Probability abuse.
The media release is below.
###
Record warm years almost certainly due to human-made climate change
POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
Recent record warm years are with extremely high likelihood caused by human-made climate change. Without greenhouse-gas emissions from burning coal and oil, the odds are vanishingly small that 13 out of the 15 warmest years ever measured would all have happened in the current, still young century. These odds are between 1 in 5000 and 1 in 170.000, a new study by an international team of scientists now shows. Including the data for 2015, which came in after the study was completed, makes the odds even slimmer.
“2015 is again the warmest year on record, and this can hardly be by chance,” says co-author Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The scientists performed a sophisticated statistical analysis, combining observational data and comprehensive computer simulations of the climate system. Their new approach allowed them to better separate natural climate variability from human-caused climate change.
“Natural climate variability causes temperatures to wax and wane over a period of several years, rather than varying erratically from one year to the next,” says lead-author Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State (US). “That makes it more challenging to accurately assess the chance likelihood of temperature records. Given the recent press interest, it just seemed like it was important to do this right, and address, in a defensible way, the interesting and worthwhile question of how unlikely it is that the recent run of record temperatures might have arisen by chance alone.”
Global warming increases risk of local heat extremes
The newly computed odds for experiencing the recent runs of record temperatures by chance, without accounting for human-caused greenhouse gases, are greater than odds previously reported in some media – between 1 in 27 million and 1 in 650 million – but they are still incredibly slim.
In contrast, taking human-caused global warming into account makes the recent record temperatures quite likely, as the study further shows. Rahmstorf sums up the findings: “Natural climate variations just can’t explain the observed recent global heat records, but man-made global warming can.” What is more, the anomalous global average warmth comes with substantial impacts. “It has led to unprecedented local heat waves across the world – sadly resulting in loss of life and aggravating droughts and wildfires,” says Rahmstorf. “The risk of heat extremes has been multiplied due to our interference with the Earth system, as our data analysis shows.”
###
Article: Mann, M.E., Rahmstorf, S., Steinman, B.A., Tingley, M., Miller, S.K. (2016): The Likelihood of Recent Record Warmth. Scientific Reports [DOI: 10.1038/srep19831]
Weblink to the article once it is published: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep19831
How long can you tread water?
“(H)uman-made climate change” does not apply to human production of CO2 so much as human production of spurious climate data.
Saying “almost certainly not” makes just as much sense. Green propaganda for dummies 24/7.
Let’s suppose that there really is a warming trend . By what logic does the Pottsdam institute rule out natural causes? If they want to accept the “warmist view” why not just parrot that view instead of pretending to lend some intellectual weight to it by such sophomoric absurd reasoning.
During a warming period, such as we have experienced since the end of the “Little Ice Age,” the chances of each year being “warmest” are actually quite good. The fact that the satellite data shows no such warming also brings to question the actual “warmest” claims. Add in that your “error bars” are as big as or bigger than the detected “warming,” and it’s a statistical hot mess.