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Friday 9 July 2010

'There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000. This could increase the ave temp...'

'There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 20xx.

This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter.'
Scary stuff but no more scary than much that has been predicted over the last few years. However this prediction is from 1969 and so we can check the accuracy of the prediction. MOTLS has the detail:
'we know what has actually happened by 2000 and we can compare the 1969 and 2000 values of the three quantities: CO2 concentration, surface temperature, and sea level. The CO2 concentration grew from 324 ppm to 369 ppm, global surface temperatures increased by 0.3 °C, and sea level rose by 10 cm.'
'But they still rose' I hear the 'warmists' cry. Well yes but not in the way that your models predict:
'So you may see that the "temperature increase per CO2 increase" - a linearized version of climate sensitivity - was only overestimated by the factor of 13/1.8 = 7.2, i.e. by 620%, less than 1200% for the temperature increase itself.

And the sea level rise per temperature increase was only overestimated by a factor of 30.5/13 = 2.35 i.e. by 135%, well below 2950% of the sea level itself.'

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