The following is a comment to be posted at Bishop Hill, responding to another attempt by blogger ….andThenThere’sPhysics to undermine the work of Bjorn Lomborg. The previous attempt was discussed here. This post includes a number of links, as well as a couple of illustrative screen captures at the foot of the table.
aTTP’s comment is
In fact, you should read Joe Romm’s post about this. He’s showing that the INDCs are likely to lead to around 3.5C which I think is relative to something like the 1860-1880 mean. This is very similar to the MIT’s 3.7, and quite a bit lower than the RCP8.5 of around 4.5C. So, yes, we all know that the INDCs are not going to do as much as some might like, but the impact is likely to be a good deal greater than that implied by Lomborg who has essentially assumed that we get to 2030 and then simply give up.
Nov 11, 2015 at 9:31 AM | …and Then There’s Physics
My Comment
aTTP at 9.31 refers to Joe Romm’s blog post of Nov 3 “Misleading U.N. Report Confuses Media On Paris Climate Talks“. Romm uses Climate Interactive’s Climate Scoreboard Tool to show the INDC submissions (if fully implemented) will result in 3.5°C as against the 4.5°C in the non-policy “No Action” Scenario. This is six times the claimed maximum impact of 0.17°C claimed in Lomberg’s new paper. Who is right? What struck me first was that Romm’s first graph, copied straight from the Climate Interactive’s seem to have a very large estimate for emissions in the “No Action” Scenario producing. Downloading the underlying data, I find the “No Action” global emissions in 2100 are 139.3 GtCO2e, compared with about 110 GtCO2e in Figure SPM5(a) of the AR5 Synthesis Report for the RCP8.5 scenario high emissions scenario. But it is the breakdown per country or region that matters.
For the USA, without action emissions are forecast to rise from 2010 to 2030 by 40%, in contrast to a rise of just 9% in the period 1990 to 2010. It is likely that emissions will fall without policy and will be no higher in 2100 than in 2010. The “no action” scenario overestimates 2030 emissions by 2-3 GtCO2e in 2030 and about 7-8 GtCO2e in 2100.
For the China the overestimation is even greater. Emissions will peak during the next decade as China fully industrializes, just as emissions peaked in most European countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Climate Interactive assumes that emissions will peak at 43 GtCO2e in 2090, whereas other estimates that the emissions peak will be around 16-17 GtCO2e before 2030.
Together, overestimations of the US and China’s “No Action” scenarios account for over half 55-60 GtCO2e 2100 emissions difference between the “No Action” and “Current INDC” scenarios. A very old IT term applies here – GIGO. If aTTP had actually checked the underlying assumptions he would realise that Romm’s rebuttal of Lomborg based on China’s emission assumptions (and repeated on his own blog) are as false as claiming that the availability of free condoms is why population peaks.
Links posted at https://manicbeancounter.com/2015/11/11/attp-falsely-attacks-bjorn-lomborgs-impact-of-current-climate-proposals-paper/
Kevin Marshall
Figures referred to (but not referenced) in the comment above
Figure 1: Climate Interactive’s graph, referenced by Joe Romm.
Figure 2: Reproduction of Figure SPM5(a) from Page 9 of the AR5 Synthesis Report.
Update – posted the following to ATTP’s blog
ManicBeancounter 
...and Then There's Physics
/ 11/11/2015Comment Deleted
...and Then There's Physics
/ 11/11/2015Comment Deleted – You have your own blog for comments.
karabar
/ 11/11/2015Let me try to enlighten you, although I am certain that the beancounter will do that far more exquisitely than I.
1) Every single word you write, aTTP, has nothing at all to do with the physical sciences, but rather is an attack on anyone that has not consumed the Koolaid which makes them believe in fairy tales.
2) China expects that its population will peak about 2030, which is the reason that it agreed to Old Bummer’s offer of $100 billion per year if she promises to maintain her “emissions” at a more or less constant value after that. Gawd, this ridiculous never ending conversation about imaginary things, like “global warming” and the nonsensical, meaningless term “climate change” is enough to jar your mother’s pickles.
manicbeancounter
/ 11/11/2015Thanks for the comment. I am deleting Ken Rice’s comments, reciprocating what he does to others. He has his own blog, so I am hardly denying his freedom to pollute the internet.
...and Then There's Physics
/ 12/11/2015I never delete comments from people who I mention in a post!
manicbeancounter
/ 12/11/2015But you do not check the data or the underlying assumptions. Instead you discourage people from checking the data, underlying assumptions and normative implications for themselves. Instead you deflect, based on your prejudices, relying on secondary sources and your inferior beliefs about the world.
Example of the former
https://manicbeancounter.com/2015/02/08/the-propaganda-methods-of-and-then-theres-physics-on-temperature-homogenisation/
In particular this diagram.
030315_2326_RealClimate1.jpg
Example of the latter
https://manicbeancounter.com/2015/04/26/attp-on-lombergs-australian-funding/
There are alternative views to your opinions. You never acknowledge that. When you deal will economics, budgeting and forecasting your knowledge and experience is inferior to my own, and far inferior to that of Bjorn Lomborg.
You are not unique. Nor is your discovery of some higher truth anything new. Confirmation is in Matt 7:3-5, written 1950 years ago,
justanotherpersonii
/ 18/12/2015Mr. or Dr. Marshall,
I do not see how ATTP’s comment qualifies as an attack on Lomborg. If you could perhaps enlighten me I would be grateful, but until then this seems like quite an exaggeration.
justanotherpersonii
/ 18/12/2015Forgive me, I hadn’t read carefully enough: you say that Dr. Rice attack’s Lomborg’s paper, and while I would use a different word it makes much more sense now. Searching “attack” on Google helps back you up, as “criticize” is a synonym, and that is exactly what Dr. Rice did. I can also see now how Dr. Rice set up a strawman claiming you claimed he attacked Lomborg, when you claimed he attacked Lomborg’s paper.