In 1982, a secret report prepared by scientists at the Exxon oil company, predicted with surprising accuracy the rate at which the planet’s temperature would increase in the coming decades if carbon dioxide emissions associated with fossil fuels continued. In the graph they created then you can see that in 2024 they predicted the 420 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 that our atmosphere already contains and the 1 °C increase that we already experienced compared to 1960. Their scientists simply nailed it.
An analysis carried out by a team of researchers at Harvard University in 2023, and published in the journal Scienceshowed that since the 1970s the company correctly calculated the amount of carbon that could be emitted into the atmosphere to contain the extra warming of the planet below 2 °C, “at the same time that it orchestrated a propaganda campaign to delay the climate action.”
“We found that their forecasts were not only extremely accurate, but were also often more accurate than forecasts made by independent academics and government scientists at exactly the same time,” he explains. Naomi Oreskesco-author of the work.
Everyone predicted it
Why were the forecasts of scientists who worked for a polluting company so accurate? The truth is that climatologists have had a very high level of success in their predictions about global warming. This is confirmed by a NASA study in 2020 and a recent report from the independent research platform Carbon Brief, which concludes that climate models published since 1973 have been “quite accurate in projecting future warming.”
We found that Exxon’s forecasts were often more accurate than forecasts made by independent academics and government scientists
Naomi Oreskes
— Researcher at Harvard University
“To date, global warming has had a linear increase with respect to the increase in CO2 concentration,” he adds. Jose Manuel Gutierrezdirector of Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and member of the IPCC. “The models have simulated this relationship well and, therefore, global warming projections have been quite accurate when based on growth paths similar to those observed.”
“As far as temperature is concerned, the projections made by climatologists are extremely tight,” he says. Isabel Morenometeorologist and co-host of the program Here the Earth (TVE). In his opinion, the fact that Exxon scientists nailed down what has been happening over the years in this way is also indicative of the ability we had 50 years ago to know what could be happening. “And that should also give us security about what we say can happen in the future,” he defends.
Exxon’s ‘crystal ball’
Regarding the Exxon scientists, Gutiérrez does not believe that they were visionaries, but rather that they only corroborated what science was already saying. “Their estimates are very good, similar to those made by the experiments of CMIPthe global simulations used by the IPCC”, acknowledges Francisco DoblasICREA professor and climatologist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) who has also been part of the IPCC.
The difference between Exxon’s temperature forecast and the projections that scientists began making then, and make today, is in the level of complexity. “Our models try to estimate the impact of this increase in temperature on other climate parameters, such as precipitation, at a regional level and not so much at a global level. That is where the evaluation is complicated,” explains Gutiérrrez. “The models allow us to analyze more complex scenarios, such as emissions pathways, with more or less mitigation effort and project the consequences at a regional level.”
On the other hand, the expert points out, the validation of these curves can only be carried out if they are accompanied by estimates of their uncertainty, something that Exxon’s models did not include, so they cannot be compared. “What can be said is that both point in the same direction: the expected increase in CO2 has led to an increase in temperature that is quite similar to the observations,” he says.
A winning bet
“Exxon provided reliable estimates of temperature increase because it considered the physics behind climate change due to human activity and used an appropriate hypothesis for the growth of emissions,” says Doblas. This reveals a reality that is somewhat obvious, but no less revealing: the Exxon scientists were right because they predicted that CO2 emissions would not stop rising, just as they have, despite decades of efforts by those working against it. climate change.
Exxon provided reliable estimates because it considered the physics behind climate change due to human activity and used an appropriate hypothesis for emissions growth.
Francisco Doblas
— ICREA professor and climatologist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS).
“I imagine that Exxon specialists had a very good idea of where greenhouse gas emissions were going to go,” says Doblas. “Once you know this, a simple energy balance model gives you a fairly reliable estimate of the corresponding global mean temperature increase.”
As they pointed out Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes in his 2023 article in Sciencewhat happened was that Exxon scientists excluded the possibility that there was no anthropogenic global warming. “At no point did the company’s scientists suggest that human-caused global warming would not occur,” they wrote. And its success came from that assumption that we were not going to stop filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
They had the correct information, but they invested in publishing falsehoods instead of publishing the truth that they knew perfectly well.
Jose Manuel Gutierrez
— Director of the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and member of the IPCC
“I would say that Exxon was perfectly informed and aligned with the science of climate change and they knew (like the rest of the scientists) what was happening and how it was going to evolve,” says Gutiérrez. “They had the correct information, but they invested in publishing falsehoods instead of publishing the truth that they knew perfectly well.” Perhaps at that time it did not seem to them that an increase of one degree, or even two, justified a change in the economic model – he speculates – and they did not see anything catastrophic on the horizon, faced with the dangers of a cold war scenario, so They decided to keep shooting.
New maximum emissions
On the occasion of the start of the Baku Climate Conference (COP29), the annual Global Carbon Budget report has just been published, which indicates that, far from being reduced, global CO2 emissions have reached a new maximum, so that the line upward trend charted by Exxon scientists will continue to be accurate.
“In the end, that situation is proof that everything that has come after the fact to deny climate change was based on other interests and not on science,” says Isabel Moreno. And Exxon was right because they opted for a scenario that was very convenient for the company: that emissions due to the consumption of fossil fuels would continue to increase at the same rate in the future and that we would do nothing to avoid it, which is what ultimately happened. With the aggravating factor that “they helped with misinformation to make this happen,” Gutiérrez concludes.
#Real #Reason #Exxon #Scientists #Nailed #Global #Warming #Curve #Years
