By Gerard Wynn, Reuters

Global temperatures may be 4 degrees Celsius hotter by the mid-2050s if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue, said a study published on Monday. The study, by Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre, echoed a U.N. report last week which found that climate changes were outpacing worst-case scenarios forecast in 2007 by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Our results are showing similar patterns (to the IPCC) but also show the possibility that more extreme changes can happen,” said Debbie Hemming, co-author of the research published at the start of a climate change conference at Oxford University. Leaders of the main greenhouse gas-emitting countries recognised in July a scientific view that temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, to avoid more dangerous changes to the world’s climate.

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its fourth assessment report, or AR4. One finding was that global temperatures could rise by 4 degrees by the end of the 2050s. Monday’s study confirmed that warming could happen even earlier, by the mid-2050s, and suggested more extreme local effects. “It’s affirming the AR4 results and also confirming that it is likely,” Hemming told Reuters, referring to 4 degrees warming, assuming no extra global action to cut emissions in the next decade.

One advance since 2007 was to model the effect of “carbon cycles”. For example, if parts of the Amazon rainforest died as a result of drought, that would expose soil which would then release carbon from formerly shaded organic matter. “That amplifies the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere and therefore the global warming. It’s really leading to more certainty,” said Hemming.

DRASTIC

Some 190 countries will try to reach an agreement on how to slow global warming at a meeting in Copenhagen in December. Chinese President Hu Jintao won praise for making a commitment to limit emissions growth by a “notable” amount, at a U.N. climate summit in New York last week. Other leaders made pledges to agree a new climate pact. Temperature rises are compared with pre-industrial levels. The world warmed 0.7 degrees last century, scientists say.

A global average increase of 4 degrees masked higher regional increases, including more than 15 degrees warmer temperatures in parts of the Arctic, and up to 10 degrees higher in western and southern Africa, Monday’s study found. “It’s quite extreme. I don’t think it’s hit home to people,” said Hemming. As sea ice melts, the region will reflect less sunlight, which may help trigger runaway effects. Such higher Arctic temperatures could also melt permafrost, which until now has trapped the powerful greenhouse gas methane, helping trigger further runaway effects, said Hemming. “There are potentially quite big negative implications.”

The study indicated rainfall may fall this century by a fifth or more in part of Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean, and coastal Australia, “potentially more extreme” than the IPCC’s findings in 2007. “The Mediterranean is a very consistent signal of significant drying in nearly all the model runs,” said Hemming. A 20 percent or more fall is “quite a lot in areas like Spain already struggling with rainfall reductions in recent years.” Read more here.

Does this look like model affirmation to you? By the way they offer a full money back guarantee on their 50 and 100 year forecasts.

Enlarged here.

See more by P.J. Gladnick on this here.

Also the UKMO has issued their winter forecast - Preliminary indications continue to suggest that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year for the UK, but there is still a 1 in 7 chance of a cold winter.

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UPDATE: SEE IMPORTANT POST on Climate Audit “Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem”
By Steve McIntyre

The graphic below is, in my opinion, one of the most disquieting images ever presented at Climate Audit. Two posts ago, I observed that the number of cores used in the most recent portion of the Yamal archive at CRU was implausibly low. There were only 10 cores in 1990 versus 65 cores in 1990 in the Polar Urals archive and 110 cores in the Avam-Taymir archive. These cores were picked from a larger population - measurements from the larger population remain unavailable. One post ago, I observed that Briffa had supplemented the Taymir data set (which had a pronounced 20th century divergence problem) not just with the Sidorova et al 2007 data from Avam referenced in Briffa et al 2008, but with a Schweingruber data set from Balschaya Kamenka (russ124w), also located over 400 km from Taymir.

Given this precedent, I examined the ITRDB data set for potential measurement data from Yamal that could be used to supplement the obviously deficient recent portion of the CRU archive (along the lines of Brifffa’s supplementing the Taymir data set.) Sure enough, there was a Schweingruber series that fell squarely within the Yamal area - indeed on the first named Khadyta River - russ035w located at 67 12N 69 50Eurl . This data set had 34 cores, nearly 3 times more than the 12 cores selected into the CRU archive. Regardless of the principles for the selection of the 12 CRU cores, one would certainly hope to obtain a similar-looking RCS chronology using the Schweingruber population for living trees in lieu of the selection by CRU (or whoever).

The graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red - the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black - the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive [leaving the rest of the data set unchanged i.e. all the subfossil data prior to the 19th century]. The difference is breathtaking (enlarged here).

As CA readers also know, until recently, CRU staunchly refused to provide the measurement data used in Briffa’s Yamal reconstruction. Science(mag) acquiesced in this refusal in connection with Osborn and Briffa 2006. While the Yamal chronology was used in a Science article, it originated with Briffa 2000 and Science(mag) took the position that the previous journal (which had a different data policy) had jurisdiction. Briffa used the chronology Briffa et al (Phil Trans B, 2008) and the Phil Trans editors finally seized the nettle, requiring Briffa to archive the data. As noted before, Briffa asked for an extension and, when I checked earlier this year, the Yamal measurement data remained unarchived. A few days ago, I noticed that the Yamal data was finally placed online. With the information finally available, this analysis has only taken a few days.

If the non-robustness observed here prove out (and I’ve provided a generating script), this will have an important impact on many multiproxy studies that have relied on this study. Read full post here.

By Ann McElhinney & Phelim McAleer

A powerful new film reveals how global warming activists cause economic destruction in the United States while they unwittingly spread misery and death around the world. Commencing a full blown attack on the hypocrisy and ill-conceived policies of the modern environmental movement, Not Evil Just Wrong is a feature length documentary that shows how extreme environmentalism is damaging the lives of the most vulnerable populations in the developed and developing world. With examples from Indiana to Uganda the film shows how Global Warming “solutions” will destroy jobs and livelihoods in America during one of the biggest recessions in living memory.

In time for the world premiere at 8pm on October 18th, DVDs can be pre-ordered by simply by clicking on flash promo below. Bypassing the Hollywood barriers to mass distribution, pre-ordered Not Evil Just Wrong DVDs will arrive in mailboxes in time for a coordinated attempt to break the world record for “largest simultaneous DVD movie premiere” on Sunday, October 18th, 2009, at 8pm.

“This is a film that Hollywood doesn’t want anyone to see because it uncovers the dirty truth of extreme environmentalism,” states the film’s co-director and producer, Phelim McAleer. “Our film is an attempt to spread this truth across America so that this issue, which threatens to damage so many lives and jobs, finally gets the debate it deserves.

“Documentary film co-director and producer Ann McElhinney invites everyday Americans to “Help us expose the true cost of global warming hysteria and become a part of cinematic history by making sure a documentary that finally tells the truth about their lives is shown across the nation.” “CO2 is the new DDT. Environmentalists want to ban it without any firm scientific basis or any consideration of the effect a ban on fossil fuels will have on the lives of working Americans.” says McElhinney.

The film sweeps back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, starting in the United States. It examines the history of environmentalism, rooted in Rachel Carson’s famed 1962 book, Silent Spring, which led to a ban on DDT. This ban was disastrous for people in the developing world because DDT was the cheapest and safest way of combating malaria. An estimated 30 million people died when the DDT ban left them vulnerable to malaria. Not Evil Just Wrong exposes the full impact of robust and crushing environmental restrictions on the people of Uganda, before returning back to the United States to see how those same policies could impact American families in small towns like Vevay, Indiana.

Not Evil Just Wrong also shreds outrageous claims made in Al Gore’s award-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, and rips apart academics and actors alike as they promote bad science to raise money for “green” initiatives.

See their email newsletter including a description of the big Labor Day rally in West Virginia here.

To speak with a representative from Not Evil Just Wrong please contact Megan Erhardt (x136) or Jennifer Fedor (x 106) at 703-683-5004 or simply click on flash promo below.

Marc Morano Climate Depot Editorial - Serving as the Media’s Ombudsman

Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin continues her downward slide as an objective and balanced reporter of climate issues. Eilperin’s September 25, 2009 article titled “New Analysis Brings Dire Forecast Of 6.3-Degree Temperature Increase,” is a journalistic embarrassment.

Earlier this month, Eilperin (publicly available email) did a similarly poor job of reporting on claims of an Arctic “Hockey Stick.” (See: Not Again! WaPo’s Eilperin and Media Promoting Arctic ‘Hockey Stick’ - Claim Temps Warmest in 2000 Years - September 3, 2009)

Eilperin’s latest article once again features discredited political climate activist Robert Corell, without noting Corell’s incorrect scientific claims or his affiliation with the activist Heinz Center, run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry.

In her September 25 article on the latest UN climate scare report, Eilperin wrote: “Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.” (Note: Other media outlets are also serving as public relations arms of the UN. See: Laughable: UN Report: ‘Damage being caused by climate change...is no longer a matter of debate’—‘The science has become more irrevocable than ever’ - Sept. 24, 2009—For a reality check on the latest science, see: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’ - August 25, 2009)

UN report ‘aimed at marshaling political support’

Eilperin does note the obvious—that this new piece of “global warming research” is “aimed at marshaling political support for a new international climate pact by the end of the year.”

At least she admitted the UN climate report was all about “politics” and not science. But Eilperin then gives what she freely acknowledged is “research” aimed at “marshalling political support” a free ride from any critical scientific counter view in her article.

Eilperin glosses over the fact that this latest UN climate “report” is a strategically timed political document peppered with unproven computer climate models that violate the basic principles of forecasting and that even the UN does not call “predictions.” See: Climate Depot’s Report Exposing Climate Models

UN presenting ‘best science politics can manufacture’

The fact that the UN is once again presenting the best science politics can manufacture, does not raise a single skeptical journalistic impulse in Eilperin’s reporting. In fact, Eilperin breathlessly reports the new report “highlights the extent to which recent scientific assessments have outstripped the predictions issued by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.” Eilperin should take lessons from New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s recent article on the UN. See: NYT’s Moment of Clarity: UN faces challenge achieving climate treaty ‘when global temps have been stable for a decade and may even drop in next few years’ - September 23, 2009.

The New York Times has also noted how the UN IPCC’s credibility is not what Eilperin seems to believe. (See: NYT’s Moment of Clarity: ‘Nobel Halo Fades Fast for UN IPCC Climate Change Panel’—‘It could quickly lose relevance’ - Climatologist: ‘It just feels like the IPCC has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper’ - August 4, 2009

Why does Eilperin fail to note that a top UN IPCC scientist, Mojib Latif of Kiel University in Germany told a UN conference earlier this month that he is now predicting global cooling for several decades and he admitted he was unsure how much the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) had impacted global temperatures in the past three decades. The New Scientist article reported: “Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. ‘But how much? The jury is still out,’” Latif told the conference. See: UN Fears (More) Global Cooling Commeth! IPCC Scientist Warns UN: We are about to enter ‘one or even 2 decades during which temps cool’ - Admits ‘Jury is still out’ on ocean cycle’s temp impact!

Even the New York Times is now recognizing the global cooling possibility. See: NYT: Missing Its Spots: ‘Sun may be on verge of falling into an extended slumber’—could cause ‘extended chilly period’ - ‘Cosmic ray levels correlate well with climate extending back thousands of years’ - July 21, 2009 & Also see: ‘Sun Sleeps’: Danish Scientist declares ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning...enjoy global warming while it lasts’ - Sun is ‘heading towards ‘a grand minimum’ as we saw in Little Ice Age’ - Sept. 11, 2009

Perhaps Eilperin could do some basic research like the Houston Chronicle’s Science reporter Eric Berger. (See: Media Tipping Point: Houston Chronicle Reporter Reconsiders Science is ‘Settled’ Claims! ‘I am confused. 4 years ago this all seemed like a fait accompli’ - September 6, 2009 - Berger Excerpt: ‘Earth seems to have, at least temporarily, stopped warming’—‘If we can’t have confidence in short-term prognosis for climate change, how can we have full confidence in long-term?’

Eilperin could have followed the excellent reporting of her Washington Post colleague David A. Fahrenthold, who recently did a balanced and objective report on sea level for the paper. (See: Wash. Post reporting makes progress! Article concedes sea level computer model ‘predictions could be flawed or flat wrong’ - June 9, 2009)

If Eilperin was still confused, she could have consulted the Washington Post’s own resident skeptical meteorologist Matt Rogers to help set her reporting straight. (See: Wash. Post’s Own Meteorologist Counters Paper’s Claims! ‘I wince when hearing...science is ‘settled’—Climate ‘hysteria’ may be ‘another bubble waiting to burst’ - September 10, 2009).

See much more in the full post with many embedded links here.