Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Arizona Professor Emeritus Dr Guy McPherson thinks the world could end in the next eight years because climate change.

BEGINNING OF THE END: Natural disasters to spike because of climate change, says scientist A SPIKE in devastating natural disasters is on the way as the planet has exceeded a “tipping point” for climate change, a leading scientist has claimed. By SEAN MARTIN PUBLISHED: 16:55, Mon, Jan 8, 2018 The east coast of the US continues to be ravaged by a freezing cold snap while the other side of the country has been hit by wildfires. These are a signs of the times according to one professor, who says that the situation will only worsen in the next few years. … Dr McPherson said: “The latest unprecedented hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires that we have seen in 2017 are examples of profound changes in our climate system. “These global disasters threaten energy systems, infrastructure and food supply. “We have entered an era of exponential climate upheaval with tipping points and feedback loops pushing us over the edge whilst, all the while, governments and climate research bodies refuse to accept the gravity of our situation. “Within the next eight years, Earth’s temperature will approach or exceed its highest temperature in the last two billion years. “The rate of change will continue to outstrip the ability of humans and other life to adapt.”

Read more: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/901870/us-weather-snow-storm-climate-change-global-warming-natural-disasters-earthquakes

Guy McPherson’s public views are so extreme they attract criticism from other climate alarmists. But McPherson is not alone in making extreme predictions; James Hansen, former director of NASA GISS, also predicts the world will soon become uninhabitable due to runaway global warming.

If climate models predict runaway global warming, when will this predicted runaway warming actually occur?

The answer is never, at least not for the next billion years or so. The Earth’s geological history is strong evidence that model based predictions of runaway global warming are nonsense.

During the Earth’s history, CO2 levels have exceeded 7000ppm, 17x higher than today’s CO2 levels. Many of these periods of elevated CO2 were actually quite cool (see the top of the page).

The Cretaceous, the age of the dinosaurs, experienced CO2 levels 4x higher than today – but the global temperature was only 4C warmer than today. No runaway warming occurred, despite dramatically higher natural CO2 levels and global temperatures.

If the model projections of runaway warming implausibly contradict geological history, clearly the models are wrong. There must be climate forcings at work which have been omitted or incorrectly handled by climate modellers.

The most likely candidate in my opinion for why model projections have an implausible tendency to run away from reality is the poor handling by climate models of clouds and tropical storms.

Clouds reflect sunlight back into space, but storms go a step further – they actively pump accumulated heat from the surface back into space.

Willis has produced many excellent posts about storms as heat pumps, such as How Thunderstorms Beat The Heat. Willis’ posts include data analysis which clearly demonstrate how tropical storms cap the Earth’s surface temperature, regardless of any additional greenhouse forcing.

When Dr. McPherson and James Hansen provide apocalyptic warnings about the consequences of global warming, in my opinion they are just being honest about the projections of their most extreme climate models.

It is the model predictions themselves which are wrong, because the climate model predictions on which those warnings are based are inconsistent with the Earth’s geological history.

Update (EW): fixed a typo (h/t Jim Masterson).

Share this: Print

Email

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Reddit



Like this: Like Loading...