Climate not as sensitive to CO2 as projected

Houston Chronicle:

Let’s see if an intriguing new paper in Science, released this afternoon, can break through your somnolent Turkey Day afternoon.

Led by Oregon climate scientist Andreas Schmittner the paper suggests the rate of warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates.

Specifically, if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are to double from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm to 560 ppm, the researchers say Earth’s average temperature is likely to rise from 1.7 to 2.6 Celsius degrees, a decrease from the previous, accepted range of 2 to 4.5 degrees.

Here’s what the research group did to reach this conclusion:

They compiled land and ocean surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago and created a global map of those temperatures. They then compared those values with those of climate models. There was a big difference, suggesting the models were overcooking the sensitivity of temperatures to carbon dioxide levels.

“If these paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, the results imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought,” Schmittner said.

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...    the real effect of this paper will be to really impair the credibility of the more extreme environmentalists who have been saying the planet faces certain doom from climate change.

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It is their credibility I have been challenging as overblown.  I just do not buy the dire consequences projected by many, and especially Al Gore and other politicians who have been exaggerating in order to scare voters into buying into their ideology.  As I have noted, the world may be warming, but the results are something that we can adapt to.