The paper was published September 18, 2017. Sometimes it takes longer than a week to absorb the latest science ;->Wayne in Maine wrote:I'm surprised this news item has not entered this discussion yet: Climate Models Run Too Hot
Read the article before losing faith in science. The authors of this study believe that the popular press has misinterpreted their findings, and issued this clarification:Wayne in Maine wrote:It makes one lose faith in consensus science.
I have not read the article from Nature Geoscience (it's rather expensive) but I'm looking forward to seeing some of the details on which they based their conclusion.
The authors do agree with the consensus statement on global warming, and they believe we need to take strong measures, but they are more optimistic than previously.A number of media reports have asserted that our recent study in Nature Geoscience indicates that global temperatures are not rising as fast as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and hence that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is no longer urgent.
Both assertions are false.
Our results are entirely in line with the IPCC’s 2013 prediction that temperatures in the 2020s would be 0.9-1.3 degrees above pre-industrial (See figures 2c and 3a of our article which show the IPCC prediction, our projections, and temperatures of recent years).
What we have done is to update the implications for the amount of carbon dioxide we can still emit while expecting global temperatures to remain below the Paris Climate Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees. We find that, to likely meet the Paris goal, emission reductions would need to begin immediately and reach zero in less than 40 years’ time.
While that is not geophysically impossible, to suggest that this means that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are now unnecessary is clearly false.
You can read the abstract of the Nature Geoscience article for free online: https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vao ... o3031.html
Carbon Brief did an interview with the lead author on the day the study was released, you can read it here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post- ... ossibilityHence, limiting warming to 1.5 °C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, but is likely to require delivery on strengthened pledges for 2030 followed by challengingly deep and rapid mitigation. Strengthening near-term emissions reductions would hedge against a high climate response or subsequent reduction rates proving economically, technically or politically unfeasible.
In a new paper, published in Nature Geoscience, we provide updated estimates of the remaining “carbon budget” for 1.5C. This is the total amount of CO2 emissions that we can still emit whilst limiting global average warming to 1.5C.
Our estimates suggest that we would have a remaining carbon budget equivalent to around 20 years at current emissions rates for a 2-in-3 chance of restricting end-of-century warming to below 1.5C.
This suggests that we have a little more breathing space than previously thought to achieve the 1.5C limit. However, although 1.5C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, it remains a very difficult policy challenge.