01.14.2019
Regional Models: 3-10°C Warming In The Next 80 Years. Observations: No Warming In The Last 40-100 Years.
here are large regions of the globe where observations indicate there has been no warming (even cooling) during the last decades to century. Climate models rooted in the assumption that fossil fuel emissions drive dangerous warming dismiss these modeling failures and project temperature increases of 3° – 10°C by 2100 for these same regions anyway.
Four decades of Southern Ocean cooling
After warming from the 1940s to the mid-1970s, the Southern Ocean has been cooling since the late-1970s, which has consequently resulted in an increase in sea ice extent (Fan et al., 2014; Purich et al., 2018; Latif et al., 2017; Turney et al., 2017 ). In their paper entitled “Natural variability of Southern Ocean convection as a driver of observed climate trends”, Zhang et al. (2019) suggest that the Southern Ocean cooling was driven by natural processes. Zhang et al., 2019 “Observed Southern Ocean surface cooling and sea-ice expansion over the past several decades are inconsistent with many historical simulations from climate models. Here we show that natural multidecadal variability involving Southern Ocean convection may have contributed strongly to the observed temperature and sea-ice trends.”

The East-Central U.S. has been cooling (about -0.6°C) since the 1950s
Partridge et al., 2018 “We present a novel approach to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of regional cooling across the eastern U.S. (commonly called the U.S. warming hole), by defining a spatially explicit boundary around the region of most persistent cooling. The warming hole emerges after a regime shift in 1958 where annual maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures decreased by 0.46°C and 0.83°C respectively.”

Climate models project 3°C – 10°C warming in the Midwest (U.S.) by 2100
Even though climate models failed to simulate the last 50 to 100 years of temperatures for this region, hindcasting a dramatic warming instead of the observed cooling, the projections for 2100 are still predicated on CO2 emission scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5) as the determinant of regional surface temperatures. Consequently, the regional models project a warming of 3°C – 10°C over the next 80 years. Hamlet et al., 2019 “For the two most widely used greenhouse gas concentration scenarios, Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 (Moss et al. 2008) (representing “medium” and “high” twenty-first century greenhouse gas concentration trajectories respectively), the Midwestern United States is projected to experience profound changes in climate by 2100, especially for (T). Projections for annual mean T over the Midwestern United States from 31 global climate models (GCMs) for the RCP8.5 scenario show an ensemble mean increase in T of about 6.5 °C (11.7 °F) by 2100 relative to the historical 1971–2000 baseline (Fig. S1) (Byun and Hamlet 2018). The projected change in the annual ensemble mean T for RCP4.5 over the Midwestern United States is about 3.3 °C (5.9 °F) by 2100 relative to the 1971–2000 baseline. The upper tail of the annual mean T distribution, represented by the 97.5th percentile of the 31 GCM projections for RCP8.5 (i.e., a “worst-case” scenario), is nearly 10 °C (18 °F) warmer than the historical baseline by 2100.”

The North Atlantic hasn’t warmed since the 1800s
Grieman et al., 2018

Climate models project 3°C warming in the North Atlantic by 2100

Hansen (2013): CO2 emissions will cause 20°C of global warming by ~2130
Back in 1989, Dr. James Hansen, the former head of NASA, predicted that New York City’s West Side Highway would be underwater within 20 years due to rapid global warming and the consequent rising sea levels. A glance at a 2018 image of the West Side Highway indicates that it is still very much above water, no lower than its position in 1936. A few decades later (2012), Hansen was the lead author of a paper published by The Royal Society (2013) that indicated ever-growing fossil fuel emissions would lead to a nearly five-fold rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (to 1,400 ppm) within 118 years. He then projected this CO2 increase and presumed 9 W m-2 forcing would cause a global surface temperature warming of 20°C by about 2130, with 30°C warming at the poles.