Quick post, I’m in between sessions here in Washington DC.
Dr. Richard Lindzen just gave a keynote talk on climate sensitivity and the state of climate science. Here is the powerpoint below:
Powerpoint link, “hot off the press” so to speak, minutes old.
More later
>Ed Reid (08:35:27) :
>It appears that Dr. Lindzen’s tolerance for fools is diminishing in his >advancing maturity, for which we should all be thankful
I read an interview of Richard Lindzen that he saw James Hansen’s testimony before Congress in 1988 on the day it happened. He knew Hansen was speaking with certainty about things that were not certain. Richard Lindzen seemed to go on to say that he has not been fully willing to speak up about this global warming thing but that he felt it was the right thing to do anyway. I suppose I am like that too. I’d rather go do something less responsible, especially since doing it would be so much more easy. But “the easy way leads to destruction”.
I really do admire Richard Lindzen.
“”” Pamela Gray (07:16:02) :
The thing that makes the AGW argument withstand criticism is the fact that the theory is combined with a plausible mechanism complete with mathematical equations, computers, elaborate models, funding, and media coverage. With media coverage added to the mix, any attempt to falsify AGW, no matter how well done, will have little power. Falsifying it without coming up with anything else is like trying to destroy a tank with a hammer. That little phrase “What else could it be?” becomes a clanging bell extolling a default AGW win if we cannot come up with an equally plausible elaborate mechanism and overriding theory. The default hammer, “The system is very complex and we don’t know much about it.” will not provide a foothold on the beach. It has to be tank for tank. “””
Pamela, as a schoolteacher, you are supposed to make hinks easier to understand; not more difficult.
You ask; “what else could it be ?”
The right answer is; What the heck are you talking about; what else could WHAT be!? There is nothing to BE, or to be discussing. The climate is always changing; always has, always will, and there hasn’t been anything happen in recent memory, to be even talking about.
Yes we know it was a little warmer a decade or so ago for a few years, and before that it was colder, and it is colder now; but that will change also, and the fact that CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing steadily, since they started measuring it at Mauna Loa is somewhat irrelevent since no significant climate trends have been established as a result of that change. Even if 100% of that CO2 change is due to human activities of some kind; it still doesn’t do anything of any consequence.
There isn’t any climate anything, to be, regardless of what it is that isn’t causing anything to be !
George
>tarpon (08:56:43) : Now is a good time to think, does anybody actually know >how a glaciation ice age begins? Because we are overdue …
Are you talking about a Little Ice Age type of cooling or a major glaciation?
I believe I’m a healthy skeptic, by which I mean that I’m open to the concept of AGW, provided that the evidence backs it.
There’s a lot of folks out there saying that the current evidence doesn’t back it (I think I agree with them, but still worry that skeptics might distort data just as AGWers do).
It seems to me that, if the case of skeptics is failing, it is failing due to lack of political advocacy, promotion of sensible environmental policies like not destroying the Amazon, building energy-efficient buildings and develolping a long-term holistic multi-sourced energy policy for the post O+G era.
Is it the case that this has in fact been done, but the media don’t report it?
If so, then this is purely a political power play…..
If not, then I would advise you guys and your political friends to arm yourselves with policies and go sell them to the healthily skeptical general public……..
>Pragmatic (09:45:30) : Two out of three shoppers bought credits on the spot.
Actually this is sad.
With just a little time of investigating for yourself, like I have done for myself, like so many here commenting at this blog have done for themselves, you could see what the truth is about global warming. In other words, ‘buyer beware’.
Re: Earth affecting Sun
Tidal effect
Of course, if this is true for the Earth, it must also be true for other major bodies in the solar system.
vg:“I though most Americans (gallup polls) do not believe in AGW anymore am I right or wrong?”
You are wrong, a plurality of Americans are now AGW skeptics, but a majority don’t think AGW is a serious threat. The AGW crowd has never convinced a majority that AGW is a serious threat,
>John K. Sutherland (10:27:28) :
>Ice ages begin when snowfall exceeds snowmelt each year.
Nice tidy definition. By it then we are heading in to a type of Little Ice Age. I’m not going to venture to say how severe. I will however be watching Arctic melt this summer. The unexpected thinkness measered (Eisdiken–sp?) and persisting cooler tempseratures should make this summers melt less than last summers—I say should.
“”” Leif Svalgaard (10:58:15) :
Squidly (10:16:07) :
Consider, the Earth (as with all planets in our solar system) has a gravitational pull on our Sun. This fact is how we are able to detect planets around other stars. Given that, can you really assume we have no affect on our Sun? We obviously have some affect. But to what limits do we affect our Sun?
What you describe is that the planets have an influence on the orbit of the Sun, not on the Sun itself [except for sub-millimeter tides]. This is a very different thing. “””
Yes tis true that the planets have a gravitational effect on the sun. Lots of other things do too, and also on the earth as well.
Did you know that you can actually wigh the earth; the whole kit and kaboodle, and do it in your own bathroom, with nothing more than an ordinary bathroom scale.
Besides the scale you need a small sturdy box that is somewhat smaller than the scale, and capable of supporting the weight of the earth; and also a small flat mirror.
You place the mirror face up on the floor alongside the box, then you place the scale on top of the box upside down with the readout over the mirror so you can read the weight of the earth; which of course is now sitting on your bathroom scale. You will probably get a very low reading if any, because most bathroom scales have very low gravity.
Well you can climb up on top of the back of the bathroom scale to increase its mass and gravity; and now you will be able to see that you can now read the wight of the earth on the readout, that is visible in the mirror.
When I do it, the earth weighs in at 178 pounds. It’s a good thing it isn’t any heavier, or it could do some real damage to your bathroom scale.
George
“Paddy (11:16:01) :
Margaret Thatcher…”
You may not believe this but Margaret Thatcher had a key role in the Genesis of global warming becoming this monster.
>vg (11:47:37) :
>I though most Americans (gallup polls) do not believe in AGW anymore am I right or wrong?
Those who are ‘Democrat’ are the only segment of the population who firmly believe. Republicans, for a large part, do not. Independents are split almost 50/50.
If a few documentaries like Great Global Warming Swindle, The Cloud Mystery, or Moncktons presentaion, were played on tv here I am certain those numbers would change. If I had the money I would have already paid for prime-time blocks of time to have them aired.
“”” Micky C (MC) (10:50:24) :
George, the reason that Prof Lindzen uses the feedback equation is that it’s the same one that Jim Hansen uses in his 1984 paper. Just Google “Hansen 1984″ and it will come up with a NASA link where you can download the paper. It has remained essentially the same from this time on. “””
First off, I am not being critical of Professor Lindzen; who I think is being very brave to stand out in front of his peers and say what he is saying. And I realize he is not the origin of that equation in the climatology field; and in his speech he really only uses it as a vehicle to explain some of the limitations on our knowledge of the “Climate sensitivity”.
I too am an admirer of Dr Lindzen; and nobody should forget that.
George
promotion of sensible environmental policies like not destroying the Amazon
Promotion?. I will tell you what such a “promotion” of first world moron’s NGOs is doing right now in the peruvian amazon jungle:
Our government issued a law to regulate the rational exploitation of amazon resources, not including neither the indians’ lands nor the reserved areas (national parks), however that “promotion” from NGOs told the indians their land was going to be stolen , which is absolutely wrong and it would be unlawful, and they have taken by force the gas pipe which connects the gas fields with cities, industries and power generators.
The government can not do anything because other first world moron’s NGOs would cry aloud if they are but touch with a feather…”that would be a crime against humanity”
Tell me, what would you do?
Jeff Alberts (07:46:04) :
“I don’t think there is any “it”, but I do understand your point. So far no one has shown that we’re seeing anything out of the ordinary. But the AGW clique says we need to disprove them and come up with a valid “explanation”. I don’t see anything that needs explaining.”
We don’t need to disprove anything. A hypothesis isn’t considered ‘proven’ until found otherwise. They have it backwards. This is the nullification of the scientific method.
Re: latest spots from http://spaceweather.com/
The sunspot’s two dark cores are each about the size of Earth, and they are crackling with B-class solar flares. During years of Solar Max (e.g., 2000-2002) we would consider such activity minor, but now, during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009, it merits attention.
That little phrase “What else could it be?” becomes a clanging bell extolling a default AGW win if we cannot come up with an equally plausible elaborate mechanism and overriding theory.
The real problem with this requirement is that in all likelyhood there is no “it”. The climate at any moment is the resultant of a multivariate equation in which all the many variables may act to support or repress the others, and sometimes both at the same time. I suspect that the trends that appear in the phenomenon of the climate are created by random synchronizations of the cyclic behaviors that are present in almost all the variables involved. If these synchronicities and cycles are not random, the list of suspects that might be creating and driving them is small. It would have to include the Sun, against which a fair amount of circumstantial evidence for responsibility has been amassed, but at this point barely enough to support a charge of aiding and abetting. The present effort to place all the blame upon humanity is analogous to the police arriving at the scene of a liquor store robbery where the owner was shot and observing a baby in a stroller with a water pistol and immediately placing him under arrest for the crime.
The real difficulty is that in the present scenario, events are being driven by members of the political class who have absolutely no interest in any of the scientific aspects of the situation and for whom the results of the last election have granted such concentrated power that they feel themselves completely removed from any need to respond to the wishes of their constituents, except of course, for those that financed their ascendancy. At this point the voice of God himself announcing that humanity was not responsible for changes in the climate would be unlikely to dislodge them from the dismal path they’ve chosen for us.
Gene Nemetz (13:25:29) :
>Pragmatic (09:45:30) :
“Penn and Teller (Being Green, “Bullsheit” on Showtime) did a show on how easy it is to shame people into buying carbon credits. Armed with a clip board and calculator a charming woman (a shill) stopped shoppers and offered to calculate the “carbon footprint” of their purchases. Shoppers were then given an opportunity to purchase carbon “credits” to offset their greed.
Two out of three shoppers bought credits on the spot. Thus creating two groups in need of lampooning. Alarmist pols, scientists and MoveOners. And the general public for being so easily shamed and duped.”
According to its website British Airways was the first airline to introduce a voluntary passenger carbon offsetting scheme in 2005.
Many of my friends and relatives fly frequently on British Airways. I have yet to meet any person who has bought a carbon offset when buying a British Airways ticket (from the privacy of their own computer, in the absence of a threatening woman with a clipboard and calculator). Perhaps airlines such as British Airways, which offer their customers this supremely voluntary tax, should be asked what proportion of their customers choose to pay it.
Stoic
I love the powerpoint though I must admit some of it I had to break down the math for ( what can I say I don’t use equations that consist of feedback effects on some days ) however I appreciate how in simplistic term the whole issue was presented.
As for whether truth triumphs I fear we must be patient. Right now we have a belief that our science and understanding have turned into crystal balls. We have become sure of cause and effect to the point that we always know the cause ergo we can determine the effect. Unfortunately this means that until there is no way to deny the results the results will be denied. One of the reasons that Global Warming gained notoriety is that Hansen went before the world and said… “It’s going to get warmer” which according to even the satellite data it has indeed gotten warmer since 1984. Now it took almost 16 years before the momentum of this finally caught up in a fashion that has bloomed to the current levels of fanaticism. Technically it is hard to ‘disprove’ something that has not been proven yet. It is even harder to disprove something that has anecdotal evidence to support it especial when it was never ‘proven’ to begin with.
Unless there is a significant drop in global temperature for a sustained time it will be VERY difficult to show that CO2 is nothing more then a red herring. Much like communism in that movie “Clue”.
Just my thoughts on the matter… So for those that think the CO2 is an immense waste of time we lose if temperature does not drop… If it does then we lose because that is a somewhat bad thing anyway. Unfortunately skeptics are in a no win situation.
Dave Wendt (14:11:20) :
At this point the voice of God himself announcing that humanity was not responsible for changes in the climate would be unlikely to dislodge them from the dismal path they’ve chosen for us.
Unless that GOD would be HIM (the fat one) 🙂
George E. Smith (13:38:07) :
That seems a bit involved. I’d like to tell people “My gravitational field is so strong it attracts the Earth with a force of 178 lbs.” Alas, I have to say “nearly 200 lbs.”
But…once more, what did cause the temperature surge of the 97-98 El Nino?
Was it the TSI jump of 0.86 watts as recorded by ACRIM in 1989?…or am I pressing some sensitive corns?
NormD (08:47:43) :
> Why is there a second ICCC conference just a few months after the last ICCC conference? I cannot find any explanations. Isn’t this abnormal?
Well, it is the third ICCC, so they aren’t too set in their ways. I think one reason is to have it in Washington, which has the greatest concentration of influential people who need to be influenced themselves. There may also be a dose of there wasn’t enough time in March for all the people with something worthwhile to say to have time to say it.
There may also be timing issues of wanting to get a conference before the next Copenhagen conference and wanting to announce the NIPCC report.
Pamela Gray (07:16:02) :
“The system is very complex and we don’t know much about it.” will not provide a foothold on the beach. It has to be tank for tank.
In some cases an ‘anti-tank weapon’ can also be effective. For example, an attempt launched by Anthony Watts to prove that the land-based instrumental temperature record is unreliable can have a significant effect on the ongoing debate if the results are well presented. As far as we know the IPCC WG1 reports and even climate models only rely on dubious surface measurements and they completely ignore the satellite data provided by UAH and RSS.
One of the main arguments of climate modellers is that their modells can ‘reproduce’ the observed temperature trends by backcasting, so they must be accurate and can provide reliable forecasts until the end of the 21st century (sometimes even further). The second one is that the results only gained with the combination of ‘natural’ and ‘anthropogenic’ forcings match with observed global temperatures, confirming the theory of man-made global warming.
Of course the latter one is a classic circular argument: global climate models assume that man-made CO2 is the major driver of climate change, amplified by a huge amount of positive feedback – mainly increasing atmospheric water vapor, decreasing surface albedo because of snow/ice melt and ocean outgassing caused by warming temperatures. These are the main ingredients of a catastrophic warming prediction. The second main point is that these climate models rely on an assumption that natural variability can have only a negligible effect on global temperatures. Most of them include only three or four severe volcanic eruptions in the past 100 years and their effect as a form of natural variability, but don’t include solar variation or the role of important multidecadal oscillations such as the PDO or AMO. Most of the model simulations only with natural forcings come out with cooler temperatures for the 1971-2000 period that the early 20th century, which is plain nonsense when we all know that solar acivity had shown an increase during the last 100 years.
All in all, any model which is completely relying on the theory of man-made global warming and some related assumptions while ignoring other possible causes, can not be used as ‘proof’ for the very same theory. This is purely Petitio Principii. I don’t even have to mention that the main endogenous variables in GCMs are getting adjusted in order to produce results which are matching closely with the observed surface temperature trends.
The second statement can be falsified easily but the first one shows to be much stronger than the latter one. If we can demonstrate that the surface temperature record used by the IPCC and climate modellers is unreliable we remove one of the most important cards from the house of cards of AGW. Without a temperature record which shows significant and accelerating warming the whole global warming theory becomes very-very unstable. The recent flat/cooling trend already did half of this work by erasing the continuous warming, the second half is yet to be done by proving that the warming of the last 100-150 years have been overstated because of large-scale UHI contamination and microsite biases.
Hungarian former NASA scientist Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi tried to “shake the table” where the house of cards of AGW is located, but the table seemed to be too large and robust. Maybe examining the reliability of the surface temperature record can be a more effective way to challenge the theory of man-made global warming.
Regards,
Adam Soereg – a Hungarian AGW skeptic
Innocentiousxii (14:23:27) :
Unfortunately skeptics are in a no win situation
The humble will inherit the paradise (think WUWT next winter), don’t lose your faith 🙂
AGW is a religion, and we’ll soon be taxed for it the same way that all citizens were taxed to support Crusades in the 13th Century.
There were plenty of people who didn’t want to go traipsing across Europe to reclaim the Holy Land in somebody else’s name. I suspect there were a good many who weren’t even terribly devout Catholics. But they still had to pay their Crusade tax and give it up (fiscally and verbally) for the “elites” (to use Lindzen’s term) who survived by pandering to the Holy Fathers.
How does one speak to a crowd of people whipped up into a frenzy of self-righteousness, fear and (sometimes) hatred?
Cold logic? Soothing calm? Stentorian command? Ridicule?
Or do you just ignore the rhetoric, pay your subsidies, keep your heretical views to yourself… and let the zealots Crusade themselves silly?
Whatever people choose to do, the foundations for the Crusade are being laid: the penitential power companies have confessed, the “preaching friars” are in the field, giving “absolution” and taking new vows. The Evil is unprecedented, and our duty clear.
re: Pamela Gray
The real problem is that most people in America have no idea about any of the science regarding AGW. They do not know what is true and what isn’t, they do not know what has been proven and what has been debunked. And, sadly, they could care less. Most will agree with whomever is speaking to them in order to mask their own ignorance. The tactic of the AGW side is to speak to them often enough so the masses will just accept those words without question, all in the name of not appearing to be stupid.