Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
'WhatNickjustsaidisactuallynottrue,'Englandinsisted.'TheIPCCprojectionsfrom
1990 (of steady rises) have borne out very accurately.' England later even accused sceptics
of 'lying that the IPCC projections are overstatements'.
So imagine my surprise when, just two years later in 2014, England admitted there
had been a 'hiatus' and 'plateau in global average temperatures' after all. Indeed, Dr Roy
Spencer, who runs the University of
Alabama at Huntsville global temperature data collated by NASA's Aqua satellite,
says the climate models used to predict man-made warming of up to six per cent this
century have so far 'failed miserably'. More than 95 per cent of the 90 climate models had
'over-forecastthewarmingtrendsince1979'.Headded:'Whetherhumansarethecauseof
100% of the observed warming or not, the conclusion is that global warming isn't as bad
as was predicted.'
Good heavens. So many flawed predictions, then, from so many experts who for years
shouted down sceptics with the cry, 'Respect the science! Don't argue: 97 per cent of
scientists agree!' And meanwhile, behind the scenes, the frantic search is on to find their
missing heat. It's hiding in the oceans! No, it's suppressed by aerosols! No, wait—it's
masked by natural factors that will soon give way and then … watch out!
Except the bottom line is that many experts no longer quite agree with what they once
predicted about our rising atmospheric temperatures, and our apocalyptic fever is slowly
waning. In 2012 even Lovelock, the Gaian catastrophist, admitted he'd been 'alarmist' and
so had other leaders of the warming alarm, including Flannery and Al Gore.
'The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20
years ago. That led to some alarmist topics—mine included—because it looked clear-cut,
but it hasn't happened,' Lovelock said. 'The world has not warmed up very much since the
millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time … It (the temperature) has stayed almost
constant, whereas it should have been rising.'
HadLovelockbeenourcaptain,we'dbesailingtotheArctic.Exceptnowhesayswe'll
be landing just where we started from, after all. Someone goofed, and we should duck into
the bridge to say so.
Prediction: our drought is permanent and our cities may run out of water
In 2005, Flannery, then Climate Council head, predicted: 'We've seen just drought,
drought,drought…Ifyoulookat[Sydney's]Warragambacatchmentfigures,since'98the
water has been in virtual freefall, and they've got about two years of supply left … They
(the changes) do seem to be of a permanent nature.'
In fact, the drought then broke. Warragamba, Sydney's main dam, has since filled to
overflowing.
