With even the Trump administration beginning to recognize that outright climate denial is a losing position, we’re seeing less and less of traditional denial that challenges the science of climate change.
But that doesn’t mean denial’s completely gone. For example, Ross McKitrick produced a graph this week (supposedly) comparing climate model projections with observed temperatures through 2018. It’s gotten picked up by GWPF, TallBloke and Dr. Spencer’s blogs, so seems worth addressing the age-old denier trope that we’re not warming as much as models would make you think.
As always, that claim is wrong, climate models are right, and deniers are dummies, with McKitrick being no exception. For those who don’t remember, McKitrick is one of the geniuses who once mixed up radians and degrees, who used… questionable methods to create the faux pause, and has otherwise made rudimentary errors in his attacks on climate science.
His latest post, though, keeps things pretty simple by just dropping a line showing observed temperatures up to 2018 onto the range of possibilities from CMIP5 model runs. It shows that temperatures are on the low end of things, but still within the normal distribution of possibilities, with 2016’s record heat pretty squarely in the middle of the projections. To an unbiased observer, the graphs show that models are pretty much nailing it.
To deniers though, it’s proof that the models are, as they’ve always been, a total failure.
But let’s look at some other sources, just for funsies.
At ClimateFeedback, a fact check on similar claims a couple months ago features a graph showing temperatures and models, and it shows that models are accurate.
Carbon Brief has a great explainer from 2017 that provides a historic overview of past models as well as current ones, and is illustrated by an instagram gif showing temperatures falling pretty squarely in the middle of generations of models going back to the 1970s. It also has a more recent post that includes 2019 temperatures, showing that 2019’s likely place as the 2nd hottest year on record will put it right on track with model projections.
Over at Ed Hawkins’ Climate Lab Book there’s a page comparing models and observations that provides a few different updated graphs from the IPCC’s AR5 report, and of course all three show temperatures falling squarely within the ranges models projected.
Then there are the longer-term studies that compare how accurate models are at capturing past climates, and find that models do a good job of representing the climate of the last 2,000 years, and as far back as 3 million years ago.
But of course those are studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals, so how can they possibly compare to...a PDF some guy put up on his website!?
With his record of blunders, its admirable that McKitrick is still trying to take down the consensus.
And at this point, it seems to be all he knows, making him a real one mckiTrick pony.
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