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thomas davison

After Thirty Years, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?
June 22, 2018 by Robert
The answer, in short, is not all that well.
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On June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where he expressed his �high degree of confidence� in �a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.�

The 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen�s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have turned out.

The answer, in short, is not all that well

In an article today in the Wall Street Journal, climatologist Dr Patrick Michaels and meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue compare Hansen�s predictions to reality. They describe an earth that is only moderately warmer.

I�ll paraphrase some of the WSJ article here.

It turns out that global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Ni�o of 2015-16.

And it isn�t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong, the two scholars point out. Models devised by the IPCC have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.

What about Hansen�s other claims? He claimed that the late �80s and �90s would see �greater than average warming in the southeast U.S. and the Midwest.� No such spike has been measured in these regions.

In 2007, Hansen stated that most of Greenland�s ice would soon melt, raising sea levels 23 feet over the next 100 years. Subsequent research published in Nature magazine demonstrated this to be impossible.

Several more of Mr. Hansen�s predictions fizzled. Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted? No. Satellite data shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature.

Have storms caused increasing damage in the U.S.? No. Data from NOAA show no such increase.

How about stronger tornadoes? No. In fact, the opposite may be true, as NOAA data offers some evidence of a decline.

�The list of what didn�t happen is long and tedious,� say Michaels and Maue.

�On the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen�s galvanizing testimony, it�s time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn�t happening.�

Dr. Michaels is director and Dr. Maue an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute�s Center for the Study of Science. Dr. Michaels obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Maue is a Ph.D meteorologist.

Interestingly, the WSJ article fails to mention that either of these men have a Ph.D. in their field of expertise.

This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal print edition as
�A Hot Summer on Capitol Hill.�

And it was published online as:
Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/thirty-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up-1529623442