McIntyre has another go at Hansen’s 1988 paper

Global warming skeptics just keep trying to show that Hansen’s projections in in his 1988 climate model were wrong. We’ve had Pat Michaels, who dishonestly erased scenarios B and C from Hansen’s graph, Willis Eschenbach at Climate Audit, who used the wrong baseline for temperature data and Steve McIntyre used some erroneous data of satellite-measured temperatures from RSS.

McIntyre is at it again, producing the graph below. I have digitally enhanced the big red dot McIntyre put on the June 2008 GISS temperature.

I think we can all agree that Hansen 1988 completely failed to project the June 2008 GISS temperature. Although this was obvious in 1988 since Hansen graphed annual temperatures, not monthly ones.

Comments

#1 Joe Campbell
August 1, 2008

I think you mean “project the June 2008…”
#2 Tim Lambert
August 1, 2008

Yes. Fixed. Thanks.
#3 counters
August 1, 2008

It just amazes me how tightly skeptics grip on to any thing remotely at odds with global warming. It’s not like we’ve refined the tools of our trade in the two decades since Hansen made these projections or anything.
#4 ben
August 1, 2008

Nature seems to be following Hansen C in near lock-step, doesn’t it? Let’s hope that Hansen C is the correct scenario.
#5 cce
August 1, 2008

This shows annual temps for GISS Land+Ocean and RSS (Satellite) vs. Scenario B (the only relevant scenario given actual forcings)

http://cce.890m.com/scenariob-vs-giss-vs-rss.jpg

The model shows more warming than observed, but that is expected given that it has a sensitivity of 4.2 degrees vs the more commonly accepted 3 degrees.

What I would like to add for comparison is the 5.1 version of the UAH analysis before the diurnal correction in 2005. Skeptics consider Hansen’s ’88 scenarios OF THE FUTURE to be fraud, but they had no trouble accepting Christy and Spencer’s error ridden interpretation of the PAST as gospel up to 2005 (and the current version is still low compared to RSS and the other satellite analyses).

In any case, if anyone knows where I can find an archived copy of that data series, It would be appreciated.
#6 dhogaza
August 1, 2008

This would appear to be a wider application of Lucia’s “falsifying” of IPCC projections based on short-term data and fortuitous end points (which will become less fortuitous over the next few months now that La Niña is “neutral”)?
#7 Joseph
August 1, 2008

Hansen B overcasts a little. I don’t think we’ll be seeing 1.0C (stable) until the early 2020s. Hansen C is probably too optimistic on the other hand. Even with peak oil, temperatures won’t level off for decades probably.
#8 Steve Bloom
August 1, 2008

Ben, if you look closer I think you’ll find B a bit more consistent. The monthly spikes in that graphic make it a little hard to follow. Notice that there was a spike all the way above A about a year ago.
#9 MarkG
August 1, 2008

Wow. Of course all you can take from all this is that Hansen failed to predict one of the strongest El Nino events in modern times (1998) and one of the coldest NH winters in recent times (2007/8). That doesn’t mean C is the best fit, it just means if you try to read too much into this comparison you’re a bit of an idiot with an agenda.

Right about now is when these B and C models diverge most strongly. Which, interestingly is right as Chinese CO2 emissions are taking off, so perhaps we’ll get a bit of A in the mix? If Hansen 1988 were re-run with the observed El Nino signature (assuming such a thing is even possible) this might be a more interesting comparison.

And another thing, I keep seeing people talk about CO2 radiative saturation as their explanation for why CO2 has stopped absorbing (therefore C is the best fit, blah, blah, blah). Just stop it ok? You’re just embarrassing yourselves.
#10 ben
August 2, 2008

Steve Bloom, I think you need to have a second look. Follow the mean temp and you’ll see that C is easily the best fit.
#11 sod
August 2, 2008

Nature seems to be following Hansen C in near lock-step, doesn’t it? Let’s hope that Hansen C is the correct scenario.

ben, stop talking nonsense and do some READING!
#12 Nathan
August 2, 2008

I think you should do a post on “Is Steve McIntyre a Spambot?”
He never answers direct questions… Raised my suspicions and now I think he is a test program designed to pass the Turing test!
#13 ChrisC
August 2, 2008

RC had a discussion in this a whilen ago:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/langswitch_lang/in

In it, they show that senario B and C both fit well, with B being the pick of the two over the full period. I’d say that if you look at the _rate_ or warming, you’ll find that senario B is the best candidate. The Nature article Hansen published last year goes into this somewhat.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2006/Hansen_etal_1.html

Also remeber that the original 1988 paper assumed a Pinatubo like eruptionn in 1995, rather than the observed 1991
#14 Marion Delgado
August 2, 2008

sod:

for ben this is, in all seriousness, yeoman’s work.
#15 Vagueofgodalming
August 2, 2008

From Hansen’s abstract:

Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.

The difference between A, B and C is not in the modelling but in the assumptions about what people do. Ben’s rather plaintive “Let’s hope that Hansen C is the correct scenario” is therefore self-contradictory. Sitting and hoping is at best Scenario B.

Of course, knowing which scenario we are really in (many more than three possibilities of course) is hard given the lies and distortions.
#16 Eli Rabett
August 2, 2008

Of course, Hansen, et al. 1988 DID predict the 1998 El Nino , but did get his prediction for the depth of the last one wrong.
#17 Ben
August 14, 2008

Isn’t the issue the wilful dishonesty of the hockey team and the fact that they played strong politics as opposed to just laying out the truth in an open manner?
#18 bi -- IJI
August 14, 2008

> the hockey team

Whatever the topic is, inactivists always insist on talking about something else.

The Gish Gallop is so 1990s, you know. Even the rest of the High Respectable Inactivist world has long advanced past this schtick; you should really update yourself on the latest and greatest inactivist techniques.
#19 Chris O'Neill
August 14, 2008

wilful dishonesty

Yes, not being interested in disclosing the intermediate results in one old out-of-date derivation out of many other more up-to-date derivations that have better results shows a staggering level of dishonesty. In fact, this is proof that all other methods have produced the wrong result.
#20 Ben
August 14, 2008

Get off your high horse the pair of you. I happen to be concerned about AGW and am appalled at the Hockey Stick controversy because sloppy work like this takes away from the credibility of the argument. You are doing yourself no favor with your wild assumptions that everyone is against you. Frankly you look silly doing it.
#21 bi -- IJI
August 15, 2008

Shorter Ben (with a capital B):

I’m so very very very concerned about global warming, that I’ll totally ignore McIntyre’s totally bogus take on Hansen’s 1988 predictions, and throw out a different inactivist talking point which also happens to be bogus! CIVILITY!!!!!!
#22 Barton Paul Levenson
August 15, 2008

Ben posts:

I happen to be concerned about AGW and am appalled at the Hockey Stick controversy because sloppy work like this takes away from the credibility of the argument.

What was sloppy about it? The NAS report concluded that they could have picked a better statistical treatment, but that their conclusions were essentially solid. It was the first paper of its kind, so it’s not too surprising that they didn’t pick the optimal statistical analysis the first time. So what? The analysis they used (decentered principal component analysis) worked. They got the right answer. That isn’t “sloppy work,” and the peer reviewers who okayed publishing it obviously didn’t think it was “sloppy work” either.

But you might believe it was “sloppy work” if you get all your information on it from denialist web sites.
#23 Chris O'Neill
August 15, 2008

Get off your high horse the pair of you.

What a hypocrite.
#24 Dano
August 15, 2008

Presumably Ben never played sports or participated in activities regarding skill as a lad.

See, Ben never needed to practice to get better, because the first time he did something, it was like, tooo-tall-ee nailed every time. So sports and competition was, like, boring.

‘Always the best the first time Ben’, he was called by his mates. He wonders why the rest of the world can’t match his standard, which of course is the hallmark of the Great Ones.

Best,

D