IPCC’s SREX report

I try to find my way through this latest blockbuster 594 pages report whose title is “MANAGING THE RISKS OF EXTREME
EVENTS AND DISASTERS TO ADVANCE CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION”. I first read (as probably any one will do) the “Summary for Policy Makers”, but am trying to forget this and stick to the full report.

In my opinion, this is a much better report than the usual AR’s. It is better because it is more cautious, and does not plunge head first in general alarm-ism of the kind “AGW makes all weather extremes more frequent and more intense, we are all doomed if we continue using fossil fuels”.

There is practically no chapter where very large parts do not abound with  “low confidence” stickers. It is also several times clearly stated that a not warming climate would also show many extreme events, and there is much discussion on how to define  “extreme”. Chapter 3 (Changes in Climate Extremes and their Impacts on the Natural Physical Environment) is the chapter that discusses observations in temperature, DTR, heat and cold waves, precipitation extremes, drought, wind changes etc.

Regarding extreme wind events (which you might clearly call storms) the reports says “we have low confidence in wind trends and their causes at this stage” and “There is low confidence in projections of small-scale phenomena such as tornadoes”.

There are some first comments in the blogosphere on SREX, and most agree that stressing that land usage is also a major climate forcing is a welcome departure from the exclusively CO2-centric position found in the previous AR’s. What makes reading this report so tiring (despite its very professional graphic layout)  is the continuous mix of observations and models. I would have preferred a much clearly emphasis on of what has been observed, and possibly in a separate chapter what models suggest for the future.

Read here the rather sober comments of J. Delingpole,  Roger Pielke Jr., M. Goklany, and an over the top article of  Seth Borenstein. so typical for the usual media frenzy.

BTW, why the frightening title page picture suggesting a coming world of drought and loosing agricultural battle?