Climate Expert von Storch: Why Is Global Warming Stagnating?

Der Spiegel ^ | June 20, 2013 | Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter

[neverdem]

Climate experts have long predicted that temperatures would rise in parallel with greenhouse gas emissions. But, for 15 years, they haven't. In a SPIEGEL interview, meteorologist Hans von Storch discusses how this "puzzle" might force scientists to alter what could be "fundamentally wrong" models.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Storch, Germany has recently seen major flooding. Is global warming the culprit?

Storch: I'm not aware of any studies showing that floods happen more often today than in the past. I also just attended a hydrologists' conference in Koblenz, and none of the scientists there described such a finding.

SPIEGEL: But don't climate simulations for Germany's latitudes predict that, as temperatures rise, there will be less, not more, rain in the summers?

Storch: That only appears to be contradictory. We actually do expect there to be less total precipitation during the summer months. But there may be more extreme weather events, in which a great deal of rain falls from the sky within a short span of time. But since there has been only moderate global warming so far, climate change shouldn't be playing a major role in any case yet.

SPIEGEL: Would you say that people no longer reflexively attribute every severe weather event to global warming as much as they once did?

Storch: Yes, my impression is that there is less hysteria over the climate. There are certainly still people who almost ritualistically cry, "Stop thief! Climate change is at fault!" over any natural disaster. But people are now talking much more about the likely causes of flooding, such as land being paved over or the disappearance of natural flood zones -- and that's a good thing.

SPIEGEL: Will the greenhouse effect be an issue in the upcoming German parliamentary elections? Singer Marius Müller-Westernhagen is leading a celebrity initiative calling...

[theBuckwheat]

“Why Is Global Warming Stagnating?”

When science prostitutes itself to government funding, then what the people who sit on grant approval committees want is what gets funded. These people tend to be socialists and they cater to fellow socialists. When ideology trumps truth, and science itself stagnates.

If this seems to strong, it doesn’t take too much effort to find numerous quotes where government-funded “scientists” have called for severe sanctions on anyone who disagreed with their “consensus”. Even the very idea that a “consensus” establishes something as fact should disqualify the WHOLE LOT OF THEM.

[theBuckwheat]

see:

Comparing climate models – Part One
Guest Essay by Geoffrey H Sherrington

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/20/comparing-climate-models-part-one/

and this graphic comparison:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/clip_image0023.jpg

[Elsiejay]

Is someone here up to speed on the Atlantic Multidecadal (?) Oscillation, and its current prediction of global atmospheric temperature trends?

[pallis]

Climate change fanatics have overplayed their lies. Even when a pop punk like Obama goes to Germany to talk climate change, people thumb their nose. Sure, some of it was because Obama speaks worse than a drunk crackhead, but people are tired of climate lies.

[colorado tanker]

Given what Europe experienced that couldn't be a worldwide number.

We had a cool and wet early summer. Several Rockies games were snowed out.

We hear stats like that every year it seems. Personally, I think they play with the numbers to yield that result. There has been no significant warming for the last 15 years, but every year they claim the latest is the warmest on record. That just doesn't compute.

[Izzy Dunne]

That only appears to be contradictory.

That only appears to be contradictory.

That only appears to be contradictory.

That only appears to be contradictory.

That only appears to be contradictory.

[exDemMom]

When science prostitutes itself to government funding, then what the people who sit on grant approval committees want is what gets funded. These people tend to be socialists and they cater to fellow socialists. When ideology trumps truth, and science itself stagnates.

It is not the people who sit on grant committees who are the problem, because they are ordinary scientists who are asked to sit on the committees and flown in from all over the country to do this. They typically have several publications on the specific topic of the grants, and so are considered experts in their fields.

The problem here is squarely on the shoulders of the politicians. Politicians for the last century have been trying one scheme after another to shove socialism and authoritarian control down our throats, and we have, for the most part, rejected. Then along came the hypothesis of "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) that gave those politicians a new angle with which to impose totalitarianism. This time, they can claim that the earth will die unless they get their way! And those politicians thought that funding research in "global warming" (not just climate) would further their goals. So they directed how the research monies would be allocated. The scientists on the grant committees choose the grant proposals that get funded (based on scientific merit, potential to generate new information, etc.) but the politicians told them the subjects that would get funded.

The politically directed disbursement of grant monies led to the situation where scientists whose work was in an area other than AGW didn't get funding. And scientists in many fields stuck the phrase "because of global warming" in their proposals for completely unrelated studies because it increased their chances of funding.

The bulk of scientific research, especially the "basic" research, is funded by the government, and that situation is not likely to change. The scope of privately funded research is typically very narrow--for example, a foundation dedicated to researching prostate cancer will not fund mitochondrial function research. Scientists who want more freedom to choose a research area usually turn to the government.

[exDemMom]

The potential acidification of the oceans due to CO2 entering them from the atmosphere. This is a phenomenon that seems sinister to me, perhaps in part because I understand too little about it. But if marine animals are no longer able to form shells and skeletons well, it will affect nutrient cycles in the oceans.

Mollusks make their shells out of calcium carbonate. That is, they pull CO2 out of the water to make the calcium carbonate. Also, where the oceans get warmer, they hold less CO2 (not more) because gases are less soluble in warmer liquids than in cold. I would say that if acidification processes are impeding shell formation, we need to look for the source of the acid... probably industrial run-off.

[1010RD]

I was talking to a guy and his wife, both Californians, about climate change. He told me that we’ve lost 80% of our coral reefs. Keep in mind he’s a wealthy, retired executive who claimed to spend “five hours a day” studying the climate now that he’s got the time.

So I asked for some examples. He said that the Great Barrier reef has lost 30% of it’s coral reef due to manmade global warming. He went on to describe the 2nd largest barrier reef system as also down 30%. You’d think he could do the math and see that at most we’ve lost 30%, unless other reefs are down to zero.

The entire conversation was like this. Then the thirty-something marine biologist who is studying the effects of global climate change on corals chimes in to his defense. I asked her what’s your baseline? She answered, “Everybody knows...” I pressed her for specifics. I mean she’s a scientist and studying it all. She simply got more and more exasperated and looked like a cornered animal. As if she’d never considered the alternative, I mean she’s got the funding, right?

In the end she said that a baseline doesn’t matter because she’s just studying the effects. I changed the subject.

[Olog-hai]

Pity that scientists are no longer trained to act as scientists.

This utterance from Storch made me laugh:

Unfortunately, some scientists behave like preachers, delivering sermons to people. What this approach ignores is the fact that there are many threats in our world that must be weighed against one another. If I’m driving my car and find myself speeding toward an obstacle, I can’t simply yank the wheel to the side without first checking to see if I’ll instead be driving straight into a crowd of people. Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society. …

Only some scientists?

[1010RD]

Global climate change is immeasurable. It’s a liberal’s innumerate fantasy writ large.