The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is going out of its way to keep its latest dire warnings as moderate as possible. Can't offend the skeptics with wild predictions of unproven computer models, can they?
In one case, they discount the "outlier" number of "five feet" sea rise.
In another case, they cling to the "outlier" number instead of the more likely "five degrees F" temperature rise (by century's end).
Oh those crazy scientists, bending over backwards to make Climate Change "more palatable" to the critics.
A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some
by Justin Gillis, NYTimes.com -- September 9, 2013
[...]
In one case, we have a lot of mainstream science that says if human society keeps burning fossil fuels with abandon, considerable land ice could melt and the ocean could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. [...]
In the second case, we have mainstream science that says if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is well on its way to happening, the long-term rise in the temperature of the earth will be at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely above 5 degrees. [...]
Climate change skeptics often disparage these periodic reports from the United Nations, claiming that the panel writing them routinely stretches the boundaries of scientific evidence to make the problem look as dire as possible. So it is interesting to see that in these two important cases, the panel seems to be bending over backward to be scientifically conservative.
[...]
To be clear, even if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ends up sticking with the lowball numbers in these two instances, they are worrisome enough.
Maybe next they should try to tell the story of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and how they finally got the Global Temperature Rise --
"Just Right!"
By all means, don't forget the spoonful of sugar with those drowned shorelines and parched croplands.
And starving people. ... At least they weren't "shocked" into Doing Something.