Stefan Rahmstorf on the IPCC modelling breakdown: Reason to breathe a sigh of relief, new climate models are far too sensitive.
By Die kalte Sonne
(Translated by P. Gosselin)
DER SPIEGEL provides a regular platform for the controversial climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf. On 12 May 2020 he was allowed to:
Stronger temperature rise: Why the climate models are running hot
A guest article by Stefan Rahmstorf
New calculations have alarmed the scientific community – they suggest the earth could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases. Will global warming be stronger than previously thought?
Here the quick reader will suspect one of the usual Rahmstorf climate alarm pieces. And this is exactly how the beginning of the article reads. However, it deals with a tricky topic that will certainly hit the Potsdam scientists quite hard to the stomach.
Huge mishap
In the course of the preparation of the 6th Climate Status Report, the IPCC has again run a large number of climate models. This time, however, a huge mishap has occurred. Several of the models have delivered far too much warming, which is not compatible with the measured data of the last decades. This fundamentally casts the models into question. They suggest that the warming effect of CO2 is far too high. A scandal that should actually cast everything into question.
Rahmstorf plays it dumb at the beginning of the article, luring his readers into the alarm trap. Will everything get much worse than expected? This is the typical Rahmstorf narrative.
“Models are crap”
But if you can make it to the end of the article, you will be surprised. Rahmstorf actually admits quietly that the models are crap, running way too hot.
In reality it’s all not so bad. Rahmstorf writes literally in his article:
The comparative study by researchers from the University of Exeter now shows that in particular the warming since 1975 – i.e. most of the modern global warming – is clearly too strong in the sensitive models. More recent analyses by ETH Zurich, for which more models have already been evaluated, confirm this conclusion. This is a reason to breathe a sigh of relief: there is currently some evidence that these models are not better than the old ones, but are simply too sensitive.“
Did SPIEGEL force its guest author to write this article? Was this a prerequisite for him to continue writing there? A balanced presentation with a fair evaluation of all opinions represented in science has never really been Rahmstorf’s strength.
Obvious failure
Or was it a flight to the front because the modelling failure was all too obvious and Rahmstorf feared complete professional isolation? It’s hard to say.
Stefan Rahmstorf must have struggled for several months before deigning to admit this mishap. This certainly could not have been easy for him.
By the way, here in the blog we have already reported on the topic several times: “The sun in February 2020, science against doom and gloom” and “The sun in November 2019 , when models exaggerate” and “The sun in December 2019, advances in climate science“.
