent programmable calculator such as this one costing about £30.

 (2) An even less expensive prediction model is the basic persistence one devised by an expert in forecasting techniques after working through a checklist of what it takes to produce forecasts based on best practices (a checklist against which the climate forecasts of such as the IPCC fail dramatically).  This expert was so dismayed by the poor basis for forecasts made by the IPCC and taken up by such as Al Gore, that he announced a public bet over whether Gore's claim of a 3C rise by the end of the 21st century (and this is at the moderate end of IPCC predictions) could beat a simple persistence forecast.  In the 63 months since the bet began, the persistence forecast has done better in 55 of them.  Details are here: The Global Warming Challenge. 

These plots can help your pupils regard the IPCC, and assorted CO2 alarmists in general with the contempt they deserve.  They may have to regurgitate their 'science' to pass exams, but they can treat it like theology rather than science - the exam answers are then more about the faith of the alarmed ones than about science or the world outside of their expensive but woefully inadequate General Circulation Models (GCMs).

Note added 20 April 2013  Taking the model outputs seriously, because to do so suits them very much, alarmed ones have made many blunders.  Pierre Gosselin has assembled a collection relating to their confident assurances re warmer winters for Europe.  Examples can be seen here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/climate-teachers-have-you-seen-any-of.html

CO2-Conjecture Causes Contempt: scared children used as an argument for scaring more of them over the global warming that has not taken place in their lifetimes.

An article in The Guardian today reports on a UNICEF commissioned sample survey being used as an argument for no-change to the treatment of ‘climate change’ in school curricula for under-14s in England.

The sampling (the details of which are omitted from the article – that by itself is unimpressive to say the least) found 3 out of 4 children aged 11 to 16 years (no other details given other than they are British) claiming to be ‘deeply concerned about the impact of climate change’, and  ‘worried about how global warming will change the world’. 

This is at a time when there has been no ‘global warming’ during the lifetimes of these children, when melo-dramatic speculation over the importance of CO2 is under wider and deeper attack than ever before, and when there has been nothing at all extraordinary taking place in weather, in sea level, in ice variation, and in sea temperatures.

The results of the poll should, you would think, have caused outrage in any objective observer.  Who has been messing with the minds of these youngsters?  How can they get away with doing that?  How can it be stopped?

But no.  The article, and the organisation which commissioned the survey, UNICEF, are taking the view that the results mean the indoctrination and scaremongering in schools should continue.  In this perversion of logic and morality, they wish to resist the very modest proposals that would increases the chances of under-14s being left alone to concentrate on their basic studies rather than be exposed to climate campaigns in the classroom.

Like other short-sighted NGOs, Unicef have not hesitated to exploit the climate scare to raise funds.  Look at this for example, part of a screenshot from their website here.

Children in developing countries are among those hardest hit by 'climate change'?  Is that right?  First, we might ask, what 'climate change'?

Is it the change that has brought record crops to India?  The change producing record harvests in Kenya?  The change producing record harvests in South America?  Perhaps it is the change that has brought record coffee harvests to Indonesia?  Or the record grain harvests in China?

Is it the change that has seen reduced hurricane activity?  It can't be the climate change known as 'global warming' because we know that one has not been happening for nearly two decades now.  And it won't be good enough to dig out examples of local floods, or droughts, or other burdens unless they can be shown to be extraordinary.  Everywhere experiences climate variation, and in general, the wealthier the country, the more able it is to cope.  The wealth of many developing countries has been increasing quite dramatically.  Good news, eh?  I wonder if these points are in the desired curriculum for 'climate change'?  I fear not.  They would distract from the message of alarm which is so highly-valued by those who wish to indoctrinate the young by such means.

Paging David A, the polar bears are doing OK - talk of their decline was just cheap propaganda to scare kids about climate.

The idea that polar bears are disappearing has been widely used in order to win the attention of children and scare them about their own future by claiming the polar bears are already suffering badly from 'climate change' and so in due course will they.  Even the world-class narrator of nature documentaries, David Attenborough, has been taken in, and he really ought to know better.

An open-letter has been published, ostensibly to Attenborough, but actually it could apply to any teachers who have made use of the notion that polar bears have been suffering from the effects of global warming and that it is all due to humanity.  In fact, the polar bears have been doing fine, and of course the idea that humanity is driving the climate system is a far-fetched notion that more and more people can see is so unhinged from reality that they will question the morality, as well as the intellectual integrity, of anyone who pushes it.

The letter was published today in Quadrant Online.  It is from a Dr John Happs, who is described as a science educator.  He is also president of an interesting discussion group in Western Australia - the WA Skeptics.  They set out to encourage 'a responsible view of curious and unlikely claims (including medical claims) by providing regular meetings open to all'.

John Happs

His letter is quite a long one, with a great deal of well-referenced information in it to back up his conclusions:

 “There is no evidence that the planet is warming dangerously. Nor is there any evidence that Arctic ice and polar bears are about to vanish. There is ample evidence to show that polar bears are not under threat.  What is under threat is scientific integrity and the public’s access to accurate scientific information. The media must shoulder some of the responsibility for the misinformation and exaggeration that has been promoted about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and a bleak future for polar bears.”

 

Examples of Exploitation of Polar Bears for Propaganda

I did a quick Google for 'polar bears and climate change for kids'.  Over 6 million hits, of which the following three were but some early examples:

(1) WWF: “The effects of climate change are already being felt by local wildlife and habitats in polar regions.

For example, polar bears and Emperor penguins, at the north and south pole respectively, are already declining in number as sea ice retreats for many months of the year.”

(2) Twiggle Magazine: “Children will learn that climate change is causing ice caps to melt and makes it harder for the polar bears to find food.”

 (3) An eco-activist produced this in 2006: 

Sad to say, it is the sort of nonsense that could all too readily be found in classrooms and school materials today.  

Teachers can tell their pupils that the polar bears are mostly doing OK, and far better now than a few decades ago. They can also tell them we're mostly doing OK as well, at least better than a few decades ago.  Global warming attributed to human intervention is not a threat to us, nor to the bears, nor to anything else.  If anything, we would all benefit from more global warming, not less. Somehow speculation about  largely beneficial and modest temperature rises in the 20th century has been used to demonise carbon dioxide and our industrial and agricultural progress.  So far, the rising carbon dioxide levels' only demonstrable effect on us has been to contribute to an appreciable rise in agricultural productivity on the one hand, and a hideous rise in irrational and destructive scaremongering and climate-linked policy-making on the other.  

Note added 16 April 2013: Relevant thoughts and links in this Spiked article: http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13462/ 

Kidding the Kids about Climate Consensus: quick, before they see that Climate Crock is more applicable

Source

While the scientific case for alarm over CO2 has never been a strong one, and is now is ruins thanks to observations contradicting crucial predictions from it, the zealots who found so much advantage in pushing it have not let up on recruiting the very young to bolster their cause.  The moral case for doing that has never been a strong one, and one day it too will lie in ruins as the zealotry becomes more and more exposed as shallow and pernicious opportunism.

From an article The Washington Examiner' (h/t Greenie Watch):

"New science curriculum standards for United States schools, expected to be unveiled this week, include an increased emphasis on man-made climate change from kindergarten through 12th grade. Climate change is already a part of many schools’ science curriculum, but the new guidelines significantly expand the topic and are expected to be adopted by 41 states.

The Next Generation Science Standards teach that “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (‘global warming’),” according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute."

But, thank goodness, the journalist writing this, a Michal Conger, is no dupe like so many of her profession in this area.  She notes the recent reservations about including climate in UK curricula for under-14s, and goes on to write:

"What the Times fails to note is that man-made global warming is hardly a consensus theory among scientists. Several new studies show the earth hasn’t gotten any warmer in at least the last decade.

“It’s a shame that American school kids are being taught claims of certitude on an isse that continues to unravel before our eyes,” Marc Morano, communications director for Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, told The Washington Examiner. 

The U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph, German magazine Der Spiegel, and The Economist have all recently acknowledged the evidence suggesting global warming isn’t the catastrophe climate change advocates want school children to think it is."

It seems these new curriculum standards are not compulsory, but they may well be adopted by dozens of States.  I wonder if some of the children themselves might deal with them, as per Ian Plimer's vision of highly-informed pupils asking difficult questions?  (posts about Plimer's book on this site are here, here, here and  here).  Then the teachers, that most docile of professions as far as the content of their work is concerned, might start asking questions themselves.  Such as, 'Why should we push propaganda in our classes that even the children can see through?', or even, 'I wonder what harm we are doing to the young by presenting them with this ill-founded, poisonous, and destructive world-view?'

Climate Teachers: can you find any of this junk science in your curricula?

Spotting climate materials that deserve to be binned is going to be a task for years to come given the amount of junk that can be found so easily.  

Here are three recent headlines from the JunkScience blog, along with some suggestions to help clear them up if you find them in your curricula.

(1) NOAA urges teachers to terrorize kids on climate: Dissolve a shell in acid to simulate ocean acidification by 2100

For getting started on a less emotive view of ocean pH see this piece and the links within it: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/01/scripps-blockbuster-ocean-acidification-happens-all-the-time-naturally/

(2) NOAA urges teachers to terrorize kids on climate: ‘Make an extinction polyhedron’ because climate changes causes ‘mass extinction events’

For teachers looking for materials to restore some semblance of scientific sense, here is a lead relating to species extinctions - it has a fairly large set of links for further study:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2011/03/04/Greenpeace-CoFounder-Slams-Species-Extinction-Scare-Study-as-proof-of-how-peerreview-process-has-become-corrupted-ndash-Study-greatly-underestimate-the-rate-new-species-can-evolve/

 (3) NOAA: ‘Climate literacy’ for kids includes knowing both the Mann and Marcott hokey sticks

The article notes “The IPCC has abandoned Mann’s. Marcott has debunked his own. Why is NOAA teaching this junk?”

The shoddy analyses that led to the Mann and the Marcott hockey-stick plots have been well publicised now.  It is heartening that whereas it took years to expose the former thanks to obfuscation and obstruction, the latter was undone in a matter of weeks.  

The three examples are from recent posts on Junk Science, written by Steve Milloy.  He is described there as ‘a recognized leader in the fight against junk science with more than 20 years of experience. He is the founder and publisher of JunkScience.com, and an environmental and public health consultant. Mr. Milloy is a biostatistician and securities lawyer who has also been a registered securities principal, investment fund manager, non-profit executive, and a print/web columnist on science and business issues.’

Well done, Steve Milloy.

Climate Teachers: have you seen any of this absurd assurance in your curricula?

The gap between reality and the glib assurances of those choosing to believe in a CO2-driven climate crisis is perhaps most apparent when they cannot resist making verifiable predictions. 

They told us the snows of Kilimanjaro were disappearing because of ‘global warming’, but they came back.  They told us the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035, but there is no sign of that even beginning to happen.  They told us our winters in Europe would be warmer, that snow would be a thing of the past.  More recently, that awful centre of climate delusion, the UK Met Office, advised that this April was likely to be drier than usual.  It broke records for wetness.  Well the list of assured foolishness is long.  

Pierre Gosselin and a correspondent called Jimbo have started compiling a list of just the warmer winter follies.  Here are the first half dozen of a list which currently stands at 48 in total:

Failed winter climate predictions

(The first 33 concern mostly Germany and Central Europe)

1. “Due to global warming, the coming winters in the local regions will become milder.”
Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, University of Potsdam, 8 Feb 2006

***

2. “Milder winters, drier summers: Climate study shows a need to adapt in Saxony Anhalt.
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Press Release, 10 Jan 2010.

****

3. “More heat waves, no snow in the winter“ … “Climate models… over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models. In no other country do we have more precise calculations of climate consequences. They should form the basis for political planning. … Temperatures in the wintertime will rise the most … there will be less cold air coming to Central Europe from the east. …In the Alps winters will be 2°C warmer already between 2021 and 2050.”
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 2 Sept 2008.

****

4. “The new Germany will be characterized by dry-hot summers and warm-wet winters.“
Wilhelm Gerstengarbe and Peter Werner, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), 2 March 2007

****

5. “Clear climate trends are seen from the computer simulations. Foremost the winter months will be warmer all over Germany. Depending of CO2 emissions, temperatures will rise by up to 4°C, in the Alps by up to 5°C.” Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 7 Dec 2009.

****

6. “In summer under certain conditions the scientists reckon with a complete melting of the Arctic sea ice. For Europe we expect an increase in drier and warmer summers. Winters on the other hand will be warmer and wetter.”
Erich Roeckner, Max Planck Institute, 29 Sept 2005.

Readers not living in Europe might like to note we have had record-breaking levels of cold and of snow here this winter, and we have not exactly had shortages of snow in other recent ones.

Has anything like that level of assurance got into your climate curriculum.  If so, you might like to do some background checks on the sources, and some reality checks with recent data.  There are a lot of not very credible, and not very creditable, ‘authorities’ in this area.

Have any such forecasts got into your curriculum?  If so, rejoice.  You can use them as examples to undermine the credibility of the shoddy, shameful business of climate scaremongering in schools.  The Emperors of CO2 Catastrophe have no clothes.  None at all.  The sooner your pupils realise that, the better.

If you live in England, you might well use some of this to illustrate why curricula for children should not include 'climate change', nor 'sustainability', both being codewords for the placing of political and psychological pressures on the young first through scaremongering, and through them, on to their parents through moral blackmail.  You have until 16th April to respond to a UK government invitation to comment on new guidelines for under-14 curricula.  They look like a step in the right direction.

Note added later on 4th.  Someone has compiled a descriptive history of British winters from 1616 to 2011: http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess= .  Paul Homewood presents evidence of recent winters being cooler than average: http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues-in-uk/

Note added 17th April, 2014  Pierre continues to track the foolishness by comparing it with reality.  See this post on record snow levels in the States: http://notrickszone.com/2014/04/16/bastardi-detroit-sets-all-time-record-snowy-winter-5-of-the-snowiest-winters-occurred-in-last-11-years/

Rotten to the Core, Rotten for the Curriculum

cartoonsbyjosh

Climate alarmism and groups like WWF seem to get a free pass into the classroom despite the rotten nature of their messages.

Some 'scientific' claims seem to get the same treatment despite the rotten nature of their foundations.

Pupils could do with some protection from them.

The proposal to exclude climate change and sustainability from explicit mention in curricula for under-14s in England is a step in that direction.

Readers in England - please consider commenting on this proposal.  This opportunity will only be open until 16th April: https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1881&external=no&