2020 officially saw a record number of $1 billion weather and climate disasters.

Not sure the data is robust enough to make such statements.

No they didn’t, it was 4.5c for the highest likely range. They narrowed the range to eliminate entirely anything below 2.5c and the best guess is now about 3c

the IPCC don’t rule out an ECS above 4c it’s just not in the likely confidence range,

what they have ruled out is anything even close to Bates or lindzens estimates, a fact you consistently avoid talking about even when asked about it directly

3c is very costly economically socially and ecologically and we will need to take immediate concerted action to keep warming to well below 2c

You don't even get when someone is agreeing with you.

I did talk about the Bates value earlier, saying it is less likely to be correct. Read again.

The fact remains that, after all the hooing and haaing of the past several decades, they still don't know the ECS value to any accuracy. All the billions being pumped into research and still we're only in a likely range of 1.5 degrees. And they still can't exclude 5 degrees. It's laughable. In any other scientific discipline that would be unsatisfactory.

Doubling down? I haven't change my view one bit today. As I said, nothing's changed with this report. They're still nowhere near sure, as the term settled science would suggest, of what the future will bring. Yeah, a fair idea, but they won't go to the top of their five confidence levels. If I were tooting the alarm horn that you and others toot then I'd be looking for more certainty than that. I'm surprised that you're not surprised at the high uncertainty in the ECS, for example, the key metric of all this hype.

My question of how the European record temperature was able to occur back in 1977 when CO2 was only 330 ppm has been glossed over.

I saw today a station in Algeria (Ouargla) reached 49 °C, which I thought must be a record, but when I dug deeper I note that its record high was 53.4 °C way back in 1984. High 40s has been a daily occurrence in July and August there for over 100 years but in recent decades the record has not been beaten.

Now I'm interested in this region as it's not far from where I am now and is the source of the heat in Greece last week. Even today the soundings from southern Sardinia and Palermo had 29 °C 850 hPa temperatures, courtesy of Algeria and Tunisia, yet this is slightly higher than Greece had last week. Still, the dense network of agrimet stations in Sardinia only registered a high of 40.2 °C today, a long way short of the 47 in Greece. It does beg the question of what local effects caused those several extra degrees in Athens despite a similarly warm airmass. But still the record of 1977 wasn't broken.

I don't expect an answer to that question any time soon. I certainly don't have one.

I wonder is increased humidity, due to the eastern Mediterranean being exceptionally warm at the moment, in the atmosphere keeping record max temps at bay?

If you think you’re bored of hearing the word unprecedented. You ain’t seen nothing yet. And few of these unprecedented stories will be good news stories

‘unprecedented’ reporting goes along with extremes. There might be an unprecedented mild pleasant week of summery weather, but that doesn’t show itself in the statistics in real time. But the 2nd biggest wildfire ever recorded in California (burning right now) is newsworthy

If this is the barrier to your understanding, when this record is beaten in the next 5-10 years will you then accept climate change is a problem? Or do you want to place a 500 euro bet that this record will stand in 2031

i mean it’s mad, every decade for the past half century as been progressively the hottest decade on record, but all you seem to care about is one thermometer reading from one point on a map on a single day decades ago

The IPCC reported today that we are hotter than any time in at least 2k years, but one measurement in Kilkenny by one guy who might have been drunk or the thermometer might have been properly calibrated, that one reading is enough for you to discount the mountain of evidence that our climate is warming

Akrasia, I've asked the same question over a d over but you've ignored it. How could the European record temperature of 48.0 have been set in a time when CO2 was only 330 ppm? Heat of that level would nowadays be tweeted til the cows come home but it has not been challenged, despite 25% more CO2 in the air now. Similarly many other records. People are selective in the evidence they use to claim CO2 is the main driver, yet so many of these records still stand after decades. You now suggest that the guy back in Kilkenny may have been drunk and the thermometer incorrectly exposed? Love to get that record quashed, wouldn't you?!

These records that have stood for decades/centuries are tumbling now. When the European maximum temperature record is beaten in the next few years will you finally admit that we need to get carbon neutral as soon as possible? Or will you just point to something else to allow you to keep the same opinion regardless of the facts changing

The IPCC is and the vast majority of published science on this topic agrees, so maybe your uncertainty is due to your lack of education or understanding of the published data

With climate change there will still be cold spells but these cold spells will not be record breaking cold because the cold Arctic air is warmer than it was pre climate change

(still very cold)

Climate change is altering atmospheric currents, changing rainfall patterns, the jet stream, ocean circulation etc and can bring unusual weather. ‘Weather wierding’ happens when established weather patterns become disrupted.

you have never addressed what you think the likely consequences of adding extra energy equivalent of 5 Hiroshima bombs per second to our biosphere and cryosphere.

this is accumulating energy, it’s retained in our atmosphere and oceans

Tapping into philosophy. A step forward!

Yet it is you who expresses such certain disdain at those whom you think 'doubt'.