Activists think the world will be uninhabitable for our children if the U.S. pulls out of the Paris Climate Accord. For example, via Vox

Quitting the Paris climate agreement would be a moral disgrace President Trump is selling out our kids to give false hope to coal workers. … There is no employment upside to an “America First” retreat from global leadership on one of the few issues that can accurately be described as a potentially existential threat to humankind. There is only the profound immorality of abdication — of gleefully passing a mounting problem on to our children, and on to the poor.

And one of it’s writers, David Roberts:

This is fun. It's like a reality show with a cool, surprise finale, only it's about whether my kids will inherit a livable world! https://t.co/eualonlZPC — David Roberts (@drvox) May 31, 2017

Oh, the humanity!

But, the data (er, model) says, essentially “no difference”

Ouch.

Worse, even if we DID stay in it, (and all the other countries too) that .05°C savings is likely to get lost in the noise, since global temperature measurements are rounded. For example, in the USA, NOAA rounds the high and low temperature to the nearest whole degree Fahrenheit (0.55°C, a value over ten times greater than the .05°C savings Paris offers):

From NOAA’s REQUIREMENTS AND STANDARDS FOR NWS CLIMATE OBSERVATIONS:

The observer will round the entered data to whole units Fahrenheit by rounding up all positively signed values between T.5ºF and T.9ºF inclusive, (i.e., + 66.5ºF to 67ºF), and rounding down positively signed values between T.1ºF and T.4ºF, inclusive. For sub-zero temperatures, special attention is given to –T.5ºF values, to round it down. This method is known as ‘round half up asymmetric.’ For all negatively signed values between -T.5ºF and –T.1ºF, inclusive you round down (i.e., -3.5ºF to -3ºF) to nearest integer. For negatively signed values between –T.6ºF and –T.9ºF, inclusive, the data is rounded up (i.e., -10.6ºF to -11ºF) to higher absolute value.

Source: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01013002curr.pdf

For Global temperature, GHCN data for example, NOAA rounds to the nearest tenth of a degree C, (0.1°C) TWICE the value of .05°C savings Paris offers.

Even the best case scenario out of the Paris Climate Accord will get lost in the data rounding.

Note: some minor edits to the title and formatting were made within 5 minutes of publication

Update 6/1/17 8:30AM: Steve Mosher informs me (via one of his usual drive by jerk comments that doesn’t deserve the light of day – he needs to learn netiquette on how to behave) that at Lucia’s site, there’s an essay on rounding and false precision.

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/rounding-of-individual-measurements-in-an-average/

He suggests that the 0.05°C decrease in temperature would be detectable, and not lost in the noise. I’m doubtful of his claim, but it’s worth exploring – Anthony

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