In June 1986, Dr. James Hansen made a prediction to an AP newspaper reporter, which was carried in Oxnard, CA, of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006. This was two years before, almost to the day before he and Senator Tim Wirth duped a bunch of Washington legislators with stagecraft on a hot June day by turning off the a/c in the hearing room while complaining about global warming and urging the need for “immediate action” (translation: cash).

Like Dr. Hansen’s 20 year sea level prediction, it hasn’t come true. In honor of the 80’s, when a popular TV commercial for a fast food restaurant had inspired a whole nation to say the catch phrase, I ask Dr. James Hansen, regarding your claims of global warming, “Where’s the Beef”?!

Let’s have a look at Exhibit A: Hansens’ GISTEMP graph, distributed worldwide from the GISS headquarters above Jerry Seinfeld’s favorite Monk’s Restaurant in New York City. Annotations in blue mine.

Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

Exhibit B: The GISS Data, available here. Let’s do the math.

Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (C) (Anomaly with Base: 1951-1980) ---------------------------------- Year Annual_Mean 5-year_Mean ---------------------------------- 1986 0.13 0.18 1987 0.28 0.20 1988 0.33 0.26 1989 0.21 0.31 1990 0.36 0.28 1991 0.35 0.24 1992 0.13 0.24 1993 0.14 0.25 1994 0.24 0.24 1995 0.39 0.30 1996 0.30 0.39 1997 0.41 0.40 1998 0.58 0.40 1999 0.33 0.43 2000 0.35 0.46 2001 0.48 0.46 2002 0.56 0.49 2003 0.55 0.54 2004 0.48 0.55 2005 0.62 0.56 2006 0.55 0.53

Finding the difference: 0.55C – 0.13C = 0.42C

Predicted change 2.0C compared to Actual change 0.42C = Climate Fail

Exhibit C: Where’s the Beef?!

Note: I realize that I could have placed the top prediction at 2.13C, but why pile on? 😉 What’s 0.13C between friends? Besides he said “nearly” and it is near well enough.

Don’t believe me? Read for yourself. The Press-Courier – Google News Archive Search

Big h/t to Steve Goddard at Real-Science for finding this one.

UPDATE: Some commenters suggested Hansen may have given the 2 degree number in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Another article on the same day suggests he did.

Read article here: http://news.google.com/newspapers

So at 4F we have 2.2 C If the reporter in the first story took the middle between 2-4F as 3F we have 1.67C or “nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years” as the reporter from Oxnard states.

The 2010 Annual Mean Temperature anomaly from GISS is 0.63 C

So, no matter how you look at it, Hansen’s 1986 prediction has not come true,

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