From Globalwarming.org
Yesterday the Cooler Heads Coalition hosted Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Video of Dr. Lindzen’s presentation, “Deconstructing Global Warming,” will be available shortly, but his power point presentation is online now. (see below)
His presentation is both technical and entertaining at the same time.It is well worth your time to read.
Here is the Dr. Lindzen’s preface:
Why do we need to deconstruct global warming? Simply because it has been an issue that has been routinely treated with misinformation and sophistry abetted by constant repetition, institutional endorsements, and widespread ignorance even (perhaps especially) among the educated. Because of the increasingly dangerous and expensive approaches being promoted to deal with this alleged problem, it is, I think, important to understand what is being said as well as to understand how climate actually works.
I will begin with a few items that illustrate how this issue has been manipulated, and how, to a great extent, global warming has been merely a device for implementing broader agendas. I will then continue with an emphasis on the science.
From the 1970’s, there was a general feeling that ‘climate change’ would be an excellent vehicle for a variety of agendas. People openly espousing this included Bert Bolin, who was an adviser to the Swedish prime minister, and later the first head of the IPCC.
Once the global issue emerged on the public scene, two cooperating institutions were formed in the 1990’s with interlocking leadership: The Tyndall Centre for Climate Studies at the University of East Anglia, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The latter is headed by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and the former by Michael Hulme. These institutions epitomize the exploitation of the climate issue. Their members constitute numerous participants in the IPCC.
Recently, Hulme came out with an interesting book.
Read Dr. Lindzen’s entire presentation here (PDF)
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I do not think the risibly self-styled ‘ThinkingBeing’ even knows what it is to have one’squeen pinned. It is not likely that he is one given over to intellectual pursuits.
He fell into the trap essentially by conceding that Lindzen had shown the AMIP results to be on shaky ground, but tried to evade it by claiming that AMIP was not pertinent to CMIP. When I showed that the latter was validated on the basis of the former, he had no way out without exposing his king.
And like a rat being herded into a corner, he snarled and bared his teeth, grasped at some straws, and leapt for the nearest exit.
Dan Pangburn (14:06:56) : Lindzen’s paper does not stand alone. There is my research presented in detail at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true . The latest paper there uses the simple analysis of the time-integral of sunspots and an oscillation
Cool to see that the idea I earlier had here on WUWT about the time-integral of solar activity HMF B or TSI is also being suggested by others. Still after the most useful comments from Dr. Svalgaard, and some additional reflections, I do not think that things are this simple. But the initial idea should be scientifically sound, and I would recommend pursuing the following possible ways to improve and refine the concept, namely
1. Base equations on the heat balance of the earth – the first law of thermodynamics.
2. Focus more on energy content of our planet than the actual temperature – energy have so many forms of which the temperature is only a measure of the most obvious and easiest to observe.
3. When focusing on the energy content a first approximation could be to look at heat content in the oceans.
4. Check how the time integral of sunspots, HMF B or TSI correlates with cloud cover and ocean heat content.
Avoid to “add epi-cycles” in terms of ocean cycles to the model. These are intrinsic oscillations to our planet and should be predicted by the model – and as such no input to the model.
Try to argue that a simple “time-integral” approach can explain the climate partly only as other factors are unknown or at least unknown in magnitude relative to the impact from the sun.
What do you think Dr. Svalgaard?
Invariant,
Perhaps your idea of the “time integral of the magnetic field of the solar wind” would give as good a correlation as the time-integral of sunspot count. It could not do much better.
By “energy balance” I was, of course, referring to the first law of thermodynamics which is the fundamental basis of the analysis.
Energy content is proportional to temperature. Average global temperature anomaly data are available.
The excellent temperature correlation was achieved without directly referring to the “heat content in the oceans” which is an effect, not a cause.
I expect that sunspots cause changes to cloud area and average cloud altitude (the temperature at which clouds radiate) which have far more influence on average global temperature than TSI. By correlating with sunspot count, all of that is accounted for.
The magnitude and duration of the cyclic ocean turnover during the 20th century and on into the 21st century were discovered by the analysis. Once discovered, they are part of the model and are not an input to it.
This analysis produces calculated temperatures that have a standard deviation of 0.064 C with concurrent measured temperatures for the entire 20th century and on into the 21st. It shows that any influence that “other factors” have is minuscule and can be ignored.
Dan Pangburn (09:01:56): The magnitude and duration of the cyclic ocean turnover during the 20th century and on into the 21st century were discovered by the analysis. Once discovered, they are part of the model and are not an input to it.
I am not sure if I understand what you mean. If you add an ocean cycle to the model after the ocean cycle has been observed, it is equivalent to adding an epicycle, which is not usually a good approach in science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle#Slang_for_Bad_Science
Instead it is better to try to make a model that is only dependent on the boundary and initial conditions, just like the heat equation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_equation
Now, the heat equation cannot produce any oscillatory behaviour, but there are a number of systems that can, and the reaction diffusion equation is a nice example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_diffusion
This system displays a wide range of oscillatory behaviours, including the formation of travelling waves and wave-like phenomena as well as other self-organized patterns like stripes, hexagons or more intricate structure like dissipative solitons.
Unlike a model where epicycles have been added manually, a model based on fundamental equations has strong predictive power. The reason is that we do not know when to add an epicycle in the future, but Mother Nature does, and a solid model, like a reaction diffusion model, may thus be able to predict future ocean cycles even if we had no observations available of such cycles.
The ‘heat equation’ as described in Wikipedia only applies to conductive heat transfer. Heat transfer in the oceans is primarily by convection i.e. mass transport of circulation(s).
Apparently small temperature gradients exist along the circulation paths. The local surface temperature varies depending on what part along the length of the path happens to be on the surface. Apparently the effect on average global temperature of the net result of all this is the observed 32 year long uptrends and downtrends with a magnitude range of 0.45 C. The combination of the trends and the time-integral of sunspot count accurately produces the temperatures measured during the 20th century and at least to the present.
The analysis discovers at least three things:
1. The net average global temperature oscillation as a result of ocean turnover can be represented by 32 year up-trends and 32 year downtrends with an amplitude range of 0.45 C.
2. The time-integral of sunspot count accounts for the net temperature increase over the oscillation that was observed during the last half of the 20th century.
3. Average global temperature history during the 20th century and at least to the present can be calculated with no consideration whatsoever of added atmospheric CO2 or any other greenhouse gas.
No one has been able to reliably predict what the future holds. Given the current quiet sun and assuming the oscillation observed during the 20th century continues, we are probably in for planet cooling. But given the huge thermal capacitance of the oceans, even with no sunspots it will take decades to get down to the temperatures observed around 1913.
I sincerely agree that if we assume that the oscillation observed during the 20th century continues, we are probably in for planet cooling. Indeed, this is my point of view too, and I strongly think this may happen, but it is still an assumption.
I know that the heat equation covers conduction in solids only, it was not meant as a model of the climate, but merely as an example equation that illustrates that the initial and boundary conditions is all we need to calculate everything.
Since every piece of matter in the Universe is in someway affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation – every Galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake
– Douglas Adams
The reaction diffusion equation is also too simple, but it is at least valid for Rayleigh-Bernard convection too, which may resemble a simple, but still too trivial, climate system. The point with this equation is that it can produce oscillations without doing any assumptions about the existence of such oscillations.
I think we can agree that it would be better if the model could come up with oscillations automatically, rather than making the assumption that they will continue as before.
They may not.
I think that there is something funny about Lindzen’s analysis. He has selected certain periods of time when there is a large temporary fluctuation in temperature, to look at the outgoing radiation. These particular incidents represent mainly the result of internal variation due to ocean currents such as El Nino/ La Nina. These are special circumstances during which the oceans are losing energy because a large expanse of warm water pools at the surface.
There is something special about these events according to detailed studies.
It seems that global warming during these incidents is not driven by radiation imbalance but rather by hydrological imbalance. So looking at the radational imbalance to understand these events, as Lindzen does may not be correct.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/papers/auad/Global_Warm_ENSO.pdf
The selection of these events, by Lindzen for his studies, does not prove that radiational imbalance due to CO2 is not driving the general trend in temperature that we have seen over the past 30 years or so.
It is no surprise that thespecial El Nino conditions selected by Lindzen are not reproduced accurately by the models he has chosen. These are different models from the GCM’s used to predict climate trends.
I expect that when this new paper is studied carefully by climate scientists,
that it will be found to be deeply flawed.
A good thing about Lindzen’s findings is that it should help to put off the on-going world-wide political power grab and loss of freedom by showing that added atmospheric CO2, and therefore humanities use of fossil fuels, does not cause Global Warming.
The bad news is that a cooling planet portends crop failure and famine for humanity.
Bart — Please see http://www.drroyspencer.com (Dr. Roy Spencer, who is most certainly NOT an alarmist) for his take on Lindzen’s paper, which is very much in line with what I was saying…
In summary:
The system is not in equilibrium, so a snapshot of the radiation at the point where temperatures have just finished ramping up (or down) is not indicative of what is going to continue to happen, especially in terms of long term feedbacks that may take some time to manifest.
The use of AMIP models is limiting, and here Spencer taught me some things about why AMIP models and CMIP models are different in this respect, and so the AMIP models would understandably appear different and the CMIP models are both different and better.
He gives other useful information, too, but his closing paragraph really sums it up.
Doing a little internet style research on how good the top of atmosphere measurements cited by Lindzen are, I find that the answer is not very good.
It is estimated that the real discrepancy in energy balance between incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere should be about 1W/M2 accumulation.
http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/PolarMet/geog820_2009/Nicolas_2.pdf
The ERB data shows a small imbalance.
The CERES data shows an imbalance of 6.4W/M2 that is adjusted to get .9W/M2.
The data is not good enough to get a read on the validity of the models.
It is known that there is good agreement except during big events like El Nino/La Nina and volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo, which are the only data points used by Lindzen.
ThinkingBeing (08:08:50) : You don’t even read my responses, do you? AMIP is used to validate CMIP. I included a reference and everything. Scroll up and do some reading.
Bart — Yes, I did read what you said, and it was 100% incorrect, demonstrating to me only how weak your understanding of the subject is. But don’t take my word for it… read the words of Dr. Roy Spencer, a member of the anti-AGW camp himself.
This is all true, Dr Lindzen has clearly proven that Global warming is a conspiracy. It is a plan to bring in a one world government that will control all free world markets. Kevin Rudd is trying to sell Australia out right now, but the liberal party has blocked him for now. This is no joke you NEED to listen to this audio interview: http://2gb.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=4998
This is communist dictatorship that is designed to do away with all democracy world wide.
This is a wicked game and something that everyone should stand up and fight for there freedom. This type of dictatorship is going to give by like what the societ union has over financial markets in there reign.
This is worse though, because at Copenhagen in early December this conference on climate change is where a treaty is going to be signed that will lock any country that is stupid enough to sign it, to complete control permanently over how the country run their economy.
Global warming is a smoke screen to take full world control, via heavy taxing.
However is reading this I URGE you to find out for yourself, this is no joke, I wish it were.
Thank you