Assessment of Climate Change: A Challenge for the University - Response To Goodknight #3

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Assessment of Climate Change: A Challenge for the University - Response To Goodknight #3”[Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Assessment of Climate Change: A Challenge for the University” [Hake (2013b) at http://yhoo.it/11KwHD9, Math-Teach’s Greg Goodknight at http://bit.ly/122D5Bg wrote (paraphrasing): “It isn’t looking good for the IPCC http://bit.ly/12yrEZx vision. See the graphs by John Christy at http://bit.ly/11HkZ8Y as advertised by Roy Spencer at http://bit.ly/1bHg0Ke.”

Q. What does the graph by climate-change skeptic John Christy http://bit.ly/ZSkZWh (as advertised by evolution-skeptic Roy Spencer http://bit.ly/17OZQ4c) - see also “Climate Scientists Debunk Latest Bunk by Denier Roy Spencer” at http://bit.ly/17P0OO4 - showing the discrepancy between linear-trend observations and 73 CMIP-5 models http://1.usa.gov/1bHlTac for tropical mid-troposphere temperature changes between 1979 and 2012 have to do with the threat to life on Planet Earth posed by Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)?

A. Nothing Whatsoever!

In my post “Why Democrats in Congress Fail To Support Climate Change Legislation #3” at http://yhoo.it/11fWHTG, I quoted climate scientist Gavin Schmidt http://bit.ly/11FkHmp as follows: “You could take the entire climate history that we have in the instrumental record and you could find cooling trends every 10 years. . . . . You pick the end points and you could find any particular year as part of a cooling year. But actually, the whole thing has been moving up.”

Consistent with Schmidt’s statement, see the zigzag plot of “Weather station data” vs time 1960 - 2005 in Mann (2012, Fig. 2.3, p. 16) at http://amzn.to/12x4qTF, showing a mean global temperature increase of about 0.75 degree C over that time period. The caption states (paraphrasing): “A comparison of three different simulations of global warming through 2020 made by James Hansen in 1988. A curve through the weather station observations closely matches Hansen’s curve B, based on the trajectory of an emissions scenario that most closely matches actual greenhouse gas emissions over the preceding 20 years.”

Curve B predicts a mean global temperature increase from 1960 of about one degree C in 2020, posing a serious threat to life on Planet Earth - see e.g., the Wikipedia entry on global warming at http://bit.ly/145Eg7J.

I list 11 pro-AGW resources that might be considered by AGW skeptics.

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To access the complete 15 kB post please click on http://yhoo.it/11IY6T8.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
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“A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.”
- Alfred North Whitehead (1925)


REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 24 June 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. "Assessment of Climate Change: A Challenge for the University - Response To Goodknight #2,"online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/11IY6T8. Post of 24 Jun 2013 11:48:31-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being distributed to various discussion lists.

Whitehead, A.N. 1925. “Religion and Science,” The Atlantic, August; online at http://bit.ly/142YOk6.