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.
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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.
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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 (14:24:26) :
I get a little torqued when someone uses innuendo to answer argument. I did ask the same question but the took the time to find out before shooting my mouth off (and perhaps some other portion of my anatomy!) and was impressed with the result. I take your views seriously and would be honored to buy you a beer if you find yourself in the New Haven area. We can solve climate science over a pizza at Sallie’s.
@ur momisugly savethesharks (06:54:44) : and @ur momisugly Thomas J. Arnold. (11:11:16) :
It does chafe, doesn’t it. 🙁
I imagine you’ve heard the old joke about the various parts of the body arguing about which should be in charge? And which part won the argument. It wasn’t the brain. 😉
On the other hand, I would no more want to live in a “Technocracy”, than I would in a “Theocracy”, or any other social structure that had only one narrow view of “Life, the Universe and Everything”, where the answer is always “42”.
The body politic, as with the body biological, survives thru cooperation and recognition of the functions of it’s various parts.
rephelan (15:37:21) : “..find yourself in the New Haven area. We can solve climate science over a pizza at Sallie’s.”
Pepe’s!!!!!!!
“For the satellite data, this has to do with various issues, with one being the intercalibration between the different satellites that have been used over time. For the radiosonde data, it has to do with changing instrumentation and, in particular, with the fact that there has been a general improvement in shielding of the temperature sensor over time (which tends to produce a cooling artifact to trends for daytime measurements).”
Now who’s disingenuous? Apart from RSS, which has an obvious up step in about 1992 relative to all the other data sets (surface, ‘sondes, UAH, everything) these issues have long ago been addressed. I dared you to come up with a real reason why the satellite products might be wrong-you come up with a difference between RSS and UAH and, as if the data sets were equal, you declare that problems “must remain”-yes, RSS is warm biased. That hardly resolves the issue as RSS actually marginally shows the amplification.
And of course the reliability of surface data matters! Amplification is relative to the surface!
“James (08:30:42) :
hehe,
“Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth.”
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.
It does seem likely.”
You really can’t be that faulty in your reasoning. You’re either a troll, or lazy.
Follow the money. It doesn’t matter what political party you’re a member of, you need money to fund programs. The latest budget calls for some $900B of funds from C02/CapnTrade mechanisms and fees.
He’s not “the single bastion of truth”…and you know this, so why make the statement?
JimB
eric (11:00:23) : You might wish to actually read what I wrote. Okay, so you aren’t lying, you are ignorant. I never said people don’t try to incorporate these effects, I said they aren’t MEASURED! AND THEY AREN’T! JEEZ.
Jim (14:38:18) :
“eric (13:51:54) : “There is also an documented element of his personality that he is a non conformist. ”
1. You supply no documentation of this and
2. being a non-conformist in science is a good thing. Science is one field where thinking outside the herd can get you a new way of looking at something.”
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_contrarian/?page=all
“Lindzen’s status as a pariah may also be attributable to his success at portraying himself as the principled underdog, a David against the Goliath of the scientific mainstream. In his recent statements, especially, Lindzen rails against what he sees as a conformist and self-reinforcing “iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers” with a “vested interest in alarm.”
“If you want to prove yourself a brilliant scientist, you don’t always agree with the consensus,” said Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, a former student of Lindzen’s at MIT. “You show you’re right and everyone else is wrong.”
He certainly enjoys showing he’s right and everyone else is wrong,” Kirk-Davidoff continued. “If you have a ten minute conversation with him, you can tell that.””
Going against the herd can indeed lead to a discovery that others miss. If overdone, it can lead to saying a lot of stupid stuff and going off in the wrong direction. This seems to have happened with the so called “Iris effect”.
Hurray! Finally some people are thinking & not doing knee jerk responses to the media. If you haven’t seen the documentary “The Great Global Warming Hoax”, get the torrent, download it, watch it, share it. It’s chocked full of facts from academia. Actually things should be cooling down. The sun has gone into a sort of dormany period with little or no sunspot activity.
We need to tell everyone aound us about the big hoax of “man-made global warming”. The powers that be are using this hysteria to gain more control over our lives & wants us pay dearly for energy. I think we need to get off so-called “fossil fuels”. There are so many realy good alternatives, which doesn’t include big business.
More sense on climate alarmism:
APS is reviewing its statements on climate change
Listen to this article.
Climate alarmism is a particularly embarrassing attitude for professional institutions that should represent disciplines with very high intellectual standards because climate alarmism is associated with extremely poor intellectual (and ethical) standards, besides other negative characteristics.
The American Physical Society (APS) was therefore embarrassed on November 18th, 2007 when its bodies approved an alarmist statement that was much more constructive and issue-oriented than the statements of many institutions outside physics but it was still a scientists’ variation of the same blinded, biased, irrational hysteria.
It shouldn’t be surprising that members around Will Happer, a renowned Princeton physicist, wrote an
Open Letter to the American Physical Society
where they mention that the climate has always been changing and warming and trace gases have many positive effects, according to scientific literature. The proposed new statement also discusses the unreliability of the existing climate models and urges the scientists to investigate all these effects objectively, and to study technological options related to the climate that are independent of the cause.
The petition has been signed by
more than 50 well-known past and current APS members.
Add your name if you are one, too.
Happily, Nature just published a letter from six members that informs that the APS is currently reviewing its 2007 statement:
Petitioning for a revised statement on climate change
By S. Fred Singer, Hal Lewis, Will Happer, Larry Gould, Roger Cohen & Robert H. Austin
We write in response to your issue discussing “the coming climate crunch”, including the Editorial ‘Time to act’ (Nature 458, 10771078; 2009). We feel it is alarmist.
We are among more than 50 current and former members of the American Physical Society (APS) who have signed an open letter to the APS Council this month, calling for a reconsideration of its November 2007 policy statement on climate change (see open letter at http://tinyurl.com/lg266u; APS statement at http://tinyurl.com/56zqxr). The letter proposes an alternative statement, which the signatories believe to be a more accurate representation of the current scientific evidence. It requests that an objective scientific process be established, devoid of political or financial agendas, to help prevent subversion of the scientific process and the intolerance towards scientific disagreement that pervades the climate issue.
On 1 May 2009, the APS Council decided to review its current statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. We applaud this decision. It is the first such reappraisal by a major scientific professional society that we are aware of, and we hope it will lead to meaningful change that reflects a more balanced view of climate-change issues.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/07/aps-is-reviewing-its-statements-on.html
What’s the point of quoting an article which had no other purpose than bad-mouthing Dr. Lindzen?
eric:
Do you not want to have a constructive dialog? I wrote three straightforward statements about the Earth’s climate and asked if you agreed with them or not, but you gave no reply.
timetochooseagain (17:02:06) :
“eric (11:00:23) : You might wish to actually read what I wrote. Okay, so you aren’t lying, you are ignorant. I never said people don’t try to incorporate these effects, I said they aren’t MEASURED! AND THEY AREN’T! JEEZ.”
I agree that I misread your post.
However, aerosals, solar output, and clouds are measured. In the case of solar proxies are used for the era prior to measurements. Some of the measurements are not consistent and complete. The results of these measurements are included in climate models and provide some of the scatter in results.
If you want to claim the measurements result in uncertainty that would be valid, but to claim they don’t exist is wrong.
This has no bearing on my argument, that Lindzen’s claim that the temperature data of last few years of global warming are the source of the belief that AGW is acting, is false.
“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.”
History shows that the movement to stop global warming began IN 1979 before global warming became evident.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/pages/the-1979-jason-report-quot-carbon-dioxide-and-climate-a-scientific-assessment-quot.aspx
Political sense on the Climate Bill:
Waxman Marley, The disaster that passed Congress when America was a sleep!
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=be342540-802a-23ad-40aa-7b48f706c77b
Steve Fitzpatrick
I agree with your 3 statements.
There are a lot of posts on this thread and I have been busy with other things.
Why?
And… name two “realy good alternatives”.
(Oh… and “wind” and “solar” are not really good. Nuclear is… but, hey, I just did half of your assignment for you.)
@ur momisugly Ron de Haan (17:57:53) :
Political sense on the Climate Bill:
Waxman Marley, The disaster that passed Congress when America was a sleep!
Excellent! Thanks for the heads up. I’ll definitely be watching this. I hope Inhofe is wearing a flak jacket, ’cause a lot of folks will be out to get him.
eric makes lots of unsupportable statements. Just a few of many examples:
“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…”
But the planet itself contradicts those fictitious “all working scientists,” because as CO2 steadily rises, the global temperature continues to decline.
CO2 may have a very small effect, but it is clearly so insignificant that it can be disregarded. Also, referring only to Arhennius’ 1896 paper is either disingenuous or ignorant, because Arhennius corrected himself [something the alarmist contingent never seems capable of doing] in 1906.
Arhennius’ original paper claimed a much higher climate sensitivity number [although not so high as the UN/IPCC’s fantastically high numbers]. His major correction ten years later drastically reduced his climate sensitivity number — but it was still far too high, as the planet is now proving. Next…
“Before the seventies, there are no observations of solar irradiance…” click. Someone has been observing solar irradiance, even if it was through a proxy. Scientists didn’t just discover the sun in 1970. Then…
“With the world population close to carrying capacity…”
Based on what?? Wishful thinking? Because it feels good to say it? Because belief trumps reason? Ever since Thomas Malthus stated exactly the same thing, everyone who has repeated that canard has been flat wrong.
Finally, I suppose it’s really cool to denigrate others for ever mentioning the word “conspiracy.” Those dismissing with a wave of the hand any possibility that two or more people might conspire to game the system for their own benefit are hopelessly naive.
With literally $Billions flowing into climate alarmists’ pockets at the mere mention of “global warming,” there is a strong motivation to work the system for the benefit of the few, and at the expense of being impartial. As Adam Smith wrote in 1776:
In the current situation, it is the rent-seeking grant hounds who are gaming the system to line their pockets with taxpayer loot. Anyone who doesn’t see that is blind or deluded. To exist, a conspiracy doesn’t need bylaws and monthly meetings. A wink and a nod are sufficient.
rephelan says:
Thanks. Sounds good to me…Any scientific discussions are better with pizza and beer! (And, I’d do likewise if you ever make it out Rochester-way!)
eric (17:14:27) : “Jim (14:38:18) : “eric (13:51:54) : “There is also an documented element of his personality that he is a non conformist. ””
IMO, at the end of the day the focus should be on the science, not personalities.
timetochooseagain says:
Well, I know that Spencer and Christy have published some papers attempting to show that the major difference that remains is due to a problem with RSS. And, while you may have decided which data set to believe, I don’t think the scientific community as a whole has reached any such conclusion.
It is also useful to go back and look at the whole history of the satellite data. When Spencer and Christy first published, they claimed to show the temperature trend in the lower troposphere was actually negative…i.e., there was no warming. Then, after corrections and a longer data record, it became “less warming than in the surface record”. Then, after more corrections and the publication of the competing RSS analysis, it became “the same amount of warming globally as in the surface record, within the error bars…but a discrepancy (lack of expected tropospheric amplification) in the tropics.” Now, there has been a lot of work trying to understand what is going on in the tropics … It is not completely resolved yet, but given the history, it seems wise not to jump to conclusions. The fact is that if you are never going to accept AGW as long as there are any unsolved puzzles, you are never going to accept it period, because in science there is always data that is not understood and in some seeming contradiction with the current theory.
And, as I like to continually stress, while the issue of the tropical tropospheric amplification is not completely resolved, claiming it as some sort of direct test of whether the current warming is due mainly to greenhouse gases or not is wrong since the prediction of such amplification by the models seems to be basically independent of the warming mechanism.
eric (17:41:28) :”History shows that the movement to stop global warming began IN 1979 before global warming became evident.”
There you go again, Eric. This has nothing to do with the science. Who cares if someone or some group was trying to bury global warming decades ago. Obviously, it didn’t work so it does not matter even if true. You seem to be here to cast emotional aspersions rather than discuss the science.
eric (18:07:41) : “I agree with your 3 statements.”
Thank you for replying. So we agree on:
1. The wide range of effective blackbody emission temperatures (each temperature with a different expected radiative sensitivity) across different latitudes and across different seasons makes the “1C for a doubling of CO2″ sensitivity value not a very useful number, in that it may not accurately represent the correct climate sensitivity in the absence of any climate feedbacks, negative or positive.
2. Given that a) the basic “1C for a doubling of CO2″ may not be correct, b) that there are many plausible climate feedbacks (negative and positive) operating over a range of temporal scales, and c) that the climate is clearly chaotic over very short to at least multidecade temporal scales, determining a reasonably accurate value for the climate’s sensitivity to forcing is a difficult problem that requires a lot of good data, collected over a time period that is comparable to the range of chaotic variation, along with careful analysis.
3. Substantial differences in estimates of climate sensitivity will inevitably lead to substantial differences in expected future warming, and substantial differences in the perceived urgency of acting to reduce emissions of CO2.
Do you agree with the following three statements?
4. Ocean heat accumulation in the top 700 meters is a reasonable measure of overall global radiative imbalance at least over a few decades or less, and outside of measurement errors and known seasonal (annual) variations, the heat accumulated in the top 700 meters provides a very good measure of any global warming that has taken place over a specified period.
5. The peer-reviewed published calculations of total ocean heat content in the top 700 meters of ocean (based mostly on calibration corrected Argo temperature data) from 2003 to present range from a very slight increase to a modest fall, suggesting that since 2003 there has been no significant radiative imbalance.
6. High climate sensitivity (that is, substantially more than 1C increase in average surface temperature for a doubling of CO2) is only consistent with a substantial lag (many years) between applied radiative forcing and the ocean’s thermal response. On the other hand, low climate sensitivity (in the range of 1 C or less increase for a doubling of CO2) is only consistent with a relatively short lag (at most a few years) between applied forcing and the the ocean’s thermal response.
I don’t belong here…I’m aware of an upper tier of climate skeptic scientists who publish, who have my respect.
But, I’m always willing to learn. And here’s a lead on the idea that all of the recent warming has come out of the oceans.
“Recent work (Tsonsis et al,2007) suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century”.
But I find a mathematical paper by mathematicians that finds synchronicity between four indices: PDO,NAO, ENSO and NPO. Its certainly a laudable pursuit, and they found order in the chaos… but I (In the parts I could understandJ) saw no mention of BTU’s…or of total ocean heat content.
And the authors, to my understanding, claimed only a partial effect. They concluded:
“…suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970’s event to a different state of a warmer climlate, which may be superimposed on an anthrogenic warming trend.”
And when I look into the ocean heat content (Argo) issue I find…maybe its warming…or maybe its cooling…which doesn’t leave enough heat left over to account for post 1975 global warming (to have passed through).
As I’ve said before, skeptics should be presenting their own explanations for the post 1975 warming. I’ve been generous in these pages: it should involve water vapor and clouds. If not cosmic rays, something with a similar effect. (Maybe ignoring the area between Hawaii and Mexico.)
Or, argue The Mystery. Not of the ice ages, or the movement of glaciers; which we can explain. Discuss what we don’t know about the past…and why we don’t know what’s happening now.
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
Here is what I would say:
Statement #1: From what I know, I don’t think I would agree with it. I.e., I think there is some uncertainty in that “bare” sensitivity value but my impression is that the uncertainty is on the order of maybe +-20% at most.
Statement #2: I agree with most of it, but I still think that there is quite a bit of evidence pointing to a sensitivity is in the range of ~2 C to 4 C. Yes, values lower or higher than this can’t be excluded but they do seem less likely based on our current understanding of the climate and the paleoclimate data.
Statement #3: I pretty much agree with it but I would say that, while there is a distribution of urgencies depending on the climate sensitivity, I would say that distribution is centered around doing about what the consensus of the scientific community seems to believe is necessary (as opposed to the extremes of what Hansen seems to think is necessary…i.e., getting back down to 350ppm…and what those who essentially don’t believe it is a problem think is necessary, i.e., having no restrictions.) This middle course of action is also the one that will allow us to either ratchet up or ratchet down our emissions cutbacks as future science gives us more certainty.
eric (17:41:28)
After a rather torturous journey following your link to an interesting paper titled “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment” and produced in 1979 (a copy of which can be obtained here: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12181&page=1
(just click on the sign-in tab on the left, fill in a short form with your e-mail and zip code, and you will be allowed to download the paper)
The Preface to the document contained the following:
“We also had the benefit of discussions with a number of other scientists in
the course of the review. We wish to thank the following individuals for their
helpful comments:
R.S.Lindzen, Harvard University
C.G.Rooth, University of Miami
R.J.Reed, University of Washington
G.W.Paltridge, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organization (CSIRO), Australia
W.L.Gates, Oregon State University”
It would appear, Eric, that Dr. Lindzen was there at the beginning and I would venture to suggest that he would have a better understanding of the currents and issues of his discipline than you do. One, two or a dozen papers from last century do not prove Dr. Lindzen false. Might I suggest you would want to be a bit more temperate with your remarks and a bit more thorough in your scholarship. Develop a sense of perspective instead of trying to play “gotcha”.
By the way, thank you for the lead to the paper.