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How Two Scientists Accurately Predicted Global Warming in 1967 (medium.com)
Slashdot reader Layzej shares an article from this spring marking the 50th anniversary of the first accurate climate model:
Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel looks at a climate model (MW67) published in 1967 and finds "50 years after their groundbreaking 1967 paper, the science can be robustly evaluated, and they got almost everything exactly right."
An analysis on the "Climate Graphs" blog shows exactly how close the prediction has proven to be: "The slope of the CO2-vs-temperature regression line in the 50 years of actual observations is 2.57, only slightly higher than MW67's prediction of 2.36" They also note that "This is even more impressive when one considers that at the time MW67 was published, there had been no detectable warming in over two decades. Their predicted warming appeared to mark a radical change with the recent past:"
An analysis on the "Climate Graphs" blog shows exactly how close the prediction has proven to be: "The slope of the CO2-vs-temperature regression line in the 50 years of actual observations is 2.57, only slightly higher than MW67's prediction of 2.36" They also note that "This is even more impressive when one considers that at the time MW67 was published, there had been no detectable warming in over two decades. Their predicted warming appeared to mark a radical change with the recent past:"
Now that I have actually read the paper, I notice that there is no prediction of doom and gloom. Remembering back to the days of Al Gore... he made it political. I suspect he introduced us to the carbon tax idea so that he could get in on the ground floor and make millions. Most of us who have been labeled "Deniers" are really more just skeptical of outlandish claims. The science seems legit; the predictions of the end of the world do not.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
This paper is arguably the origin of the modern disinformation campaign against carbon pollution. This is the point where politically powerful interests realized that their core business model was in danger and that they needed to do something to stop it.
It also looks just like the hockey stick the "corrections" to later data warp the readings to match.
Now that the issue has been politicized, any actual science is no longer relevant to the debate.
* One side has caught researchers fudging (or using data pre-fuged by others) and doesn't trust further papers predicting gloom and doom, as possibly defective, pushed and often funded by the powerful institutional interests seeking more power and/or engaging in multi-billion dollar rent-seeking operations (such as carbon credit exchanges).
* The other rejects papers that don't predict gloom and doom as being fake research, possibly funded by fossil-fuel interests.
It's really a pity. If there really IS a problem it would be nice to have some trustworthy advance warning on which to make plans.
Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see how this one compares to the UNcorrected climate data.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way