Summary of Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233

00:00:00 - 00:40:00

In the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," guest Andy May discusses his concerns regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report AR6 and its alleged biases. May criticizes the IPCC for its controversial summaries and the increase in estimated climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) between IPCC reports. He argues that this increase is due to subjective assumptions rather than improved modeling. May also discusses the work of researchers like Nick Lewis, Ross McKitrick, and John Christie, who have challenged the IPCC's high estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2. He mentions that disagreements about climate change primarily revolve around the influence of solar irradiation and greenhouse gas emissions on energy residence time in the Earth's climate system. May also discusses the importance of considering natural causes of climate change, such as solar variability and ocean oscillations, and criticizes the IPCC for ignoring these factors. He shares his thoughts on the correlation between solar activity and temperature trends and the significance of meridional energy transport, tropical temperatures, and the equatorial temperature gradient in understanding climate change. May also discusses the challenges in estimating sea level rise and its acceleration based on tide gauge records and criticizes the IPCC for focusing solely on the greenhouse effect and ignoring other processes that contribute to Earth's climate stability. He concludes by emphasizing the importance of considering the complexity of climate science and the potential for exaggeration in media reporting.

• 00:00:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," the guest, Andy May, discusses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report AR6 and its alleged biases. May summarizes AR6 as a 7,519-page report with a controversial UNFCCC summary that is not unbiased. He then reviews the conclusions of previous IPCC reports, starting with the first one in 1990, which reported that the warming over the previous 100 years was consistent with both climate models and natural variability. The second report, published in 1995, initially reported that human influence on climate could be discerned but was later changed to reflect a stronger human role, which was widely criticized. The third report, published in 2001, introduced the controversial hockey stick graph, which was later debunked. The fourth report, published in 2007, essentially repeated the previous one but changed "likely" to "very likely" that most of the observed warming was due to humans. The fifth report, published in 2013, did not significantly change from the fourth. However, AR6 made a bold leap from "most of the warming is due to humans" to "all the warming is due to humans," despite the fact that the AR6 models had a larger spread of climate sensitivity to CO2 than the AR5 models. The IPCC had to create a special statistical model to estimate the range of climate sensitivity, which appeared to narrow the uncertainty but was actually manufactured. The table provided in the video shows the best estimates of climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 for the IPCC reports and the 1979 US National Academy of Sciences Charney report.
• 00:05:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," the speaker discusses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) and the potential bias in their estimates. The speaker notes that the IPCC's estimates for climate sensitivity have increased from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2 between AR4 and AR6. However, the speaker argues that this increase is not due to improved modeling but rather subjective assumptions in the AR6 estimate. The speaker then discusses the work of Nick Lewis, who redid the AR6 statistical model using objective methods instead of the subjective ones used by the IPCC. Lewis's estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2 is lower and narrower than the IPCC's estimate, at 1.8 to 2.7 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. This estimate is similar to the one Lewis and Curry published in 2018 based on observations since 1870. The speaker also mentions that Ross McKitrick and John Christie have reached similar conclusions about the IPCC's biased high estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2. The speaker concludes by noting that the IPCC's climate models are not data but rather learning tools, and that disagreements about climate change primarily revolve around what influences the residence time of energy in the Earth's climate system. Some scientists argue that greenhouse gas emissions are the primary control on energy residence time, while others suggest that solar irradiation variations also play a role. The speaker shows a graph of total solar irradiation from the Birchum 10 ice core record, which correlates with known historical climate changes.
• 00:10:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," Andy May discusses the variability of the Sun and climate, emphasizing that colder periods are coincident with solar lows and the influence of ocean and atmospheric oscillations. He explains that solar radiation has a shorter wavelength and can penetrate deeper into the ocean, resulting in a longer energy residence time compared to greenhouse gas radiation. May argues that the IPCC's belief in the lesser efficacy of solar energy compared to greenhouse gases is based on climate model results, while solar energy has over three times the efficacy. He also mentions that changes in ocean heat content are much more significant than can be accounted for by changes in solar radiation during the Schwab 11-year solar cycle. The graph presented in the video compares various solar activities, with Grand solar Minima and Maxima identified based on sunspot observations. May suggests that the IPCC may have it backwards due to their reliance on models that only output what is programmed into them.
• 00:15:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," the speaker compares sunspot records with HadCRUT4 surface temperature anomalies and notices a correlation between solar activity and temperature trends. He points out that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models suggest that solar variability had no impact or a very small negative impact on global warming, while volcanoes have a slightly larger negative impact. The speaker argues that the alternative idea of natural causes contributing to warming should be investigated, not ignored. He criticizes the IPCC's emphasis on global average surface temperature and the term "global warming," suggesting that atmospheric and oceanic circulation of thermal energy are important in discussions of climate change. The speaker also discusses the importance of meridional energy transport, tropical temperatures, and the equatorial temperature gradient in understanding climate change. He argues that strong meridional flow cools the globe, while weak flow warms it, and that most transport occurs via the atmosphere. The speaker concludes by noting that the current average temperature is below 15 degrees and that various temperature gradients and their associated global average temperatures from Earth's past are compared to the current gradient in the left graph of the slide.
• 00:20:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," Andy May discusses the current Earth temperature and the temperature gradient, which suggests the climate is unusually cold in Earth's history. He references Scot's work, which is well-accepted in the geological community but ignored by the IPCC. The IPCC's projected global warming range is compared to Scot's reconstruction of global average temperature for the past 500 million years, and it is noted that the current rate of global sea level rise is below the accuracy of current measurement abilities. Three respected estimated sea level rise rates are presented, with the lowest two being statistically equivalent, and the satellite data record being too short to be meaningful. May also mentions that global mean sea level has been rising for the past 170 years but the cycle is cyclical, and the satellite data only covers the upward part of a 60-year cycle.
• 00:25:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," Andy Jaa discusses the challenges in estimating sea level rise and its acceleration based on tide gauge records. He explains that sea level fell during the Little Ice Age until around 1861 and has been rising since then. The projected sea level rise between now and 2100, as shown in the upper left box, is between 5 and 10 inches. However, these increases are much less than the average daily tidal range. Jaa also mentions that sea level is not the same in all oceans, and the tidal range varies significantly. He points out that tide gauges are limited to continental and island margins and are not evenly distributed, making it difficult to create a single global sea level curve. Furthermore, Jaa discusses the controversy surrounding the IPCC's claim that higher temperatures will lead to stormier weather. Many climate scientists, including Zong-Liang Yan, Phil Jones, Andrew Marsh, Susanna Cox, Filipe Serel, and others, dispute this idea. They argue that as the planet warms, the equator-to-pole temperature gradient decreases, providing less power for storms. Earth's atmosphere is like a heat engine, and as heat moves through the atmosphere, it does work, resulting in weather. With a smaller gradient, there is less work done, and the world is less stormy. Jaa also mentions that extreme weather has decreased since the 19th century, as shown in the figure on the slide. He criticizes the IPCC for focusing solely on the greenhouse effect and ignoring the other processes, such as meridional transport and clouds, that contribute to Earth's climate stability. The bias in AR6 is primarily due to this oversight.
• 00:30:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," Andy May discusses concerns regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and the models used in them. He criticizes the selection of data and studies that support the idea of CO2 being the primary control knob for climate change, while ignoring clear warning signs of model inconsistencies. The models are accused of overestimating observed warming and violating fundamental physical laws, such as mass and energy conservation. Additionally, the models are prone to drift, which contaminates the analysis of trends in CO2 or volcanism. The inability to conserve mass and energy in these models and the drift issue are significant problems. May suggests that the IPCC models are on the wrong path and should be abandoned to start over. He also mentions two publications with more detailed information on the topic. Despite May's assertions, he does not provide a definitive answer to the question of the appropriate warming estimate for doubling CO2.
• 00:35:00 In this section of the podcast, Andy May discusses his views on climate sensitivity and the role of feedbacks in global warming. He mentions that some estimates suggest a climate sensitivity of less than one degree Celsius, while others are closer to 1.1 degrees Celsius. May expresses his belief that overall feedbacks are negative, meaning they will try to reduce warming. He also discusses the potential impact of volcanic activity and solar minimum on temperature trends, and shares his thoughts on Michael Connelly's research on the Hadley cell circulation. May questions whether Connelly has enough data to establish global circulation patterns and suggests that the geography of the Earth may influence the Hadley cell in ways that are not yet fully understood. Additionally, May reflects on the possibility that IPCC scientists may be overestimating the extent to which recent warming trends can be extrapolated into the future, acknowledging the influence of natural climate variability.
• 00:40:00 In this section of the YouTube video titled "Andy May: “IPCC AR6 WGI Bias” | Tom Nelson Pod #233," Andy May discusses the complexity of atmospheric circulation and the limitations of the Hadley cell concept. He expresses skepticism about future climate scares and the IPCC's ability to make progress in calculating the impact of CO2 on climate. May also shares his thoughts on the solar maximum and expresses gratitude for the opportunity to present his research. Throughout the conversation, May emphasizes the importance of considering the complexity of climate science and the potential for exaggeration in media reporting.