Quick, call the skeptics. Another flaw has been uncovered in the infamous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report, code-named AR4. Their estimate of sea level rise is not only wrong, but way off the mark. At least that is the gist of a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.
We analyse global temperature and sea-level data for the past few decades and compare them to projections published in the third and fourth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The results show that global temperature continues to increase in good agreement with the best estimates of the IPCC, especially if we account for the effects of short-term variability due to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, volcanic activity and solar variability. The rate of sea-level rise of the past few decades, on the other hand, is greater than projected by the IPCC models. This suggests that IPCC sea-level projections for the future may also be biased low (emphasis added).
Those IPCC alarmists estimated the annual sea level rise to be 2 mm/year. The actual rate observed in the past 3 decades is 3.2 mm/year. They were off by 60%.
Stefan Rahmstorf, the lead author, says those rascals at the IPCC cannot be trusted.
This study shows once again that the IPCC is far from alarmist, but in fact has under-estimated the problem of climate change. That applies not just for sea-level rise, but also to extreme events and the Arctic sea-ice loss.”
All those well-meaning skeptics have been complaining that the IPCC has been
hiding a decline in global temperatures since 1998. While the skeptics were
wrong about the decline, they were right to be concerned about the IPCC. Those naughty scientists reporting to the United Nations hid how fast sea levels have been rising. They also underestimated the frequency of catastrophic events and the rate of Arctic sea ice melt. It is nothing short of environmental terrorism.
There is more. The IPCC also appears to have missed the boat on ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica.
In conclusion, the rise in CO2 concentration and global temperature has continued to closely match the projections over the past five years, while sea level continues to rise faster than anticipated. The latter suggests that the 21st Century sea-level projections of the last two IPCC reports may be systematically biased low. Further support for this concern is provided by the fact that the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are increasingly losing mass (Rignot et al 2011, Van den Broeke et al 2011), while those IPCC projections assumed that Antarctica will gain enough mass in future to largely compensate mass losses from Greenland (see figure 10.33 in Meehl et al (2007)). For this reason, an additional contribution (‘scaled-up ice sheet discharge’) was suggested in the IPCC fourth assessment. Our results highlight the need to thoroughly validate models with data of past climate changes before applying them to projections.
When it comes to climate change, reality does seem to have a liberal bias. Not that it matters. The
political circus in Doha to discuss climate change will produce plenty of carbon dioxide and a fair amount of methane, but nothing of substance. Perhaps we can convince polar bears to change their diet from seals to politicians.