Deluge of New Studies Urging UN’s New Global Warming Target Begins

The predicted deluge of journal articles touting 1.5 degrees of global warming as the new UN target has begun. The Transactions of the (British) Royal Society has even devoted a 20 article special issue to the cause (see image, right).

The issue title is “The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

While Transactions is a leading scientific journal, these special issue articles are anything but scientific. There are no experiments or tests, or even carefully constructed real-world observations.

It is all just speculation and computer modeling. This is what alarmist so-called science looks like. It is all about the UN Paris Agreement, not science.

The purpose of this exercise in alarmism is to kill the 2.0-degree warming target. This is made clear by a long news report from AFP, the French News Agency. Their headline is metaphorical and a bit cryptic: “Two degrees no longer seen as global warming guardrail: studies.”

However, their first sentence is crystal clear, saying this;

“Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday.”

This is happening because the UN Paris Agreement has an ambiguous target. It says that the goal is to limit total global warming to 2.0 degrees of goal warming, which is 1.0 degrees of future warming. But it also says that we should try for 1.5 degrees of total warming, which is a tiny 0.5 degrees of future warming.

The purpose of these unscientific studies is to argue for the lower 1.5-degree target on the grounds that 2.0 degrees of total warming is (as AFP dutifully reports): “destructive and deadly.”

Many more such studies are expected in the near future, in order to meet a May deadline set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is running this lynching.

The UN wants the lower target because it requires (according to the alarmist computer models) faster and far more expensive global action.

Under the Paris Agreement the developed countries are to pay for the actions of the developing countries, so more and sooner is a get rich quick scheme.

The gist of the 20 Transactions articles is also summarized nicely by AFP, as follows:

“A world that heats up by 2°C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — long regarded as the temperature ceiling for a climate-safe planet — could see mass displacement due to rising seas, a drop in per capita income, regional shortages of food and fresh water, and the loss of animal and plant species at an accelerated speed.”

This is just the usual litany of alarmist hype — floods and droughts, refugees and extinctions, etc. There is no actual science here, just computer generated horrors. Not bad as scary computer games go, but these games are intended to drive global policy.

Here is the title of a typical model-driven article:

“Changes in climate extremes, freshwater availability and vulnerability to food insecurity projected at 1.5°C and 2°C global warming with a higher-resolution global climate model.”

What is new is that the standard alarmist computer games are being turned on the Paris Agreement’s 2-degree target. Planning a special issue like this is a big job and this one is clearly a coordinated effort. The articles fit together and cover the ground in a systematically scary fashion.

In a way, the alarmists are attacking themselves, which could be fun to watch. It remains to be seen if there will be any pushback from those who think that the 2-degree target is good enough.

With luck, the alarmists will now fight among themselves. This could lead to studies saying the present studies are no good, which would be refreshing indeed.

Read more at CFACT