The impact of recent forcing and ocean heat uptake data on estimates of climate sensitivity

The impact of recent forcing and ocean heat uptake data on estimates of climate sensitivity is an article authored by Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry, published in June 2018 in the Journal of Climate, operated by the American Meteorological Society.Lewis, N., & Curry, J. (2018). . Journal of Climate, (2018). DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0667.1 (PDF) The article asserts that the global temperature will increase by 30-45% less than predicted (by 1.33-1.66°C), based on the actual warming as compared to the IPCC's models (which predict 1.9-3.3°C of warming).
==Coverage==
The article received coverage on all the usual "climate skeptic" sites: the Cornwall Alliance (which started it all),, cornwallalliance.org Reason magazine,, Reason.com Cato Institute,, Cato.org Heartland Institute,, Heartland Institute CNS News,, CNSNews.com Investor's Business Daily,, Investors.com Roy Spencer's blog,, drroyspencer.com Watts Up With That,, wattsupwiththat.com Climate Audit,, ClimateAudit.org PatriotPost.us,, PatriotPost.us TheGlobalDispatch.com,, TheGlobalDispatch.com cliscep.com,, cliscep.com ClimateTheTruth.com,, ClimateTheTruth.com FabiusMaximus.com, Longroom, and both of the author's blogs., JudithCurry.com, NicholasLewis.org
==Reality==
In short: the Lewis and Curry models don't account for different warming between different locations.
In fact, the estimation method used by the authors has already been discounted by other scientists. Lewis and Curry's 2018 article is itself an updated version of their 2015 article, "The implications for climate sensitivity of AR5 forcing and heat uptake estimates",Lewis, N., & Curry, J. A. (2015). . Climate dynamics, 45(3-4), 1009. (commonly called "LC15") which was panned in the blogosphere by Richard Miller, RealClimate.org and Roz Pidcock., CarbonBrief.org, SkepticalScience.com
In both their 2015 and 2018 papers, Lewis and Curry used an "energy budget" or "energy balance" model to estimate climate sensitivity (the warming that one would expect given a certain change in, for example, carbon dioxide concentration). This method has been critiqued by numerous papers, such as Marvel et al. 2018,Marvel, K., Pincus, R., Schmidt, G. A., & Miller, R. L. (2018). . Geophysical Research Letters, 45(3), 1595-1601. Knutti et al. 2017,Knutti, R., Rugenstein, M. A., & Hegerl, G. C. (2017). . Nature Geoscience, 10(10), 727. Richardson et al. 2015,Richardson, M., Hausfather, Z., Nuccitelli, D. A., Rice, K., & Abraham, J. P. (2015). . Science bulletin, 60(15), 1370-1377. Armour 2016,Armour, K. C. (2016). . Nature Climate Change, 6(10), 896. Richardson et al. 2016,Richardson, M., Cowtan, K., Hawkins, E., & Stolpe, M. B. (2016). . Nature Climate Change, 6(10), 931. Cawley et al. 2015,Cawley, G. C., Cowtan, K., Way, R. G., Jacobs, P., & Jokimäki, A. (2015). . Ecological modelling, 297, 20-25. and Shindell 2014.Shindell, D. T. (2014). . Nature Climate Change, 4(4), 274.
In particular, Dessler et al. 2018 responds to Lewis and Curry's 2015 paper (and others) directly.Dessler, A. E., Mauritsen, T., & Stevens, B. (2018). . Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 18(7), 5147-5155. Dessler et al. 2018 already critiqued the methodological upgrade made between the 2015 and 2018 Curry and Lewis papers. In the 2018 paper, Curry and Lewis assert that something Dessler describes as "pattern effects" (ie, the different warming in different areas) doesn't impact their results. However, as Dessler notes, this is not substantiated by the literature, which seems to suggest that pattern effects have a significant effect on energy budget models. As a result, Curry and Lewis felt that Dessler et al. 2018's critque merited a response,, JudithCurry.com, NicholasLewis.org which Dessler has also responded to.
==External links==
*How well have climate models projected global warming?, Yale Climate Connections
*Climate deniers indulge in wishful thinking (climate consensus is NOT shattering), RedGreenAndBlue
*Did scientists REALLY just admit to exaggerating global warming?, a video by potholer54 on a 2018 study given similar headlines
==References==
Category:Documents
Category:Refutations