Isn't the rhetorical point that Epstein is trying to support with his claim that climate models over predicted warming that we should be less concerned about the harms of fossil fuels?
That's not supported if the over prediction was the result of reducing emissions. What matters for that argument is how much warming we should expect for a given level of emissions.
I think you may be understating the importance of the experts' responses on points 2 and 3. They say their models overestimated warming because they overestimated "external forcing" -- in other words, how much carbon we put into the atmosphere. It seems to me that the most relevant question, and what people really want to know, is how responsive warming is to carbon emissions. If their model is essentially correct about that relationship, that's what matters most.
Without a specialized knowledge of this area it is hard to sift through the data available. This kind of sanity checking is valuable, thank you. It would be nice if Judith Curry were also to weigh in on these points.
The models are an interesting first pick for the first audit, but I do appreciate it.
That said. I think his key point is that we should look at the benefits of fossil fuels and then make a reasonable trade off with the limited resources we have to increase _human flourishing_. This is what needs to be hammered home. The goal is not low CO2 but continuing to lift the poor out of, sometimes extreme, poverty. Something we did with enormous success in the last 30-40 years but that depends on cheap reliable energy.
Epstein made me realize how much the current CO2 focus resembles the practice to equate the lines of software code with its quality. The positive effects of CO2, the models, the failure of CA and Germany to go to renewables while spending hundreds of billions, and other parts that undermine the catastrophizing framework are imho secondary and provide distraction points with the activists. The most important message, and I think Epstein shares this with Lomberg, is that we need to take a step back and accept that we need to make informed trade offs.
Only when there is an immediate catastrophic threat that would wipe out the earth would not have to make these trade offs carefully. However, AR6 predictions do not show that there is no urgent threat that would be remotely as lethal and inhuman as not helping the 700 million extremely poor in this world, let alone the 3 billion slightly less poor.
The book addresses so many weaknesses in the climate activists world that is hard to forget that this is imho not his point. I actually think they are not necessary and they are exactly the points activists will relentlessly want to fight with peer reviewed predictions.
However, these activists have imho no answer to the fact that lacking cheap reliable energy will doom the billions of poor with certainty.
Epstein claims that warming is milder than prevailing claims, but he uses an unusual proxy measurement, tropical tropospheric temperatures (without saying what part of the troposphere), as evidence in what seems like a bait-and-switch. Casual readers, not noticing the switch between surface and tropospheric measurements, would reasonably conclude that all models are bunk and warming is not a significant concern. Isn't the problem here that the reader is being baited into taking a more extreme stance than the data conveys? Wouldn't an honest dissemination discuss the implications, measurement constraints, and effects of tropospheric measurements? In this case, there's no significant issue with the data being presented (that is, until you get to figure 9.5), but the reader is likely to be misled.
Maybe you want to check how many NOAA temperature measurement stations are compliant with NOAA criteria for objective measurement, net of h urbanization effect....almost zero
Isn't the rhetorical point that Epstein is trying to support with his claim that climate models over predicted warming that we should be less concerned about the harms of fossil fuels?
That's not supported if the over prediction was the result of reducing emissions. What matters for that argument is how much warming we should expect for a given level of emissions.
I think you may be understating the importance of the experts' responses on points 2 and 3. They say their models overestimated warming because they overestimated "external forcing" -- in other words, how much carbon we put into the atmosphere. It seems to me that the most relevant question, and what people really want to know, is how responsive warming is to carbon emissions. If their model is essentially correct about that relationship, that's what matters most.
Without a specialized knowledge of this area it is hard to sift through the data available. This kind of sanity checking is valuable, thank you. It would be nice if Judith Curry were also to weigh in on these points.
The models are an interesting first pick for the first audit, but I do appreciate it.
That said. I think his key point is that we should look at the benefits of fossil fuels and then make a reasonable trade off with the limited resources we have to increase _human flourishing_. This is what needs to be hammered home. The goal is not low CO2 but continuing to lift the poor out of, sometimes extreme, poverty. Something we did with enormous success in the last 30-40 years but that depends on cheap reliable energy.
Epstein made me realize how much the current CO2 focus resembles the practice to equate the lines of software code with its quality. The positive effects of CO2, the models, the failure of CA and Germany to go to renewables while spending hundreds of billions, and other parts that undermine the catastrophizing framework are imho secondary and provide distraction points with the activists. The most important message, and I think Epstein shares this with Lomberg, is that we need to take a step back and accept that we need to make informed trade offs.
Only when there is an immediate catastrophic threat that would wipe out the earth would not have to make these trade offs carefully. However, AR6 predictions do not show that there is no urgent threat that would be remotely as lethal and inhuman as not helping the 700 million extremely poor in this world, let alone the 3 billion slightly less poor.
The book addresses so many weaknesses in the climate activists world that is hard to forget that this is imho not his point. I actually think they are not necessary and they are exactly the points activists will relentlessly want to fight with peer reviewed predictions.
However, these activists have imho no answer to the fact that lacking cheap reliable energy will doom the billions of poor with certainty.
Next audit coming when?
Epstein claims that warming is milder than prevailing claims, but he uses an unusual proxy measurement, tropical tropospheric temperatures (without saying what part of the troposphere), as evidence in what seems like a bait-and-switch. Casual readers, not noticing the switch between surface and tropospheric measurements, would reasonably conclude that all models are bunk and warming is not a significant concern. Isn't the problem here that the reader is being baited into taking a more extreme stance than the data conveys? Wouldn't an honest dissemination discuss the implications, measurement constraints, and effects of tropospheric measurements? In this case, there's no significant issue with the data being presented (that is, until you get to figure 9.5), but the reader is likely to be misled.
Good stuff, Bryan.
It would be cool if you could engage Tony Heller on the matter.
Maybe you want to check how many NOAA temperature measurement stations are compliant with NOAA criteria for objective measurement, net of h urbanization effect....almost zero