Guess, meet fact

Clive Best IPCC comparison

Several readers, among them the evergreen Mike Jowsey (thanks, Mike!) have drawn my attention to Clive Best’s simple yet remarkable post from yesterday. It brings together in a most accessible way the early IPCC forecasts (or “scenarios”, actually — they were never predictions) and the latest observations of global temperature.

So, after 20 years, how well have the consensus scientists done in forecasting the climate? It could be said the results are patchy.

The cooler part of the IPCC forecast was on target until the last couple of years and still has a chance of being correct.

What the IPCC called the “Best” estimate was close to reality until about 10 years ago, with recent observations representing a major excursion from the model.

The warmest forecast, the one used by the extreme extremists, has been and remains totally out of touch. The highest temperature predictions were quite loony. Those forecasters knew little about the climate.

Clive Best includes an interesting comparison between the surface-based and satellite datasets, which show good correlation and have similar trends — which gives one confidence in the accuracy of the “new-fangled” satellite microwave thingummies.

He includes a graph of the atmospheric CO2 levels, showing a very steady, unchanging increase. I notice they are little perturbed by either the temperature fluctuations or our industrial output.

Challenge for the warmists

Now, all you who’ve predicted doom for the world for 20 years and more, when will you set up a fund, including your own personal houses as collateral, to provide for compensation to be awarded to those innocent, trusting souls who have, in great faith in your wisdom and knowledge, taken expensive yet unnecessary action against the looming climate perils?

It’s all very well to make wild and alarming predictions, to stand for a while in the limelight, to have your every word repeated around the globe and acknowledged by the highest in the land. But, when the results are plain for all to see, when everyone knows you have utterly failed, do you have the strength of your own convictions? Do you stand by the damage you’ve done with them? Will you, like honest men, make things right and repair what you yourself have broken?

Or will you take refuge in the weasel words you always used, your empty claims you never made predictions, only offered scenarios? Will you slink away, whining you’ve done nothing wrong? Will you deny all the misery you’ve caused, all the children’s nightmares you’ve brought among us? And with all of that, deny your own humanity?

Clive concludes moderately:

CO2 levels in the atmosphere have continued to rise over the last 10 years … but temperatures have not risen since 2000. This implies that CO2 is not the main driver of global temperatures on these time periods and that other natural mechanisms are at least as important. No evidence of any positive temperature feedback with increasing CO2 levels is found.

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