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Ulli Kulke, veteran journalist at Germany’s flagship daily Die Welt, writes at his Die Welt blog that “scientists from Potsdam not long ago were talking about a global temperature increase of four, five or even more degrees Celsius.” But with the recent news leaking out about the upcoming IPCC AR5, that scenario is looking more like fantasy than ever.

If the reports leaking out are accurate, then it appears that, Kulke writes, “the alarmists are backpedaling and one could roughly sum it all up as follows: Nothing is even half as bad.” Reports of exaggerated CO2 climate sensitivity are now filtering through even in Germany and it’s becoming increasingly obvious even to Europeans that the whole issue had been grossly exaggerated.

Kulke writes that he already mentioned recently that the IPCC had significantly scaled back CO2 climate sensitivity in its first draft of the upcoming report. “The way it appears now the IPCC has in the last few days once again scaled back its estimates in the updated drafts and has conceded stark errors in the past report.” Here Kulke cites the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday and The Australian.

Kulke continues:

Moreover, they expressly bring up the pause in global warming – and also admit that they cannot explain it and that the computer models, which the IPCC relies on, failed to predict it.”

Nobody knows what the final draft is going to look like. But the IPCC will have to ultimately decide whether to bring up these inconvenient, even embarrassing, facts. Failure to do so would cost the IPCC as a scientific body a lot of respect, of which it is already very low on. On the other hand bringing the glaring shortfalls will make the IPCC appear as prone to error and cost it credibility.

Mann’s flawed hockey stick discarded for good

Kulke also writes that the Medieval Warm Period has reappeared in the latest draft, thus disposing once and for all of Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick chart.

Not long ago it was inconceivable, but apparently the IPCC is now admitting that during the years between 950 and 1250, i.e. the Middles Ages, most parts of the world were just as warm as they are today. That is during a time when CO2 values in the atmosphere where only a fraction of what they are today.”

Kulke believes that the IPCC’s claims of high certainty on the question of man’s impact on the climate through greenhouse gases will have no impact because “very few scientists have doubts on this“. The real question remains: How big is that impact?

The answer appears to be growing smaller with each passing day.