[Reader-list] 2013

Tue Dec 31 10:01:29 CST 2013

2013 was a good year for climate science, but a mixed bag for climate policy
2013 saw a lot of good climate science and myth debunking, but not much
progress in solving the climate problem

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[image: President Obama touring an energy efficient building]
President Barack Obama speaks about job creation and energy efficiency. New
US greenhouse gas regulations are among the few new positive climate
policies of 2013. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images

As 2013 comes to a close, a review of the key climate events of the year
reveals some interesting new research and effective myth debunking, but
little net progress in terms of addressing the problem through policies to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Beginning with the good news, the
myth<http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm>
of
the global warming 'pause' – which has helped policymakers justify delaying
action to address climate
change<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change> –
was thoroughly debunked in 2013. A paper published by Kevin Cowtan and
Robert Way showed that, in addition to the myth being a clear case of cherry
picking short-term noise <http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47> in
the data, global surface temperatures have actually risen about two and a
half times faster<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/nov/13/global-warming-underestimated-by-half>
over
the past 15 years than previously estimated. The short-term 'pause' was
mostly an artifact resulting from a lack of temperature station coverage in
the Arctic, where global warming is happening fastest.

Skeptical Science also released a new global warming
widget<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/nov/25/global-warming-counter-widget>
showing
that when accounting for the entire global climate, the planet has been
accumulating over 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations worth of energy per
second, and over 2 billion detonations worth of heat since 1998.

Several other papers this year helped to investigate the cause of the
slight slowing in the warming of global surface temperatures. Kosaka & Xie
(2013) showed that changes in the Pacific Ocean could account
for<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/03/global-warming-pacific-ocean-puzzle-piece>most
of the short-term global surface temperature changes. Along those
lines<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jun/24/global-warming-pause-button>
, Watanabe et al.
(2013)<http://skepticalscience.com/watanabe-et-al-2013-another-piece-of-the-puzzle.html>
showed
that ocean heat uptake has become more efficient over the past decade,
which is consistent with the observations of Balmaseda et al.
(2013)<http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-has-accelerated.html>,
who found an unprecedented transfer of heat to the deep oceans over the
past decade, consistent with the modeling in Meehl et al
(2013)<http://www.skepticalscience.com/A-Looming-Climate-Shift-Will-Ocean-Heat-Come-Back-to-Haunt-us.html>
.

Putting it all together, we have an increasingly clear picture that while
the warming of global surface temperatures has slowed over the past decade,
it has not slowed as much as previously thought. The slowed surface warming
is due in large part to changes in ocean cycles, particularly in the
Pacific Ocean, causing more efficient ocean heat uptake, thus leaving less
heat to warm surface temperatures. External factors, like decreased solar
and increased volcanic activity, have also played a role in the slowed
surface warming, but internal variability due to ocean cycles appears to be
the main culprit. In any case, as the 2013 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
showed, the observed global surface warming remains within the range of
climate model projections<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/01/ipcc-global-warming-projections-accurate>
.
[image: IPCC AR5 Figure 1.4. Solid lines and squares represent measured
average global surface temperature changes by NASA (blue), NOAA (yellow),
and the UK Hadley Centre (green). The colored shading shows the projected
range of surface warming in the IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR; yellow),
Second (SAR; green), Third (TAR; blue), and Fourth (AR4; red).]IPCC AR5
Figure 1.4. Solid lines and squares represent measured average global
surface temperature changes by NASA (blue), NOAA (yellow), and the UK
Hadley Centre (green). The colored shading shows the projected range of
surface warming in the IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR; yellow), Second
(SAR; green), Third (TAR; blue), and Fourth (AR4; red).

In addition to the Cowtan & Way paper, my colleagues at Skeptical Science
and I also published several high-impact papers this year, starting with
the Cook et al. (2013)
<http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024> consensus
paper, co-authored by nine Skeptical Science volunteers. The paper showed
that there is a 97%
consensus<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange>
in
the peer-reviewed climate science literature that humans are causing global
warming. The paper has already been cited in a broad range of scholarly
journals <http://www.skepticalscience.com/republishers.php?a=tcpmedia> and
made a big splash in the
media<http://www.skepticalscience.com/republishers.php?a=tcpmedia>,
even being the subject of two
presidential<https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/355433365475848193>
 Tweets <https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/335089477296988160>. It was
also the 11th-most talked about academic paper in
2013<http://www.altmetric.com/top100>
.

A study published by myself and John
Abraham<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/23/climate-science-magical-thinking-debunked-by-science>
along
with two other colleagues debunked a paper by Syun-Ichi Akasofu that tried
to blame global warming on a magical 'natural recovery' from the Little Ice
Age. As our paper showed, climate changes must be caused by physical
mechanisms, and Akasofu's argument lacked any physical basis.

John Abraham also brought together nearly 30 of the world's top
oceanographers to publish an impressive
paper<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/28/global-warming-oceans-known-unknowns>
detailing
the knowns and unknowns about global warming and the oceans.

A paper by another of my colleagues, Richardson
(2013)<http://www.skepticalscience.com/richardson-2013-man-made-carbon.html>
demonstrated
that the modern increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is entirely
human-caused, debunking a contrarian paper that wrongly claimed otherwise.

An important paper by Marcott et al.
(2013)<http://skepticalscience.com/marcott-hockey-stick-real-skepticism.html>
also
showed that the warming we've witnessed in the last 100 years is unlike
anything that happened in the previous 11,000+ years. Taking their results
into account, the warming yet to come in a business-as-usual scenario looks
downright scary.
[image: The temperature reconstruction of Shakun et al. (green – shifted
manually by 0.25 degrees), of Marcott et al. (blue), combined with the
instrumental period data from HadCRUT4 (red) and the model average of IPCC
projections for the A1B scenario up to 2100 (orange). Created by Jos
Hagelaars.]The temperature reconstruction of Shakun et al. (green – shifted
manually by 0.25 degrees), of Marcott et al. (blue), combined with the
instrumental period data from HadCRUT4 (red) and the model average of IPCC
projections for the A1B scenario up to 2100 (orange). Created by Jos
Hagelaars.

A brand new study by Sherwood et al.
(2013)<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html>
tackles
the question of how cloud cover will change and interact with global
warming as the climate continues to change. The cloud feedback question is
one of the largest remaining uncertainties in future climate predictions,
so this is an important new paper. Unfortunately it finds that clouds will
act to amplify global warming, suggesting that the planet will warm at
least 3°C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which
also suggests at least 4°C global surface warming by 2100 if we continue
with business as usual
policies<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/31/planet-will-warm-4c-2100-climate?CMP=twt_gu>
.

With regards to those policies, 2013 was a bit of a mixed bag. Australia
elected a majority government that has pledged to eliminate its carbon
tax<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2013/sep/18/tony-abbott-abolish-carbon-price>.
In Canada, the government has paid lip service to climate
change<http://www.theguardian.com/science/scienceofclimatechange>
while muzzling its
scientists<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/silencing-scientists.html>
and
doing everything possible to increase its emissions through maximum
development of the tar
sands<http://www.skepticalscience.com/updated-keystone-climate.html>
.

However, on a local level, British Columbia's revenue-neutral carbon tax
remains highly popular and
successful<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jul/30/climate-change-british-columbia-carbon-tax>,
and California implemented a similarly popular carbon cap and trade
system<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-gero/post_6160_b_4285205.html>
in
2013. And the national news isn't all bad, as the US government has issued
draft regulations on greenhouse gas
emissions<http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards> from
new power plants, and is working on regulations for existing power plants.
There are also encouraging signs that
China<http://skepticalscience.com/china-leading-role-solutions.html>
is
beginning to address its rapid emissions growth.

However, on an international level, 2013 passed with very little progress
in terms of establishing a new international climate agreement. 2015 is the
target date<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/24/warsaw-climate-talks-greenhouse-gas-emissions>
for
new emissions reductions plans.

Overall, 2013 was a productive year in terms of reducing the consensus
gap <http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=78>and
debunking the 'pause' myth. Climate policies were a mixed bag, with some
steps backwards and some steps forward. Climate media coverage was likewise
a mixed bag, with continued false balance and inaccurate reporting from the
politically conservative
media<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/08/global-warming-denial-fox-news>,
also seeping into the
BBC<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/28/bbc-coverage-favouring-climate-change-sceptics>.
The New York Times eliminated its environment
desk<http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/13/1440871/new-york-times-widely-cricitized-for-dismantling-its-environment-desk-eliminating-editorial-positions/>,
but The Guardian stepped in to fill the gap with its new Environment
Blogs<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/guardian-environment-blogs>
.

A lot of interesting new climate research was published during the year,
including a new IPCC synthesis report. However, progress toward solving the
climate problem remained far too slow. Here's to 2014 being a more
productive year for climate solutions.