Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?
" James E. Hansen
wiped sweat from his brow. Outside it was a record-high 98
degrees on June 23, 1988, as the NASA scientist testified before the
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources during a prolonged heat
wave, which he decided to cast as a climate event of cosmic
significance. He expressed to the senators his “high degree of
confidence” in “a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse
effect and observed warming.”
Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future
of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,”
as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s
and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius
by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today
as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and
predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He
added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely:
constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures
would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.
On the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s galvanizing testimony, it’s
time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn’t happening.
Climate researchers and policy makers should adopt the more modest
forecasts that are consistent with observed temperatures.
That would be a lukewarm policy, consistent with a lukewarming planet."
[Wall Street Journal]
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