>> The paper has no significant conclusions. It's inconclusive.
I didn't spend the $32 to buy the paper, and won't. But I have read multiple synopses, and I cannot see how the findings are either inconclusive or insignificant.
The findings ARE indeterminate as what portion of this relates to some fallacy in the model versus other things. I assume this will be the basis for further statistical evaluation (since it is apparently not set out in the paper itself).
But when the projections under the model don't comport with real life, the supposition, the hypothesis, is wrong. It just is. We know that much, if Santer's analysis in THIS paper is correct.
So, yes, it is potentially a pretty big deal.
Model is the upper chart, observed is the lower.
While the rate of warming in the models and observations is pretty close prior to the year 2000, the differences after 2000 are much larger. Some of these differences are explained by short-term natural variability, such as El Nin~o events, which do not necessarily occur at the same time in the models as in the observations and tend to average out. However, even with this removed from the observations, the researchers find that notable differences remain.
To explain these differences, the researchers tested a number of different possible factors. First, they looked to see if the difference could be explained by longer-term multi-decadal natural variability from El Nino and ocean temperature oscillations that was not captured in the model average.
They found that while natural internal variability can explain most of the relatively small differences between modeled and observed tropospheric warming in the last two decades of the 20th century, but can’t fully explain why model tropospheric warming is larger than in the satellite data during much of the early 21st century.
carbonbrief.org
While I can agree that this paper does not foreclose the idea of global warming, it is obviously concerning that it doesn't agree with modeled behavior and the authors agree that the differences are substantial. |
