{"id":7657,"date":"2026-05-18T22:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7657"},"modified":"2026-05-18T22:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:33:19","slug":"fact-focus-trump-distorts-recent-revisions-of-scientific-projections-of-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7657","title":{"rendered":"FACT FOCUS: Trump distorts recent revisions of scientific projections of global warming"},"content":{"rendered":"

By SETH BORENSTEIN<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump recently blasted the accuracy of global warming projections in a Truth Social post that itself painted a distorted view of the science, projections and how the international community discusses climate policy.<\/p>

Read more U.S. Navy ship Essex, 2 Coast Guard Cutters will join LA Fleet Week<\/a><\/p>\n

Every several years, the United Nations produces massive scientific reports on what\u2019s happening and likely to happen with human-caused global warming. Scientists update some of the scenarios used to make future projections. One key control knob, which determines the amount and impact of future climate change, is carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The more carbon pollution, the more global warming, so scientists base their projections on a buffet of potential scenarios.<\/p>\n

Those scenarios triggered the president\u2019s social media post over the weekend. Here\u2019s a closer look at the facts:<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cGOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that \u2018Climate change\u2019 is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!\u201d<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Trump was referring to a set of projections from 2011 from a group of scientists associated with the U.N.\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that were updated in a study published in a scientific journal this spring. The update found that the old worst case scenario \u2014 called RCP8.5 \u2014 was implausible.<\/p>\n

The changes prompted scientists and non-scientists who downplay the harms or even deny the science of climate change to criticize in social media the international panel of climate scientists\u2019 decades of work, which won a Nobel Prize. And it prompted mainstream climate scientists to explain the necessity for including unlikely scenarios and to point out that the change also reflects how the world has dramatically increased cleaner energy use, such as solar and wind power and electric cars. That has caused soaring carbon emissions to practically flatten.<\/p>\n

Even when it was created 15 years ago, that worst case scenario was unlikely \u2014 there were other scenarios that were considered more likely. But the most extreme scenario was still possible if the world went on a fossil fuel heavy binge, in particular continuing to use coal, the most dirty fossil fuel, in a big way. It projected an end of the century warming of about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) compared to the mid 1800s.<\/p>

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It was not alarmism, said climate scientist Detlef Van Vuuren of Utrecht University, lead author of the new study laying out future scenarios, and Johan Rockstr\u00f6m, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.<\/p>\n

Even with the lowest amount warming projected \u201cwe enter danger,\u201d Rockstr\u00f6m said. \u201cWe enter danger both from extreme events (such as floods, heat waves and droughts) but also from risks of crossing tipping points\u201d such as loss of coral and glaciers.<\/p>\n