Former KNMI director and skeptic Henk Tennekes gets vindication from Netherlands De Telegraaf

Here’s a bit of interesting news from a Dutch newspaper. WUWT readers may recall this story:

Scientist quits: ‘I don’t want to remain a member of an organization that …screws up science that badly.’ Henk Tennekes Resigns from Dutch Academy. Now there is a new twist to the story.

Click for newspaper article

From Lawrence Solomon: De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest daily newspaper, has totally vindicated the country’s most prominent global warming denier in a prominent article entitled “Henk Tennekes – He was right after all.”

Tennekes was the director of the Netherlands Meteorological Institute, KNMI, until the early 1990s, when his skepticism of the climate science coming out of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change led to his forced resignation.

A translation into English of De Telegraaf’s vindication appears here.

Translation by: Richard Sumner (UK)

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Layne Blanchard
February 18, 2010 9:18 pm

The importance of this article is similar to the resignation of De Boer, and several other stories of late:
People are speaking out, more and more…..
BP, Conoco, Cat, et al pulling out of the Climate Coalition
Arizona pulls out of regional states pact…. and Utah right behind them after Utah’s “no confidence” vote recently.
California’s debate over AB32…. Senate block of EPA, suits from all quarters
Certainty in the “science” is broken. The dam is leaking. It is likely only a matter of time, and will accelerate from here.

mkurbo
February 18, 2010 9:22 pm

carrot muncher (20:05:45) :
The rest is opinions, in the eye of the beholder.
>>>
Henk Tennekes: “But I wanted to get to the heart of the problem. Are these forecast models reliable? No funny, everyone thought. Looking for the truth? You must be mad! That means you have to accept the fallibility of these models. That’s much too dangerous. Most of the KNMI researchers were happy if they could just sit in the cafeteria with their like-minded colleagues.”
>>>
I think he was trying to convey that models were not a good method to assess the situation and that was his opinion 20 years ago. We know now as fact that the models were, and are garbage for assessing future climate. His theory was proved correct and AGW theory has been disproven. ..eye of the beholder indeed…

carrot eater
February 18, 2010 9:23 pm

rbateman (20:39:44) :
You can share or not share his opinions, that is perfectly fine and good. I was just hoping that a ‘vindication’ would include more than just stories of how his colleagues didn’t like him. Of course maybe Tennekes had more to say on science itself; he can’t tell them what all to print.

Steve Koch
February 18, 2010 9:25 pm

Tennekes says the top km of the ocean has turned colder in the last 5 years. How is that compatible with oceans rising during that same period? Given that by far most of the climate energy is stored in the oceans, why is there more focus on surface temperatures than on ocean temps?

Hank Hancock
February 18, 2010 9:26 pm

Dr. Tennekes made two statements that sum up the tribal behavior of warmist scientists:

“KNMI’ers still avoid me like the plague, because I say something different from the group dogma. First you must believe in something, only then you are allowed to participate in their discussions”
“No, I’m not surprised about the fuss surrounding current climate
research. This storm has been brewing for years. The contributions of climate sceptics disappear unnoticed in the rubbish bin.”

I am appreciative of his holding to his core principles and maintaining his intellectual honesty through 20 years of vitriol heaped upon him by the warmist community of scientists.

carrot eater (20:05:45) :
“About the only bit of science in the whole article sounds like a reference to the Argo floats, before Willis found his error.

You were expecting a peer reviewed published abstract? It’s a newspaper article.

Editor
February 18, 2010 9:27 pm

Follow the Money (20:29:49) :
> “Why a duck?”
Probably because it flies. A coworker of mine some 10 or 12 years ago was so taken with Tennekes’ The Simple Science of Flight that he bought a dozen more copies and passed them out to people who felt he owed favors to, myself included. I don’t recall if the book said anything about duck flight, but given their air speed, it may.

frozenohio
February 18, 2010 9:28 pm

Well, duh. IPCC crooked? Who didn’t see that… Good stuff though. I love messing with the warmers – it’s just fun.

MrLynn
February 18, 2010 9:28 pm

On the NPR program “On Point” this evening, two men are discussing nuclear power with the hostess. One is from the Union of Concerned Scientists, so we know where he stands. The other is a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin. Both are asked about the President’s recent conversion to the view that nuclear energy will help prevent ‘climate change’ because it is ‘carbon free’.
The UCS guy says, nope, still too many problems; there are other ways to deal with ‘climate change’. The UWI guy says, oh nuclear is fine, and and it will definitely help with ‘climate change’.
Clearly neither of these savants (nor the hostess) have any inkling that the science of anthropogenic global warming, aka ‘climate change’, is in tatters, and never was well-founded. Nor is this blind ignorance unique. It is gospel for the President and his so-called science advisors. The litany that ‘carbon’ (meaning CO2) causes catastrophic ‘climate change’ (meaning global warming) is still a basic tenet of the worldview of most of the press, media, academics, and bureaucrats in the Western world.
The program began with an intelligent report by a Wall-Street Journal writer, who suggested that the President’s endorsement of nuclear power was really a subterfuge to get wavering Democrats and pro-nuke Republicans to sign on to his faltering ‘climate’ legislation, aka Crap and Tax. This presumably would have been perfectly acceptable to the participants, since all blithely assume the moral imperative of ‘fighting climate change’ (do any of them know that Obambi is a founder of the Chicago Carbon Exchange?).
How are we going to penetrate this wall of fervent, unquestioned belief? Clearly scandal and evident fraud in the ‘climate science’ world is not enough. It will take more, but perhaps the acknowledgement in one small paper that the brave Henk Tennekes was right after all is a start.
When will we see articles like this in The Washington Post about John Coleman, or Fred Singer, or Richard Lindzen? I won’t hold my breath.
/Mr Lynn

February 18, 2010 9:31 pm

I suppose the duck because they couldn’t find a good picture of a bar-tailed godwit.
I think the term to use for Dr Tennekes would be irascible. He’s earned the right to be irascible, I suppose.

Oliver Ramsay
February 18, 2010 9:44 pm

rbateman (20:52:55) :
pat (20:21:55) :
Depressed? No need to be. What Copehagen showed is a gathering of “What’s in it for me” birds. The Agenda may have had its’ inner circle of concensus, but that’s as far as concensus gets.
———–
It might have been a typo except for the repetition; “concensus” instead of ‘consensus’, but it affords an opportunity to make the (rather trivial) point that the etymology of ‘consensus’ reveals the non-intellectual nature of the phenomenon. The Latin origin makes it a “feeling together”, not ‘thinking together’. ‘Concredence’ should have a place in the dictionary, but it doesn’t.

James Sexton
February 18, 2010 9:59 pm

To carrot eater (21:23:27) :
Hey, I don’t wish to pile on, but really, the fundamental question is, are we getting warmer? It is just math. Yes, math is a science, of sorts, but all of us can do it. Let’s begin with the fundamental question. Are we getting warmer? Well, first you have to start with the temps, collectively and then average……….oh, wait, darn, we deleted the data set. Never mind that, we’re scientists!!!! So, who you gonna believe, you or Henk?? He’s a bonafide scientist!! A scientist or two say so, so it is real and truth, right? Isn’t that what we’re told? Oh, wait……there are literally thousands of scientist that say otherwise, right?………….Where are they? Who are they? Please list them. And, lol, please list the ones that haven’t profited by big oil!!!! Namely, Shell, BP, and Conoco. Or even Caterpillar!!!

rbateman
February 18, 2010 10:03 pm

carrot eater (21:23:27) :
Telling someone what to print/agree to/favorably review because it’s good for the cause is a slippery slope.
He knew where this was leading, though I suppose he didn’t imagine at the time it would take 20 years.

carrot eater
February 18, 2010 10:16 pm

rbateman (22:03:03) :
To what are you referring? The assertion that he was eventually fired in retaliation for his views, and some column he wrote?

Robert
February 18, 2010 10:19 pm

I don’t see a “vindication” here either. If somebody wrote a flattering article about Michael Mann or Al Gore (not that they need it) I doubt very many people would consider them “vindicated.”
Nor I am confident that he needs to be “vindicated.” He left a job, many years ago. We don’t know the circumstances; he says he was fired. We don’t know if that’s because he was accused of something, or for some other reason.
It’d be really interesting to see the column that he says got him fired. Given he says he’s worried about a cooling world, it’d be great if we could dig it up and find some testable predictions. Then we good measure him up for real (non-tabloid) “vindication.”

E O'Connor
February 18, 2010 10:20 pm

Look at the picture in the post. You have to be a fan of Marx Bros humour and recall the scene between Chico and Groucho to understand the comment.
Chico says something along the lines of “whya duck… wya no chicken?.

Robert
February 18, 2010 10:21 pm

ERRATA: “could” not “good”

February 18, 2010 10:21 pm

Re: Steve Koch (Feb 18 21:25),
But the oceans have NOT been rising. See HERE
image

E O'Connor
February 18, 2010 10:22 pm

I forgot to add that the Marx Bros sketch is based on a pun of viaduct.

J.Peden
February 18, 2010 10:23 pm

I get really annoyed that we’re here to save nature. That’s a terrible overstatement of our abilities.
Tennekes, but it sounds like maybe something from a Humphrey Bogart/Peter Lori movie – first sentence Bogart, then Lori, “But, Rick, that is a terrible overstatemnt of our abilities.”

John Whitman
February 18, 2010 10:28 pm

“”””Pamela Gray (21:10:00) : I am about ready to walk out on my own profession . . . . “””””
Pamela,
There are wonderful doorways to alternate opportunities but one cannot see them until you leave the situation you are in and close it’s door firmly behind you.
I have had that experience, it is exhilarating.
John

Pat Moffitt
February 18, 2010 10:28 pm

I wonder if all those soon to be unemployed rocket scientists at NASA are wishing they spoke up a bit earlier about James Hansen

John Hooper
February 18, 2010 10:34 pm

Specifically right about what – and where’s the proof? What is the basis for this article?

John F. Hultquist
February 18, 2010 10:37 pm

Pamela Gray (21:10:00)
I’ve got beer and popcorn. You’re wound a bit too tight tonight.

Bill Parsons
February 18, 2010 10:45 pm

That’s a great story.
Mr. Tennekes is a bird of fierce endurance.

Roger Carr
February 18, 2010 10:57 pm

Pamela Gray (21:10:00) : … Fired.
A Great Uprising from admirers in many countries will follow.