Video of Lindzen's recent presentation

The Quicktime link doesn’t work even with Quicktime. CEI needs to test the evidence that their technology works after they post their files.

This link works properly: http://a40.video2.blip.tv/5370002464841/CEI-CoolerHeadsEventWithDrRichardLindzenOnCapAndTrade459.mp4?bri=43.1&brs=986

Thanks “therightscoop”, I can’t get the file to download very fast, so I wouldn’t be able to post until this afternoon, but again, I’ll have the video to upload to youtube if necessary, but for now, I’ll wait.

Appropriately Doc Lindzen spends as much time educating the viewer on propaganda technique as the actual science. The public needs to hear about repetition, appeal to authority and false logic as much as the radiation budget.
His inclusion of the Eisenhower warning of a federal technology elite is telling and probably more germane than any of the science.

Keeping in mind the critical remarks, a.o. from Spencer, Motl and the earlier discussions of the Lindzen Coi 2009 paper her at WUWT, Lindzen entirely destroys the AGW claims and clearly explains not only that the subject has been kidnapped but also how they do it:
Most important conclusions:
1. The entire AGW concept is entirely bogus.
2. AGW is pure propaganda which has NOTHING to do with science..
3. We should all call ourselves AGW deniers instead of skeptics because we oppose a doctrine which lacks the science and gains credibility if it is confronted by people who are skeptic to the theory. Since there is NO CREDIBLE SCIENCE behind the theory, denying the claims is the only logical way to go.
So, I agree, we should deny the AGW doctrine, which at the same time is the best position to fight it.
We don’t deny science, we must always be skeptic to any science.
But we deny the claims made by the AGW crowd.
So, now you can shoot me.

I always enjoy Dr. Lindzen’s presentations, this one is no exception.
I particularly liked his response to the last question. He remarks that people ask him if he is a skeptic, he answers no, that to the degree possible he is a denier, calling someone a skeptic implys that the other side has a reasonable argument, but that you have doubts about some aspects of it. In the this case, the other side doesn’t even have a reasonable case.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe Lindzen as a “refuter”.

Thanks!
All six parts here, for those who haven’t found them yet and prefer bitesized portion.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Cooler%20Heads%20with%20Dr%20Richard%20Lindzen%20on%20Cap%20and%20Trade&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

Rob (14:04:43) :
“In the light of the recent inconsistencies found in his ERBE data analysis papers…”
Cite please? I’d like to understand what those inconsistencies were.

On a previous thread about the PDF presentation I postulated that basically what Lindzen did was take the amount of energy coming in as light, and using the ERBE/CERES satellites work out how much energy was leaving the planet as heat, and by subtracting that from the energy in, he was able to work out the forcing of greenhouse gases, paying attention to what the sea surface temperatures were. Is that still right? And how does Roy Spencer’s work counter that. I would have thought that it would complement it.

I was surprised to see that Prof. Lintzen besides being a chaired professor at a first rate University MIT, also appears to be a “Renaissance Man”.

Lindzen is apparently wrong about the negative feedbacks. It appears he made some serious flaws, which Spencer and Motl and others have pointed out.
However, correcting his work does show that the feedback from CO2 forcings are close to 0; much lower than AGW theory claims.
It is significant and telling that the flaws were found by skeptics, and that, unlike the AGW promotion community, skeptics confronted the mistakes openly and dealt with them.
The same cannot be said for the many serious problems in AGW promotion work wheich the AGW comunity has avoided completely.

Thank you Hunter,
Indeed, once the mistakes in Lindzen’s ERBE paper are corrected, the negative feedback disappears, possibly turning into a mild positive feedback, and the observations are consistent with the climate model results.
Besides that, since Lindzen’s analysis was done over short periods (months) of changes in sea surface temperature, Dr. Spencer gently points out that Lindzen’s conclusion regarding (decade-long) effects needed for “climate sensitivity” feedback determination to CO2 forcing are highly speculative.
Since this essentially eliminates all major conclusions of the Lindzen and Choi paper, this puts the recent euforia over this paper, including a presentation of Lindzen’s result on Fox News into an entirely different perspective.
All scientific findings (not just ‘skeptics’ papers) go through a rigorous process of review and corrections until the ‘consensus’ is reached on their correctness.
Looks like for this paper, the party is over….
Reply: Why is it that neither side of the ideological fence can spell euphoria? ~ charles the head shaking moderator

In the light of the recent inconsistencies found in his ERBE data analysis papers, I wished he would spend less time on his own propaganda campain and spend more on honest scientific work.
Rob
I will let Dr. Lindzen know that a guy named Rob wants him to do honest scientific work…

The skeptic side does not have a deficit of facts, it has a deficit of communication. This presentation works for people at a certain intellectual level, for most people it is nearly useless. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good information, but nothing sticks.
The closest we have had to a good communicator on climate skepticism was Michael Crichton, who had the storytelling ability to enlighten a more mainstream audience. As for the field today I would say that the closest we have to someone who can make the arguments stick is Bob Carter (AU). Burt Rutan isn’t too bad either, but as more of a maverick and an outsider his credibility is lower.
There is a need for a skeptic version of Al’s presentation which can be given to as many people as possible and do what has been mentioned on this thread—not raise objections, but refute. Al’s presentation uses memes—easily graspable units of communications that stick in the audience’s mind. Carter’s presentation on YouTube does some of the same, but needs further development. This is a propaganda contest, instigated and perpetuated by the alarmist side. The least that must happen on the skeptic side is to use the tools of rhetoric and repetition to make the case.
This aspect of the discussion is near to my heart. I would welcome an initiative from this site and would gladly help to create a presentation that communicates effectively. This could be made available to people who speak on the topic.
It’s an important project, and deserves the dedication and effort necessary.

Let me take some randomly chosen examples:
Has anyone ever seen a slide in a presentation that visualizes the growth in polar bear populations?
Has anyone ever seen a slide in a presentation that visualizes the actual tenths of a degree of temperature fluctuations we keep talking about, and how they relate to the range and rate of temperature change in the paleoclimatic record over the Holocene?
Has anyone ever seen a slide with a photograph of YAD 061, and heard the story of how it has become the “most influential tree in the world?”
Has anyone ever seen a convincing slide that shows the actual scale of the human contribution to atmospheric CO2, and its share of the total greenhouse effect?
The list goes on.

Vincent (13:13:01) :
Mensch would be a better word than your snipped word.
http://www.answers.com/topic/mensch

Rob
You lept from saying there is zero positive feedback to a statement that observations are consistent with the models. Not true! Without feedbacks we get 1K of warming per doubling, which is still less than the lowest of IPCC projections.
As for not using long term data, exactly the same is true about all papers dealing with positive feedback, Spencer and Dessler included.
If you want to accept 1K as a sensitivity number then you might get a lot of agreement from lukewarmers but you’ll get none at all from the catastrophists – more’s the pity.

Anna (21:21:21) :
“Can you please give a link where this assertion of mild positive feedback if CMIP model outputs are used is given as clearly as in the figures of page 45 46 of Lidzen’s presentation?”
Here is the link to Spencer’s report :
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/11/some-comments-on-the-lindzen-and-choi-2009-feedback-study/
The assertion of mild positive feedback is not from the models. It is from Spencer’s analysis of ERBE data. He found 2 – 4 W/m^2/K feedback parameter, which means 0 – 2 W/m^2/K below the Stefan Boltzman derivative. That means a feedback factor 0 – 0.5 which is neutral to mildly positive feedback.
The long term CMIP feedback parameters are 1 – 2 W/m^2/K, which is in line with what Spencer found.

Rob,
The oceans surface temparatures in the tropics have been increasing during the later part of the 20th century. The air above the tropical oceans has increased in temperature as well. Now imagine for a second that we accept that the atmosphere/oceans are getting warmer because of increasing levels of CO2 bolstered by strong positive feedback due to water vapor etc.
What are some of the net effects of this gradual heating upon the air in the troposphere?
The first thing that will happen is that warming will be spread uniformally throughout the troposhere, since the temperature at all levels in the troposphere are linked by the wet-adiabatic lapse rate. This is simply due to the fact that the rate at which moist air cools as it is moved to higher altitude is fixed by the atmospheric physics.
Now, it is well know that specific heat capacity (SHC) of air in the upper troposphere is significantly lower than the SHC of air in the lower troposphere, since the SHC of air drops off with decreasing air density.
What this is telling you is that similar amounts of heating will warm up the air faster in the upper troposphere (with a lower SHC) than the lower troposphere (with a higher SHC). The net effect of this is that it should produce a temeprature anomaly hot spot in the upper tropical troposphere.
[Note: The temperature anomaly hot-spot is the result of a warming atmosphere and it would be present irrespective of the source of that warming. However, for arguements sake we are assuming that the warming
is being produced by CO2 that is being amplified by a postive H2O feedback loop.]
However, the observed data conclusively shows no such temperature anomaly hot-spot exists. So what is wrong with the CO2 arguement?
Simple, there is a slight warming due to CO2 but it is NOT being amplified by a positive H20 feedback loop.
Why isn’t there a positive H20 feed back loop? Because it would require a increase in the specific humidity of the air (i.e. the amount of water vapor per kilogram of air) in the upper troposhere over the tropics, and this is in direct contradiction to the actual observations.
See: http://www.springerlink.com/content/m2054qq6126802g8/
Trends in middle-[level] and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data
Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking and Michael Pook
Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Volume 98, Numbers 3-4 / October, 2009
who find that:
“….the face-value 35-year trend in zonal-average annual-average specific humidity q is significantly negative at all altitudes above 850 hPa (roughly the top of the convective boundary layer) in the tropics and southern midlatitudes and at altitudes above 600 hPa in the northern midlatitudes. “

Anna v,
On rereading one of your earlier posts, I now realise that it is possible that you did not catch the Spencer comments on the Lindzen paper. Spencer does explain in some detail why he has concerns about the magnitude of the “f-value” estimated by Lindzen, and also the use of the AMIP models for comparison rather than the CMIP models. The post is on this site under: “Spencer on the Lindzen and Choi climate feedback paper”.

Ninderthana: I honestly do wish the situation was as simple as you imply. You are probably aware that the important word in your quote from Dr Paltridge’s paper is “face-value”. Dr Paltridge’s paper is impeccable in my view, but he does NOT conclude that there have been SH reductions in mid and upper troposphere – only that the NCEP Reanalysis data suggest that there have been such reductions. There are numerous problems with the dataset itself, which are highlighted in his paper. His main conclusion is that we should not throw out the only long-term dataset we have (just) because it has known problems – rather the data should be thoroughly reworked to correct for known problems and to separate the good from the bad. I personally believe that such work would tend to confirm the “face-value” conclusion in broad terms, and for that reason, will probably not get done, at least not by its current custodians.

My experience with presenting data which shows contrary results has met with only classic appeal to authority and that from a senior academic (who is actually nothing but a figure head). Here is the actual email that I received. I have pulled out names because they are not important. Just note that I was a junior faculty member at the time of writing and the respondent here is the head of a large academic institution and actually was a participant in the IPCCs Nobel prize along with Saint Albert.
here is the response I got when I wrote showing contrary data
” (Name removed), You obviously know much more than me on this, but my impression is that only a few companies and a few scientists still believe that GHGs are not having a discernible effect on climate. The ppm level may be low, but everything I read suggests that weather patterns can be perturbed relatively easilty. A doubling or so of CO2 plus other gases, while small on a ppm scale, seems to be one of those “small” changes that can cause large shifts. But I’m a strict amateur on this with no pretensions to expertise. But I do report what the scientific community seems to believe, and it sure seems firmly on the side of gases causing increasing climate perturbances.”
What in the world happened to healthy skepticism (oops I mean denialism)?
I am heartened that Lidzen has had the same response from MIT admin
APE

Anna v,
Thanks for your last comment. I think I see where you (and Bart) are coming from now, but I still believe one should hold off on drawing any firm conclusions until the picture clears.
The atmospheric models (which formed input to the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)) all have prescribed boundary conditions in the form of (inter alia) SST and sea-ice over the period of the simulation. All of the Coupled ocean-atmosphere GCMs (which formed input to the CMIP) contain an atmospheric model and a series of submodels, the most critical of which is an ocean modelling component for dynamic calculation (over time) of the SST and sea-ice. In the coupled GCMs, over each time-step, the SST and sea-ice is updated, and is then used to dynamically update the input boundary conditions for the atmospheric model.
Your point above, if I understand you correctly, is that if the atmospheric models used in the AMIP (and which are used in coupled GCMs) with input actual SST and sea-ice data can be shown to be not working against observed Deltaflux/DeltaSST , then there is no hope for the coupled GCMs?
Well you may be right, and this conclusion certainly seems to be supported by the observation (made by Covey et al in the paper that Bart references) that “replacing the observed SSTs and sea ice amounts in the AMIP simulation with the [calculated values from the] interactive sub-models used in the CMIP simulations tends to degrade the level of agreement with climate observations”. (My clarifying addition in square brackets.) This seems to bear out that the AMIP models with observed SST and sea-ice data used as input boundary conditions are used as benchmarks for the coupled GCMs, and not the other way around.
However, there is a paradox appearing here. Dr Spencer states in his post:
“As mentioned above, the corresponding climate model computations they [Lindzen et al] made had the opposite sign [relative to the observed outgoing flux and SST data], but as I have pointed out, the CMIP models do not, and the real climate system cannot have a net negative feedback parameter and still be stable.” (Again, my clarifying additions in square brackets.)
So the apparent paradox is that, on the one hand, the coupled GCMs, according to Dr Spencer, show a positive gradient of delta flux against delta SST, which he notes is essential for stability of the system, while, on the other hand, the atmospheric models which are embedded in the coupled GCMs and which are the platforms for the radiative flux calculations in those coupled GCMs show, according to Dr Lindzen, a negative gradient.
I admire both Spencer and Lindzen for their courage and integrity, and restate my hope that they can enlighten us all with some further communication on the apparent discrepancies in their findings. In the meantime, I would still recommend being cautious for the moment about drawing too bold a conclusion from Dr Lindzen’s work, until he has had an opportunity to respond to the challenge.

Rob (15:07:50) : Thank you for the link. I agree with JamesG – truth is always welcome. It does seem that Lindzen has made an elementary error in his definition of F. If he replaces it with F = 1 – Go*DeltaFlux/DeltaTemp, then I think the rest of his linearised equations work. No doubt he will issue a corrigendum in due course.
However, as a number of people have pointed out, the conclusions about the estimated magnitude of the feedback factor pale into insignificance if it can be demonstrated that the atmospheric models are producing a negative correlation between DFlux and DTemp. This would completely undermine any credibility in not just the atmospheric GCMs, but also the coupled ocean-atmospheric GCMs which they service. In the same article that you linked to, it appears that Dr Spencer apparently confirmed such a correlation in an AMIP model which he examined! As I said in my previous post, I believe that we need to wait till this picture clears before drawing any profound conclusions.

Paul (19:10:00) :
As I said in my previous post, I believe that we need to wait till this picture clears before drawing any profound conclusions.
Well, as far as I am concerned,if a CMIP scatter plot is produced that shows a significant discrepancy with the data there would be no need to wait until the exact AMIP CMIP relationship is established in order to discredit all models.
As far as Rob (15:07:50) : concerns about feedback factors, they are valid for climatology purposes, but beside the point, if for these scatter plots data and models disagree strongly, IMO..

Ninderthana (03:35:27),
Well I hope you’re right.
There have been some serious attempts to improve SH measurements – notably since the launch of the AIRS system (2002), but not enough data have been collected for this to provide definitive evidence yet. Comparisons with AIM data support the view that the models are overpredicting SH in upper troposphere, especially in the tropics, but the errors are not dramatic enough to kill off the models given the data uncertainties in the abstracted SH measurements. So I am curious about your mystery independent observational evidence. I wait with curiosity…