Dialing Back Global Warming Predictions; beginning of an AGW Retreat?

[JimBowie1958]

The only thing lacking in the AGW theory was evidence that directly linked Global Warming to human causes. Correlation does not equate to causation.

Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change - WSJ.com

Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC's emissions scenarios) that there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.

Warming of up to 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth—because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher.

Up to two degrees of warming, these benefits will generally outweigh the harmful effects, such as more extreme weather or rising sea levels, which even the IPCC concedes will be only about 1 to 3 feet during this period.

Yet these latest IPCC estimates of climate sensitivity may still be too high. They don't adequately reflect the latest rash of published papers estimating "equilibrium climate sensitivity" and "transient climate response" on the basis of observations, most of which are pointing to an even milder warming.

UN IPCC: We Predicted Less Antarctic Ice and We Have No Idea Why It Is Increasing | Climate Depot

David Rose is getting a lot of hate for telling the truth about shoddy climate models.
But this quote from the leaked upcoming AR5 jumped out at me:
“‘Most models simulate a small decreasing trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, in contrast to the small increasing trend in observations… There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent.’

Earth Gains A Record Amount Of Sea Ice In 2013 ? ?Earth has gained 19,000 Manhattans of sea ice since this date last year, the largest increase on record? | Climate Depot

'There is more sea ice now than there was on this date in 2002'

Warmist ?consensus? found to be just a PR campaign: Climategater admits Cook paper ?a damp squib? | Climate Depot

Andrew Montford writes at the Australian: N recent months it has been stated repeatedly that 97 per cent of scientists agree global warming is real and man-made. These claims are based on a paper published by a team led by John Cook in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

 

[Old Rocks]

Only Antarctic Sea Ice is increasing, and that only by a very small amount. In the meantime, the Antarctic Ice Cap is losing many billions of tons of ice annually.

Ice Sheet Loss at Both Poles Increasing, Study Finds | NASA

PASADENA, Calif. - An international team of experts supported by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) has combined data from multiple satellites and aircraft to produce the most comprehensive and accurate assessment to date of ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica and their contributions to sea level rise.

In a landmark study published Thursday in the journal Science, 47 researchers from 26 laboratories report the combined rate of melting for the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica has increased during the last 20 years. Together, these ice sheets are losing more than three times as much ice each year (equivalent to sea level rise of 0.04 inches or 0.95 millimeters) as they were in the 1990s (equivalent to 0.01 inches or 0.27 millimeters). About two-thirds of the loss is coming from Greenland, with the rest from Antarctica.

This rate of ice sheet losses falls within the range reported in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The spread of estimates in the 2007 IPCC report was so broad, however, it was not clear whether Antarctica was growing or shrinking. The new estimates, which are more than twice as accurate because of the inclusion of more satellite data, confirm both Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice. Combined, melting of these ice sheets contributed 0.44 inches (11.1 millimeters) to global sea levels since 1992. This accounts for one-fifth of all sea level rise over the 20-year survey period. The remainder is caused by the thermal expansion of the warming ocean, melting of mountain glaciers and small Arctic ice caps, and groundwater mining.

 

[Old Rocks]

Antarctic sea ice since 1979;

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.antarctic.png

Arctic sea ice in the same period;

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png

Comparing the change, Anarctica;

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

The arctic;

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png