Resisting climate hysteria
by Richard S. Lindzen on Quadrant Online
July 26, 2009
A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action
The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well. Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th Century these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat.
excerpts:
For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century. Supporting the notion that man has not been the cause of this unexceptional change in temperature is the fact that there is a distinct signature to greenhouse warming: surface warming should be accompanied by warming in the tropics around an altitude of about 9km that is about 2.5 times greater than at the surface. Measurements show that warming at these levels is only about 3/4 of what is seen at the surface, implying that only about a third of the surface warming is associated with the greenhouse effect, and, quite possibly, not all of even this really small warming is due to man (Lindzen, 2007, Douglass et al, 2007). This further implies that all models predicting significant warming are greatly overestimating warming. This should not be surprising (though inevitably in climate science, when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data. Thus, Santer, et al (2008), argue that stretching uncertainties in observations and models might marginally eliminate the inconsistency. That the data should always need correcting to agree with models is totally implausible and indicative of a certain corruption within the climate science community).
…
Climate alarmists respond that some of the hottest years on record have occurred during the past decade. Given that we are in a relatively warm period, this is not surprising, but it says nothing about trends.
Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) strongly implies that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, the basis for alarm due to such warming is similarly diminished. However, a really important point is that the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. Polar bears, arctic summer sea ice, regional droughts and floods, coral bleaching, hurricanes, alpine glaciers, malaria, etc. etc. all depend not on some global average of surface temperature anomaly, but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind. The state of the ocean is also often crucial. Our ability to forecast any of these over periods beyond a few days is minimal (a leading modeler refers to it as essentially guesswork). Yet, each catastrophic forecast depends on each of these being in a specific range. The odds of any specific catastrophe actually occurring are almost zero. This was equally true for earlier forecasts of famine for the 1980’s, global cooling in the 1970’s, Y2K and many others. Regionally, year to year fluctuations in temperature are over four times larger than fluctuations in the global mean.
…
In view of the above, one may reasonably ask why there is the current alarm, and, in particular, why the astounding upsurge in alarmism of the past 4 years. When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further. The case of ENRON (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative in this respect.
…
And finally, there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake.
With all this at stake, one can readily suspect that there might be a sense of urgency provoked by the possibility that warming may have ceased and that the case for such warming as was seen being due in significant measure to man, disintegrating. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, for more serious leaders, the need to courageously resist hysteria is clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence. Nor is the assumption that the earth’s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century a sign of intelligence.
Read the complete essay with references at Quadrant Online
Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
h/t to Bob Carter
Joel Shore (08:20:54) : “This piece makes it difficult to take Lindzen seriously. For example, he says:
In fact, tropical tropospheric amplification is not “a distinct signature to greenhouse warming”. ”
You are attempting to rewrite history here. The models did indeed predict more than the observed warming of the LT. I know that is an inconvenient truth for you, but you can’t keep changing the game without getting called on it.
“Nobody really has seen climate change, and most people are skeptical that humans can alter climate. “
Well the last part of that sentence I can agree with.
They/we ARE and they/we SHOULD BE!
The first part however….
Of COURSE no one has seen climate change, bud! No one lives that long. LOL
Climate CHANGES….that’s what it DOES….as it has done for billions of years!!!
But thanks for giving me a lot of juicy tidbits to shoot down.
Back to work for me before I get fired ha ha.
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA, USA
bill (08:29:08) asks:
Maurice,
“But how did the warm water get below the cold without makingthe cold warm?”
The ocean is not a static contained bucket of water. There is of course some mixing of temperature as the heavy saline water sinks but then the layers can remain separate for long periods.
Please google .
The filter deleted the phrase “temperature inversion” ocean salinity. from my above post. It was inclosed in the characters….. well that’s not going to work.
Joel Shore (08:20:54) : “For example, the two major satellite data analyses (UAH and RSS) don’t agree well with each other.”
Spouting this kind of BS make you lose your credibility. UAH and RSS agree very well. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980/plot/uah/from:1980
It is GISS that does not agree well with the satellites. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980/plot/uah/from:1980/plot/gistemp/from:1980/offset:-.2
James: “So 97% of climatologists are part of a major government conspiracy…”
Where did that number come from, where the sun don’t shine?
Bernie (07:55:50) :
wrote,
“eric:
Your charge that Lindzen makes “such illogical arguments, and misrepresent(s) the scientific theory that supports AGW” needs a little more support to be taken seriously. Can you elaborate?
Your point that this site is dominated by skeptics is true, but then RC is dominated by AGWers. The polarization is natural, though it may be somewhat unhelpful for a useful dialogue.”
Bernie,
Another incorrect point that he makes was discussed above also. The warming of the upper troposphere is not a unique signature of warming due to forcing by GHG’s. It is sad to see a scientitist misrepresenting the science.
Lindzen implies that rapid variation in regional climate means that global warming is irrelevant. The fact that regional variation is larger than global variation does not automatically prove a regional trend does not exist. It is an inappropriate argument for a scientists. A statement about a trend requires careful and appropriate statistical analysis.
In addition it is known from the data, that the Arctic region will warm the most rapidly of any region on earth, while other regions will take longer to show warming.
The models say so also.
James (08:30:42) :
So 97% of climatologists are part of a major government conspiracy involving all western governments. A conspiracy that has been perpetuated across several terms of office involving different parties.
Yeah, jim-jims, keep flogging that “conspiracy” strawman. That will get you far. Not.
Dear Anthony,
I read the now well known Copenhagen Synthesis Report and I do have a question that puzzled me ever since. It shows in its figure 2:
“The change in energy content in different components of the Earth System for two periods: 1961-2003 (blue bars) and 1993-2003 (pink bars)2 (figure 5.4).”
The same Figure is shown in IPCC AR4 as Figure TS.15. It explicitly states it is the energy content change of the whole earth.
The energy content change of the earth system for the period 1993 – 2003 according to the figure is 8.9x10E22 Joule. Divided by the area of the earth and the seconds of 10 years this gives 0.55 W/m2.
However, this suggests to mean the models are off by approx. 0.8 W/m2 for this 10 year period alone in terms of energy conservation. Since the net anthropogenic radiative forcing according to the IPCC is about 1.3 W/m2 in this period, doesn’t the energy content change show that there is negative feedback?
Do I miss something here? Maybe I miss the definition of net radiative forcing or the definition of energy content change forr the earth system?
Shouldn’t the 0.55W/m2 be an estimation for the net radiative forcing. I had not so nice experiences asking naive questions like that at Realclimate. Maybe you guys can help me out and explain my difficulties.
Best regards
Guenter Hess
Another good essay from Professor Lindzen, whch shows he has a great deal of common sense – a rare quality amongst climate scientists. As an ex-IPCC member, it also shows much courage. Scientists who dissent from the AGW alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.
All evidence proves that increased levels of CO2 are a follower of a warmer climate, and it is the interplay of the sun and water (in all it’s forms) which are the real clmate drivers.
It’s a shame more scientists don’t ‘come out’ and refute the lies the mass media are promulgating about climate change, which gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that is supposedly their basis. Our climate is a chaotic system with many non-linear processes operating in harmony. This means that trying to predict our future climate using low level linear models with poor quality data is a futile exercise – the money being spent on reducing CO2 levels could be better employed in improving weather forecasting, so people can prepare for short-term events.
novoburgo: “Where did that number come from, where the sun don’t shine?”
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 90, NO. 3, 2009
Another incorrect point made by Lindzen is that past climate changes represent some kind of proof that AGW is a wrong theory. Since the release of CO2 by human industry is an unprecedent mode of climate forcing, precedent is not a guide.
Furthermore the fact that the life on earth is still here after many climate cycles does not negate the fact that it climate change can cause human hardship. Drought and floods, have caused mass migration even in the recent past.
Increased incidence of such events, precipitated by AGW, which is projected by the climate models would not be a good thing. With the world population close to carrying capacity, social instability is a real risk under these circumstances.
wws (06:21:24) :
papertiger – if it were “climate change” opponents who’d taken that money, that item would make headlines across the country,…
…Game changer? Not a chance. No one will see it unless there is some underground movement to get the word out.
That’s why we’re here – I always thought. Here’s a companion peice in the L. A. Times – Did juckets corrupt California’s climate regulators?
and another one from 2007 Others pay state leaders’ way on trips.
At the very least you should bookmark these stories for when people like James (08:30:42) : start tossing around vague accusations about who and who isn’t an oil company stooge.
James, I do know of paid oil company stooges. CARB, Cal EPA, PUC, In fact a veritable who’s who of climate change oversight in California government, including the legislators who wrote the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
It wouldn’t surprize me in the slightest to find out Al Gore was paid top dollar by Chevron, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, Shell Oil, British Petroleum, BHP Billiton, Calpine, Occidental Petroleum, Sempra Energy, oh and Goldman Sachs .
In fact I have documentation showing that the authors of AB32 and the regulators tasked with enforcing global warming mitigation, many of whom had their jobs created by the legislation, were and are in fact OIL COMPANY STOOGES.
What have you got backing up your slur against Prof Lindzen?
Here’s a better version of the original Bee story, via Tom Nelson.
Jim says:
I am talking about the overall TRENDS, not the ups-and-downs…and not the global ones but the ones in the tropics. (The global ones disagree somewhat…and in fact, UAH is the outlier with RSS, GISS, and Hadcrut very similar, but I think the trends in the tropics for RSS and UAH disagree more significantly.)
In terms of the variability (e.g., due to ENSO), one would expect RSS and UAH to track more closely to each other than the surface temps because the surface temps and LT temps are somewhat different animals.
It might help you understand what I am saying if you read more than one sentence of what I wrote at a time. Then you wouldn’t embarrass yourself by responding to strawmen arguments but could actually address my real arguments.
1. Who is Joel Shore? What are his scientific credentials, if any?
2. I do not believe Lindzen is insulting the intelligence of the public. He is pointing out that a considerable segment of the public has bought into the Big AGW Lies after repeated bombardment for two decades.
Oops. I left out “not”. “. . . Lindzen is NOT insulting . . .”
Joel Shore (08:20:54) : Rather than thump your Bible, you might wish to actually explain why Lindzen’s theoretical explanation is wrong:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf
It seems to me that the “hot-spot” MUST be related to IR in one way or another. So in that case one might say it is related to WV, perhaps?
However I must agree with this statement:
“it is only the most unreliable data that seems to be in disagreement”
Yes, the much lauded surface data is unreliable, thank you for conceding as such 😉 Or did you mean that you think that the satellites STILL need corrections? So what is the problem with them? Why are they wrong? Unless you can give a reason WHY the satellite data would be wrong, you are full of $#!%. Sorry.
eric (07:20:09) : “In fact the idea of AGW is 100 years old, is based on radiation physics and the temperture dependence of the vapor pressure of water.” Apart from the fact that you can’t even spell temperature…CC BOUNDS WV it does not determine it!
“The other factors that determine climate are also observed and modeled to determine their impact.”
This statement is false. Period. Before the seventies, there are no observations of solar irradiance, and even after that the can be stitched together so as to have a trend or not-guess which version is preferred? Aerosols are also little observed. Before Pinatubo Volcanoes were not carefully observed in their effects. And on and on. But crucially, more than any other factor: Observations of clouds are just starting to get of sufficient quality for climate analysis. I can’t put this in any more polite way-you are either totally ignorant or lying.
James (08:30:42) : “So 97% of climatologists are part of a major government conspiracy involving all western governments. A conspiracy that has been perpetuated across several terms of office involving different parties. The single bastion of truth is a professor completely untainted by the massive amount of consultancy money he receives from oil companies.”
You should be called a warmist also because you re-warm the same old cold pile of BS.
I write my post and they go on to make more stupid comments. Joel, eric, from now on, I’m going to ignore you. There is no point trying to convince you that your fervent belief is unjustified-it’s clearly deeply ingrained.
eric (09:49:06) : “Another incorrect point made by Lindzen is that past climate changes represent some kind of proof that AGW is a wrong theory. Since the release of CO2 by human industry is an unprecedent mode of climate forcing, precedent is not a guide. Furthermore the fact that the life on earth is still here after many climate cycles does not negate the fact that it climate change can cause human hardship. Drought and floods, have caused mass migration even in the recent past. Increased incidence of such events, precipitated by AGW, which is projected by the climate models would not be a good thing. With the world population close to carrying capacity, social instability is a real risk under these circumstances.”
Ooooo, Eric. That is so scary! We should all go hide in the closet! I guess you didn’t get the memo that the dynamic climate models are not working, unless you count the endless adjustments to make them fit changing realities as “working.”
Maurice Garoutte (08:56:52) :
Right, so now we have cold freshish water over the top of warm saline. This is fine, no problem there. Although most papers I have been able to read (pay-wall problems) suggest this is a seasonal effect.
http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_22/issue_3/0442.pdf
http://rms1.agsearch.agropedia.affrc.go.jp/contents/JASI/pdf/academy/52-0619.pdf
http://drs.nio.org/drs/bitstream/2264/1714/2/Proc_PORSEC_2000_1_458.pdf
But are we not looking for a multi-decade stable system? Is there any evidence of this?
One should remember we are trying to explain away a good proportion of temperature rise over the last 50 years.
So since the TSI is virtually constant over this time and GHGs have little effect The energy budget of the earth must be similar i.e. input=output.
The rise in temps must be due to heat being removed from the atmosphere and stored in the sea. So one should be seein a cooling of the earth until the last 50 year rise (there is only a fixed amount of energy available in the energy budget that heats the sea, the land and the air.)
The current temperature is now similar to or above MWP. The LIA presumably is warm air to deap ocean. The current warming is presumably warm deep ocean to air. So temperatures should now start dropping us back to another LIA as the heat gets sucked back into the oceans.
The effect we are looking for is therefore something that holds heat in the ocean temperature inversion for over 100 years. That seems too stable a sytem for such a turbulent ocean.
Do the sinking buoys (jason) measure such a system. Or have they not been placed in the right area yet?
papertiger: “What have you got backing up your slur against Prof Lindzen?”
About as much as Lindzen has to back up his conspiracy theory. 🙂
@just Cait (21:21:17)
“Instead of using ‘global warming’ or ‘climate crisis’, the best new term is “deteriorating atmosphere” or “our deteriorating atmosphere”
(personalizing the term).”
“Idling” is the new term I’ve seen twice in our local weekly newspaper at the Jersey Shore. Idling is now more dangerous to the environment of Long Beach Island than any human behavior or natural catastrophe. Look more more personalization such as “revving” or “improper acceleration”.
Tenuc (09:42:47) :
“Another good essay from Professor Lindzen, whch shows he has a great deal of common sense – a rare quality amongst climate scientists. As an ex-IPCC member, it also shows much courage. Scientists who dissent from the AGW alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.”
So explain why Lindzen, Spencer and Christy still have jobs despite their dissent. The real story is that there are scientists that have an emotional need to be outliers. That is a more realistic hypothesis than to say that 97% of active research climatologists lack courage and are lackeys of some mysterious conspiracy.
“All evidence proves that increased levels of CO2 are a follower of a warmer climate, and it is the interplay of the sun and water (in all it’s forms) which are the real clmate drivers.”
This statement is absolutely wrong.
The greenhouse effect is 150 years old this year. The theory that industrial emissions would warm the planet dates from 1896. Spectroscopic observations and observations of the atmosphere confirm that increases in CO2 will warm the planet. All working scientists agree that CO2 doubling without any other feedback or changes in forcings will increase the average temperature 1C if nothing else happens.
In addition, in Permian times CO2 from Siberian volcanoes has been determined to have caused a global warming event which impacted the oceans.
“It’s a shame more scientists don’t ‘come out’ and refute the lies the mass media are promulgating about climate change, which gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that is supposedly their basis. Our climate is a chaotic system with many non-linear processes operating in harmony. This means that trying to predict our future climate using low level linear models with poor quality data is a futile exercise – the money being spent on reducing CO2 levels could be better employed in improving weather forecasting, so people can prepare for short-term events.”
The climate models are indeed nonlinear and chaotic as a result. A slight change of initial conditions will alter the climate trajectory significantly.
That is why multiple runs must be made to project the range of possible outcomes, and no definite prediction is made.
You would know all of the above, if you studied this issue seriously, if you hadn’t confined your internet browsing to[snip] blogs.
“The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope”
Indeed. So we star with a straw man.
“Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat.”
“We” don’t “fully” understand anything at all about the natural world, so this sentence is not meaningful.
“there is a distinct signature to greenhouse warming: surface warming should be accompanied by warming in the tropics around an altitude of about 9km that is about 2.5 times greater than at the surface”
This is not a distinct signature to greenhouse warming. The same response would be expected from warming due to increased solar activity.
“Nor is the assumption that the earth’s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century a sign of intelligence.”
And we come nicely full-circle and finish with another straw man. Most things in between are just a review of fringe science, presented as if there are no other results. The claim about the ‘greenhouse signature’ is so basic that it is impossible to believe that Lindzen didn’t know this was incorrect. Why then did he make this claim?