THE BIG PICTURE:
The coming climate crisis we have been hearing about for the past 50 years is nothing more than a repeated prediction that never comes true. So far the actual global warming has ranged from only 1/3 to 1/2 of the predicted warming, depending on when you start the count.
Many people count from 1979, when more accurate satellite temperature data first became available. A better count would be from 1940, after which the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere accelerated ... although there was no global warming until after 1975!
The climate computer game predictions are so far off because CO2 is obviously not the sole "global average temperature controller". The climate alarmists also ASSUME a bizarre, unproven theory that a water vapor positive feedback will triple the warming ASSUMED to be caused by CO2 alone. And they ASSUME an unreasonably fast growth rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so over predicting global warming is guaranteed. The carbon dioxide growth estimates are the subject of this article.
SUMMARY:
The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses exaggerated CO2 emissions growth rate scenarios (atmospheric CO2 concentration growth estimates). The IPCC has issued four CO2 emissions scenarios. Based on historical CO2 trends for the past 30 years, the two lower scenarios are realistic. The two higher scenarios are not. Of course climate change howlers use ONLY the highest CO2 growth estimates to get media and academic attention. Usually the highest CO2 growth estimate of all: "RCP8.5".
RCP stands for “Representative Concentration Pathways,” or projections of how much carbon dioxide (CO2) will accumulate in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel use in the coming century. The IPCC generated four RCP scenarios a decade ago, attaching to each a number indicating ASSUMED global warming potential (“radiative forcing”).
This is ASSUMED global warming, not proven global warming. RCP2.6 is the low-end emission scenario, with minimal global warming. In the middle are RCP4.5 and RCP6.0. The top end is RCP8.5, predicting unprecedented increases in global CO2 emissions.
DETAILS:
"Fighting" global warming is actually foolish, because warming, and more CO2 in the atmosphere, are both beneficial for our planet. Our planet supports more life when it is warmer, and has a higher CO2 concentration. But many people still fear global warming, because they have been brainwashed to fear global warming. They live with global warming, enjoy it, but still fear it? Not me. Here in Michigan USA, I want a lot more warming!
The easily frightened people want to reduce the growth rate of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. They want a lower CO2 growth rate scenario ... even as their "government authorities" use the unrealistic highest CO2 growth rate scenario to scare them about CO2 !
"Government authorities" also use an unproven water vapor positive feedback theory, almost certainly wrong, to triple the warming they claim is caused by CO2 alone. And the global warming caused by CO2 alone is only an ASSUMPTION, based on lab experiments using artificially dried air in a closed system experiment. There are no measurements that can determine the actual CO2 greenhouse effect in the atmosphere!
The ASSUMPTION that added CO2 causes mild global warming is reasonable, but not proven. The prediction of a coming climate CRISIS, that we've been hearing about for 50 years, is junk science.
People who view scary climate projections probably don't realize we are living in the lower CO2 growth rate scenarios. We don’t need to kill the global economy to get there. We are already there!
It's really easy to avoid the top CO2 growth rate "RCP8.5 future scenario". We just have to demand that so called "scientists" stop feeding it into their climate computer games, falsely called "climate models", in spite of their inaccurate predictions (predicting 2x to 3x the warming that actually happens). The computer games are the ONLY place where RCP8.5 exists!
Virtually every mass media story claiming a coming climate catastrophe, if we don’t slash carbon emissions, refers to a computer game simulation using RCP8.5.
The media stories will never include an explanation that RCP8.5 is a very unlikely, worst-case scenario, never meant to represent reality. In fact, some brave climate scientists were so disturbed by this RCP8.5 propaganda, that they wrote about the unjustified use of RCP8.5.
I say "brave", because they were considered to be authorities by the climate change howlers, who verbally attack everyone who disagrees with their worst case climate alarmism.
WHAT IS RCP8.5 ?
RCP8.5 is one of four greenhouse gas emissions scenario used by scientists for climate computer game projections. Almost all climate forecasts you have heard are based on it. Science-deficient politicians, who make the strongest pleas for radical climate action, are driven by RCP8.5 scenarios they know nothing about.
From the 1920s, to the year 2000, global coal consumption was between 15 and 20 gigajoules per capita. Coal consumption peaked in 1960, at 20, then fell back to 15 by 2000, then up to about 23 earlier this decade with the industrialization of China and India. The International Energy Agency expects a gradual return to the 15-20 gigajoule per capita range by 2040.
But the RCP8.5 scenario does NOT assume a return to normal coal use. It projects coal use will rise to about 30 gigajoules by 2040, 45 gigajoules by 2060, and 70 gigajoules by 2100. No one seriously believes this. Even people who use RCP8.5 in their computer game climate simulations don't seriously believe this!
A recent study by Matthew Burgess, of the University of Colorado, and his coauthors, explained that RCP8.5 doesn’t make sense in other ways too. It projects so much economic growth that today’s poor nations will be richer in 2100, than the wealthiest nations are today. But how would that be possible if those nations experienced so much warming that they became uninhabitable wastelands? Both forecasts can't be true!
RCP8.5 was created as an improbable worst-case scenario, not a business-as-usual forecast. Yet smarmy scientists and economists use it as the business-as-usual CO2 growth forecast. Feed RCP8.5 into a climate computer game, and a climate catastrophe is predicted. Then call the predicted climate catastrophe the “likely” scenario, if we don’t cut CO2 emissions.
Scientists who use the low end of the RCP range will find their studies get no media attention, which may be why so many climate modelers prefer using RCP8.5. Along with scaring the general public, and giving themselves permanent job security, of course.
In late 2019, a Nature magazine commentary by climate experts Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters scolded colleagues for misleading the public and distorting the policy debate, by using RCP8.5.
A Zeke Hausfather et. al. analysis in 2019 showed that In the 1970s, when scientists made CO2 growth projections through 2000, reality came in near the bottom end of the range. For projections from the 1980s, reality came in AT the bottom end of the range. See CO2 growth predictions, versus reality, in the following chart:
CO2 EMISSION SCENARIOS
BEFORE THE RCPs:
Before forming the RCP group in 2000, the IPCC issued the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) -- a set of CO2 emission paths ranging from slow CO2 growth to the infamous A1FI top-end scorcher, which allowed the IPCC to issue scary-sounding “up to six degrees” warming forecasts. By the time it was revealed to the public in early 2000, A1FI had already overestimated global coal consumption growth in the 1990s by 40 percent.
The SRES scenarios were criticized by Ian Castles, former chief statistician of Australia, and former OECD chief economist David Henderson in 2002. They told the IPCC the SRES team used the wrong formula for computing foreign exchange rates, exaggerating both economic growth, and CO2 emissions growth, in low-income countries.