UPDATE 1/28: Full text of Dr. Theon’s letter has been post on the Senate website and below.
This is something I thought I’d never see. This press release today is from the Senate EPW blog of Jame Inhofe. The scientist making the claims in the headline, Dr. John S. Theon, formerly of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, has a paper here in the AMS BAMS that you may also find interesting. Other papers are available here in Google Scholar. He also worked on the report of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident report and according to that document was a significant contributor to weather forecasting improvements:
The Space Shuttle Weather Forecasting Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. John Theon, was established by NASA Headquarters to review existing weather support capabilities and plans and to recommend a course of action to the NSTS Program. Included on the panel were representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.
EPW press release below – Anthony
Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]
Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]
“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.
A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.
The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ] In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.” More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”
The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey: & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% – now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”
On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
# # #
ORIGINAL FULL TEXT LETTER SENT VIA EMAILS:
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:50 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
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Unfortunately the stench rises much higher than Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen. The Space Studies Board (SSB) supervises NASA, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reviews budget recommendations for NASA, NSF, DOE, etc., and Congress allocates their funds beginning with the Appropriations Committee of US House of Representatives.
I had the “pleasure” of seeing this system in action on 26 June 2008 at a colloquium at the National Academy of Sciences Building.
Dr. Ralph Cicerone*, President of the National Academy of Sciences, chaired the meeting. The guest speaker was Congressman Alan B. Mollohan, Chair of the Subcommittee on Science Appropriations for the U.S. House of Representatives. The SSB Vice-Chair, A. Thomas Young of Lockheed Martin, was moderator.
After Congressman Mollohan’s speech, Dr. Cicerone interrupted and tried to stop me from commenting about NASA’s involvement in promoting untruths about the causes of global climate change.
Other dignitaries present at the colloquium were Lennard A. Fisk, SSB Chair, Charles Kennel, the incoming SSB Chair, and other NAE/NAS members and former SSB Chairs – Louis Lanzerotti and Claude Canizares.
The events that I observed on 26 June 2008 match very closely those that former U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about in his 17 January 1961 Farewell Address to the Nation:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded”.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
*Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President of the US National Academy of Sciences, led the 2001 NAS study of climate change that persuaded US President Bush to support the IPCC. Six years later Dr. Frederick Seitz, the distinguished former NAS President, replied in the forward to the 2007 NIPCC Report, “. . . we do not currently have any convincing evidence or observations of significant climate change from other than natural causes.” [“Nature, not human activity, rules the climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), The Heartland Institute, Chicage, IL 2008, 50 pages. http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf ]
Oh, one more thing. Actually I remember now that this statement “We have recently changed the way that the smoothed time series of data were calculated. Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate esimate of the year as a whole. This is not the case and owing to the unusually cool global average temperature in January 2008, it looked as though smoothed global average temperatures had dropped markedly in recent years, which is misleading. ” is actually old. It was put there earlier last year. Before that they did smoothing with data from an incomplete year and after this announcement stopped doing this. But now it seems they are not doing it even when the year is over?!
Flanagan — “Oh, yeah right, I almost forgot to mention that, in my opinion, J.S. Theon can call himself anything but a climate scientist.”
Just as I predicted someone would say earlier in this thread. Stabbing the messenger is an opportunity rarely passed. I’m getting good at this. And the following is directed to you as well:
Wowfail — “How the hell did this blog win best science blog?”
The way things work is to look at the merits of the argument rather than who made them. Guys who work, say, in the patent office have just as valid an opinion here as do eminent physicists. If you don’t quite follow the reference in the previous sentence, I’d not be surprised. Anthony (our host) doesn’t stand at a mountaintop issuing pronouncements, either. Science in realtime is a little messy. Sorry to have offended your preference to have the agreed upon results spoonfed to you.
Ken Hall — How about one example of an IPCC computer projection based on the computerised climate models that accurately predicted the earth cooling?
Unfair request. This is not what they really do. Models are intended to make a long term extrapolation. In the short term you may get heating or cooling, neither condition being an outlier in the long term. So if you start in 1900 and your model misses cool-down periods but still accurately enough comes up to say 0.5 deg/century and this is close enough to what has happened, prponents will say that the model has demonstrated enough long term skill. In short the idea is that model results are tendencies.
That said I think the models are abysmal in that any number of natural and/or unknown factors can give you the same result (and ought to) over the same long term time period. e.g. we know that since the LIA the world has been warming naturally, so predicting an increase over 100 years is no more skillful than what any schoolchild can do with a graph.
What I would like to see (and never have) is the results of model runs where an exorbinant amount of CO2 was released in the atmosphere at point X and then see where the models left off at at X + 70 years. (This sort of thing, CO2 release as in volcanoes, seems to have happened historically.) This would tell us not only if the model works, but would validate (or not) any beliefs about C02 longevity in the atmosphere.
John Philip, you quote the UN/IPCC. They are no longer credible. You also quote an obviously agendized/bogus poll which purports to show that 97% of all climate scientists believe that human-emitted CO2 is a significant driver of global temperature change. How does that fit in with this? Do climate scientists not have that information??
I’m not going to get into a long running argument over all the propaganda out there. Anyone who looks at the declining global temperature occurring when CO2 is steadily rising understands that any small effect that CO2 may have is overwhelmed by other factors.
The Earth is starved of beneficial carbon dioxide [click on page to expand]. When CO2 levels go up, plants grow faster. And CO2 has no noticeable effect on temperature. You’re worrying about a black cat in a dark room — but when you turn on the light… there’s no cat.
CO2 is a non-issue, and everyone is beginning to see that. The truth is emerging. Deal with it.
I think the good argument against AGW is in weather. Patterns that is, and what drives patterns. These drivers are WAY stronger than puny CO2 and the Sun combined! I think the reason we are not winning this argument is that we are using a weak driver, the Sun, instead of a strong driver. And there are plenty out there. Right outside your door.
John Philip (06:58:08) :
“I would point especially to the ‘Target CO2′ and ‘Trace Gases’ papers.”
Ah yes, the great “Trace Gases” paper – one of the strangest papers I’ve ever read that was purportedly a “scientific” publication. It contains my all time favorite “peer reviewed” prose (probably written by Hansen himself), talking about the potential of “cellulosic fibre” farms to save the world:
“The potential of these ‘amber waves of grain’ and coastal facilities for permanent underground storage ‘from sea to shining sea’ to help restore America’s technical prowess, moral authority and prestige, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, in the course of helping to solve the climate problem, has not escaped our attention.”
Of course, given what GISS has done to climate science, I suppose we may need to “restore America’s technical prowess”…
I posted this link to Drudge on his tip line. Urged him to turn up the orginal letter if possible. Could also get WUWT some more face time to a broader audience.
Flanagan
You seemed to have overlooked my querstion above. Could you please reply?
Thanks
TonyB
(04:50:33) :
Flanagan said;
” I can give tens of references showing that the increase in temperatures is above natural variability. The Medieval warm period has nothing to do with that… And no one ever said CO2 is the only factor affecting climate!”
I said;
Please give your references and clarify why the MWP has nothing to do with that.
John Philip — “You are convinced that Hansen has the science wrong.”
That’s overly ambitious. As per the nature of surface stations project the suspicion is that the good Doctor may have some of the data wrong. Land use alone can raise/lower/influence any given reporting station. The suspicion is that he’s reporting a temp increase at station X and assuming global warming (or evidence thereof) when a closer examination of the apparatus and surroundings says that the station has been accurately reporting the local changes in land use moreso than a global signal.
[snip, the language used is not acceptable, no name calling please]
Flanagan
“I can give tens of references showing that the increase in temperatures is above natural variability. “
Can you please tell me where you found this definition of “natural variability”? I’ve been trying to find out what the defined “normal” temperature of the earth is and it seems that no one actually stops to define this. Instead every thing races off talking about how we are out side of the normal.
It seems very important to have a solid and agreed on definition of what the earths “normal” temperature is before we can discuss warming or cooling in any significant way. After all do we call the temperatures during the ice ages normal? In that case the earth is currently suffering massive catestrophic warming compared to that. Perhaps normal is based on the period of time when temperatures averaged 8 degrees warmer than they do now? No? Then what is the earths normal temperature?
Second why is warming bad? Amoung the many other beneficial effects of warming is extending growing zones and growing seasons.
“I’m still waiting for a paper showing in a coherent and (loosely) proved way that something else could be responsible for the observed warming…” -Flanagan
No you are not. What needs to be “loosely proved” is that climate fluctuations in the 20th century are abnormal first, then we can talk about causes. What proof is there of that? One disasterously flawed paper by Mann. The hockey stick. Are you going to defend that here? Please do try. A few people have a few questions.
John Philip, this estimate of 3C temp increase due to CO2 is crud. The actual figure is about 0.5C – the rest comes down to feedbacks & whether they are positive or negative. These are not well understood or modelled. The IPCC crowd suggest it could be up to 6C’ observational measurement for the last 20 years suggest it is not. The problem for the modellers is that we have now had some 20 years to look at their predictions & the actual measured temperatures don’t support their thesis.
On another note, Gavin over at RC seems to be saying re Dr. Theon “don’t know the chap, never heard of him, wouldn’t speak to him if I did”
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=644#comment-110819
Watching the cognitive dissonance going in that heavily censored echo-chamber is becoming quite amusing.
I dropped this one into the latest topic on RC.
Quote: Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, 15th Jan 2009,”My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”
Anyone at Real Climate care to comment?
[Response: Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen’s ‘boss’ (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His “some scientists” quote is simply a smear – which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the ‘debate’, but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations. – gavin]
Interestingly, they did heavily edit my initial questions, which were….
“In view of Dr John S Theon’s press release, http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320 casting a large measure of doubt upon climate models.
Where does this leave the paper on Antarctic temperatures, as it does appear to rely heavily upon modelling and extrapollation?
““My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,”
Also, the Steig paper appears to show Antarctica is warming at a similar rate to the rest of the planet. Don’t the models say it should be warming faster?
I’m becoming increasingly skeptical about the accuracy of the climate models being used, if the UK’s Met Office can’t predict the general weather a few months ahead (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080925.html “The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year”. Milder, it has not been, now drier looks better, but thr weather’s doing a good job currently in trying to refute that prediction too!)
How much faith can we place in models trying to predict climate on a decade/century scale or those trying to model climate from the past and extrapolate into the future?
May I also draw your attention back in time to http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold/langswitch_lang/sk
“Bottom line: A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming. For a long time the models have predicted just that.”
Cold Antarctica is consistent with global warming models, warm parts are also consistent?
Hopefully the $140m+ that’s been promised for improving these models will be well spent.
I have reposted asking about their somewhat contradictory statement re Antarctic cooling being consistent with global warming models, but I’ve had no response as of yet.
It is a pity than Dr T hasn’t expanded upon his statement
“Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results.”
Which scientists, what data and which model?
If the debate is to advance, this needs to be known, else all get tarred with the same brush and it gives the Zealots a reason to ignore the claims.
So am I to understand that the only people qualified to criticize AGW claims and the methods used to establish and justify those claims are “climate scientists” who support AGW?
Absurd.
While we are at it, why don’t we ban Patent Clerks (and other Newtonian Mechanics Deniers) from commenting on physics.
Flanagan says:
Either:
1. Too lazy to do a little bit of work to support his assertion with one paper that mentions this effect, or
2. It really doesn’t exist.
It is ironic that anyone at RealClimate would have been concerned at Hansen’s purported muzzling. The RealCimate blog’s heavy deletion of opposing views is the epitome of muzzling any debate. I just had the following deleted . Have others experienced the same “muzzling”?
Jim Steele Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. 28 January 2009 at 12:27 AM Chapman did a similar study of Antarctic temperatures. And to Chapman’s credit he duly noted that depending on the start dates one could construct warming or cooling trends. He chose to generate a warm trend. However if the start date began sometime around 1935 or 1980, we would generate cooling trends.
The skeptics can readily point to the fact that this recent cooling trend remains if you start around 1980 and data for increased sea ice supports that trend. The recent cooling trend coincides with the time period during which global warming was greatest and decoupled from solar effects.
Start dates that are chosen simply because that is the beginning of certain instrumental observations may be just as arbitrary as picking a date during a period of abnormally high or low temperatures. A discussion of the why specific start dates are chosen would be more constructive. But instead there seems to be a battle to control the “memes of warming” vs the “memes of cooling” so all sides cherry pick their trends. This is not good for science.
Mike C (16:26:16) :
C’mon now, we all know James Hansen is a top of the line scientist without a politically motivated bone in his body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike, didn’t your mother ever tell you not to make funny faces or it might freeze that way? Isn’t it painful to have your tongue so far in your cheek?
At Jennifer’s there is mention of a second high up who has come out of the closet
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/
Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis. [2]
I’m a database administrator for a financial company. I’ve always been a proponent of seperation of duties when it comes to data. There are those that store it and supply it to others (me) and those that crunch the numbers and use it.
The database administrator is the gate keeper. We are always under pressure to “include this” or “exclude that”, but if the data is to be trusted by anyone, then it must remain pristine. If those that crunch the numbers have control over the storage and reporting, then there is opportunity for misuse, even if it seems to be for the very best of reasons. Having an activist in charge of the data that most of the world is using, presents at the very least the appearance of wrong doing.
I believe that some agency should be in charge of providing the raw data to the world. No TOBS adjustments, nothing! Then the consumers of the data can make their own adjustments as they see fit, and defend their methods through open and documented peer review.
I realize that NASA makes the raw GISS data available, but given the circumstances, do you know for a certainty that it has not been altered?
Sven:
try this link:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
Where are the experimental data that CO2 has such magical heat trapping ability? The closest I’ve run across are grade school quality experiments on YouTube. One bottle is filled with CO2 (100%? 50%? who knows), another with ambient air, then two lights are shined on them and temperature measurements are taken; viola!, proof of the greenhouse effect!
Aside from such silly unscientific experiments, the dirty little secrets that continually escape the discussion are:
1) A strong positive feedback mechanism (water vapor) is assumed to follow incremental increases in atmospheric CO2. This is the only way for the CO2 AGW hypothesis to work is with that assumption.
2) Per DOE 97% of atmospheric CO2 increase is from natural sources. Do the math.
3) It is assumed, with no experimental evidence, that CO2 has an extraordinarily long residence time, now said to exceed 1000’s of years.
4) There is no evidence that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels can account for the increase in OHC from 1993-2003 as quoted by Hansen et al 2005, aka “the smoking gun”. Why hasn’t OHC increased since 2003? Without oceans continually warming, there cannot be “global” warming. Where is the missing heat?
5) Changes in cloud cover, their causes and cloud dynamics in general are poorly understood. This lack of knowledge is programmed into climate models. What is understood does not support the CO2 AGW hypothesis, and are left out of climate models. Unlock the mysteries of clouds and the rest can be filled in.
For years we’ve been told AGW has overcome natural variation and therefore onward and upward increases in global surface temperatures will most assuredly be the norm. 1998 was a watershed year for CO2 worshipers. Ah, but things haven’t worked out so well since 2001. Suddenly, without warning, natural variation, even the sun, is rediscovered in 2007 and are masking AGW. Met O assured us not once, but twice, 2007 would return to the inevitable Big Warm, exceeding 1998. By shear coincidence, when it became clear something wasn’t quite right, Met O introduced their latest and greatest new and improved climate model in August 2007. Ha! A glitch in their program is to blame. Problem solved. Now they include ocean data, variations in sun output and other overlooked natural hiccups throwing wrenches in the works.
Haven’t we also been told the sun doesn’t change enough to affect climate? Or is the inconvenient truth the non-participation of the sun is yet another untested assumption by AGW Climate “scientists”? I assign the title ‘AGW’ as many scientists (and there are many) have hung their reputations on CO2. Journals, societies, newspapers and premiere scientific bodies joined the herd, also known as consensus. Surely so many well funded institutions could never be wrong, and their motives are pure and untainted by the prospect of perpetual increases in tax payer dollars funding their retirement portfolio. No, all are unbiased, objective and have no political agenda. Oh, and they all wear white lab coats.
It is now 2009 and we are witnessing the falsification of IPCC predictions in real time. Rest assured however, by 2014 1998 will have disappeared into the ash heap of the distant cool past. Honest, they mean it this time. Of course, when Met O blessed us with this holy utterance in August 2007, published in the Holy Scriptures of the journal Science, it had nothing to do with the assumption solar cycle 24 would be off the charts. Well, it is off the charts, but the wrong sign.
Remember however, the sun has nothing to do with weather or climate. We must all be reminded of that. Oh, and PDO cycles, AMO, NAO, SOI and all that other stuff? Blah blah blah. One anomalous unpredictable La Nina can explain it all, yeah that’s it.
So I ask the Warmologists, as you have placed your faith in the Magic Gas with zero direct evidence of its powers of driving temperatures in either the atmosphere or the oceans deep, at what point do you become a bit suspicious that just maybe the science isn’t settled after all? You may ask what it would take for some of us skeptics to change our minds. As one who makes a living relying on accurate and precise empirical data, I demand experimental and observational evidence based on sound science. Pumping another $140 million into unvalidated expensive video games run by hoards of monkeys at the keyboards does not impress. As one noted in another blog, ‘pulling back the curtain reveals a bunch of bumpkins pulling levers on GCM’s.’
We could also discuss NOAA and their predictions of a ‘warmer than normal’ winter for the U.S. while we in Michigan have been ice fishing since the first week of December, freezing our behinds off from multiple weeks of unrelenting sub zero temperatures and record snow, but that’s another subject.
BTW, isn’t Al Gore supposed to be making a big speech on global warming in Washington or somewhere today?
I’m not going to get into a long running argument over all the propaganda out there
Not what I asked for – I was looking for a credible riposte to Hansen (et al)’s scientific findings in the academic literature, apparently you class the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and The Open Atmospheric Science Journal as nearer to propaganda than some unattributed graph and the manipulations of Joe D’Aleo.
The graph you linked to uses this much of the available data, – rather than cherry-pick your period to suit, if you simply graph all the available data it looks like this. I imagine most climate scientists are aware of which of these most qualifies as ‘propaganda’.
Bye for now.
Fred (19:07:23) :
If Dr Theon had tried to silence Hansen, the entire world would have heard that the evil Federal government was silencing an independent thinker and Hansen would not have given 1,400 on-the-job interviews but 2,800. Obviously, they would only silence him if he was telling the truth. Just like in a Hollywood movie.
He did. You accurately summarized the MSM narrative on the attempt. The MSM did not, however, report on the hundreds of interviews he had been ginving while being “silenced.”
I do.
In fact, watching someone trying to maintain a high level of CO2 in his greenhouse was among the first things that alerted me to the fact that “CO2-genic global warming” was a myth. No matter how well Bob sealed his greenhouse, no matter how much he pumped in, the plants would ramp up their work removing it. And that was a small sealed environment!