Oct 17, 2023 05:03 PM
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how...pocalyptic
EXCERPTS: Today, RCP8.5 is so woven into the fabric of climate research, policy and advocacy that it has developed it own constituency among climate influencers who not only defend its continued use, but assert falsely that the scenario remains a plausible future.
[...] Some readers have asked me whether these errors were mistakes or instead, tactical decisions to present climate change as more extreme than the evidence warranted. I have no evidence on the intent of IPCC participants. To be perfectly clear, I believe it unlikely that RCP8.5 was the result of tactical decisions...
[...] Here is where things went wrong. When the RCPs were characterized in the AR5 reports in 2013 and 2014, RCP6.0 and RCP4.5 had been transformed from baseline scenarios to policy scenarios, and RCP8.5 remained as the only baseline scenario...
[...] What happened? Where did these far more realistic baselines go? [...] A good first step would be for leaders in the scientific community to acknowledge the major error made by the IPCC AR5 that transformed RCP8.5 into the only legitimate baseline scenario and eliminated the more realistic ones. We need to understand how the mistake happened in the world’s preeminent science assessment and take steps to ensure that a mistake of this magnitude cannot happen again. (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Today, RCP8.5 is so woven into the fabric of climate research, policy and advocacy that it has developed it own constituency among climate influencers who not only defend its continued use, but assert falsely that the scenario remains a plausible future.
[...] Some readers have asked me whether these errors were mistakes or instead, tactical decisions to present climate change as more extreme than the evidence warranted. I have no evidence on the intent of IPCC participants. To be perfectly clear, I believe it unlikely that RCP8.5 was the result of tactical decisions...
[...] Here is where things went wrong. When the RCPs were characterized in the AR5 reports in 2013 and 2014, RCP6.0 and RCP4.5 had been transformed from baseline scenarios to policy scenarios, and RCP8.5 remained as the only baseline scenario...
[...] What happened? Where did these far more realistic baselines go? [...] A good first step would be for leaders in the scientific community to acknowledge the major error made by the IPCC AR5 that transformed RCP8.5 into the only legitimate baseline scenario and eliminated the more realistic ones. We need to understand how the mistake happened in the world’s preeminent science assessment and take steps to ensure that a mistake of this magnitude cannot happen again. (MORE - missing details)