{"id":275120,"date":"2023-08-23T12:06:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T10:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275120"},"modified":"2023-08-23T12:07:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T10:07:04","slug":"new-scientist-how-worried-should-we-be-about-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275120","title":{"rendered":"New Scientist: How worried should we be about climate change?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Net Zero Watch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How worried should we be, asks New Scientist in a\u00a0Climate Change Special Issue<\/em>. The 19th August issue is billed as a guide to a year of extreme weather \u2013 \u201ca year of extremes,\u201d when 2023 is barely half way over<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a New Scientist\u00a0Climate Special Report<\/a>\u00a0senior reporter Michael Le Page asks if climate change is worse than we thought it would be? Well, it depends upon who you ask \u2013 and New Scientist usually asks the same experts for their unwavering opinions which, as we shall see, are sometimes just a premonition they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article in question quotes the usual crew: Peter Stott of the UK Met Office, Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Together they have been quoted in the New Scientist 109 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to New Scientist:\u00a0\u201cHere are the key facts you need to know.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s first question is:\u00a0Is the world is warming faster than expected?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the conclusion the article draws is no, it isn\u2019t; the temperatures we\u2019re seeing are \u201cwell within the range\u201d of climate model predictions. New Scientist adds that even the models of the 1970\u2019s were \u201cpretty close,\u201d presumably before a great deal of time and money was expended making them more complicated but not more accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s actually not quite like that. The article quotes Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth who says: \u201cIf anything, temperatures have been a bit on the low end.\u201d So the answer to the first question is just the inverse of the habitual media narrative \u2014 the world is not warming faster than expected or predicted. The article emphasises that to put July\u2019s weather extremes into context will take \u201ca decade or so,\u201d so that\u2019s a memo for the New Scientist\u2019s\u2019s\u00a0August 2033 Climate Special<\/em>, if it\u2019s still around by then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next comes the question,\u00a0are we seeing more extreme weather than predicted?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer to this also depends upon who you ask. They asked Piers Forster who said he hasn\u2019t seen any physical evidence for more extreme weather \u2026 although he thinks it might be possible. New Scientist then asked Peter Stott who said he thinks there is some evidence that the IPCC may have underestimated \u2026 \u201cbut the jury is still out.\u201d So, scientifically speaking that would be another no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinions not evidence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up:\u00a0Have the impacts of our current level of warming been underestimated?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Page writes that \u201ccoral bleaching and die-off events have been more extensive.\u201d As evidence for this he refers to a\u00a0March 2022 article<\/a>\u00a0by fellow New Scientist journalist Adam Vaughan who wrote that \u201cunusually warm ocean temperatures have turned corals white on Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef the first ever mass bleaching created by the La Nina weather event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The link to the news release produced by the Australian Government Reef Authority on which this article was based is no longer available. But if you look on the same website at more up to date information you will find on 9th August 2023\u00a0\u201cCoral Cover \u2013 Dynamic and Still Resistant Reef.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Last November it also carried a story, \u201cCoral Spawning \u2013 key to reef\u2019s remarkable recovery.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to illustrate how dire things are at the New Scientist, the once respected science journal cherry-picks bad news from last March and ignores good news from just a few days ago. As a reference here is the Reef Authority\u2019s\u00a0Coral Bleaching true or false page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the magazine asks:\u00a0Are we closer to tipping points than anticipated?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Scientist says \u201cYes, we are, though a great deal of uncertainty remains.\u201d In other words, the answer might equally be: No, we aren\u2019t, or We actually don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Scientist then claims that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is slowing down faster than thought. The consequences of this would be dramatic. It\u2019s something we have\u00a0covered previously<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and concluded there is a very low probability of this happening. Despite the low odds, Stefan Rahmstorf thinks the danger of the AMOC collapsing this century is larger than 10 per cent. He\u2019s entitled to his opinion. Other opinions are available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly, important data and factors are omitted from the article. Nowhere does it mention observations that show that more heat from the Sun is being retained. There has been an increase of 0.3 W\/m2 since 2019 as the Sun surges to its current solar maximum. Also the new regulations reducing the emission of sulphur particulates from ship fuels seems to have made a significant difference since incoming radiation is less reflected by cleaner air over the shipping lanes. In fact over the Northern Hemisphere shipping corridor (a region where the recent heating has been particularly strong) it is estimated that there has been a very large decrease of 2 W\/m2 of outgoing shortwave radiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its \u201ckey facts that you need to know\u201d New Scientist also omits that Arctic sea ice appears to have stabilised in recent years; Greenland\u2019s ice mass balance is higher than average, and the recent global spikes in temperature are very similar to previous spikes in 2016 and 1998 based on land and satellite data. Antarctic ice however is very low, with Judy Curry publishing an\u00a0excellent analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the various factors contributing to these developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A knee-jerk reaction to the weather events we have seen can result in poor articles that don\u2019t give a fair and accurate overall picture of what is really going on. I expect we might review and assess this year\u2019s weather events quite differently once more data is available and more reliable analyses have been done than a rushed and one-sided job done during the heat of the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How worried should we be, asks New Scientist in a\u00a0Climate Change Special Issue. The 19th August issue is billed as a guide to a year of extreme weather \u2013 \u201ca year of extremes,\u201d when 2023 is barely half way over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":275127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691821872,691821272,691822014,691822015],"class_list":{"0":"post-275120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-climate-modelling","10":"tag-climate-prediction","11":"tag-new-scientist","12":"tag-uk-met-office","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/OIG-2023-07-29T140641.234-2.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19zq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":425741,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=425741","url_meta":{"origin":275120,"position":0},"title":"Right, New York Times, Scientists Do Disagree on The Polar Vortex","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/02\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent article in\u00a0The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0(NYT) \u201cWhat\u2019s Up With This Big Freeze? 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