This is a letter professor Richard Lindzen of MIT sent to the Boston Globe and was published today. It is well worth the read.
KERRY EMANUEL’S Feb. 15 op-ed “Climate changes are proven fact’’ is more advocacy than assessment. Vague terms such as “consistent with,’’ “probably,’’ and “potentially’’ hardly change this. Certainly climate change is real; it occurs all the time. To claim that the little we’ve seen is larger than any change we “have been able to discern’’ for a thousand years is disingenuous. Panels of the National Academy of Sciences and Congress have concluded that the methods used to claim this cannot be used for more than 400 years, if at all. Even the head of the deservedly maligned Climatic Research Unit acknowledges that the medieval period may well have been warmer than the present.
The claim that everything other than models represents “mere opinion and speculation’’ is also peculiar. Despite their faults, models show that projections of significant warming depend critically on clouds and water vapor, and the physics of these processes can be observationally tested (the normal scientific approach); at this point, the models seem to be failing.
Finally, given a generation of environmental propaganda, a presidential science adviser (John Holdren) who has promoted alarm since the 1970s, and a government that proposes funding levels for climate research about 20 times the levels in 1991, courage seems hardly the appropriate description – at least for scientists supporting such alarm.
Richard S. Lindzen
Cambridge
The writer is Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Re: Robert (Feb 19 13:22),
Please note that Scenario C (as well as the other two, A & B) had models for the predicted amounts of GHGs associated with each scenario’s temperatures.
Scenario C was the one where everyone did what Hansen wanted: plateau all GHG emissions.
Thus to say that his predictions are in any way correct is just plain wrong.
Just look at the actual IPCC GHG amounts vs. Scenario C – and tell me that Hansen’s models weren’t completely off:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_TemperatureProjections.htm#hansen
The actual GHGs appear closer to Scenario B, but the temperature predictions for Scenario B are completely off.
I’m confused over the figures given by Boston News.
I am no way a scientist and don’t really understand a lot of the jargon put out on this site.
I do however go diving. I was led to believe that the atmosphere was 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen as a basis for working out deco time etc. There are 1% other gasses including argon co2 ect.
The article states that 3% of the atmosphere is made up of greenhouse gases?? such as co2 and methane. it does’nt mention water vapour as 95% of green house gases.
Am I going off track here or can someone direct me in the right direction
Thanks
Mike.
Hey Robert:
Doesn’t make any difference whether temp predictions are wrong or right.
Where is the proof of causation? There is no way of measuring CO2-caused warming and separating it from other natural or man-made causes. You would have to disprove ALL other possibilites in order to have a case for AGW “theory”. And by the way, it’s not a real Theory because you cannot prove or disprove it.
Smokey (13:03:04) :
Way to go, Smokey.
I suspect there is a programming flaw in the models, intentional or not, that involves a variable type. The model behavior seems to imply that they are always ending up with a positive value at a critical point, and dropping sign (negative becomes positive # or zero). Maybe E.M. Smith knows what it is.
Richard (13:15:53) :
@RockyRoad
Try breathing it. That works fine for me 😉
But seriously , have you got a link to where you got that?
———————
Reply:
It doesn’t come from a peer-reviewed journal article, but that probably gives it more credibility if it’s dealing with climate change:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2010/20100219103457.aspx
But on a parallel topic, everybody’s going berserk over the highly variable weather we’re having and I’ve read where the weather does that before another ice age sets in. Apparently the temperature gradients between the poles and the equator get steeper so there’s more evaporation at low latitudes and more snowfall at higher latitudes. That’s what drives the glaciers south in the northern hemisphere as the snows increase and the ice piles up. And it makes sense that higher gradients would cause powerful displays of weather, too.
I’m not necessarily saying this is the beginning of an Ice Age, but it’s more probable than the oceans boiling away because of some mysterious tipping point involving CO2.
But blame my background as a geologist for my views.
David (14:16:57),
Try these out on a month old thread. Say “Test” [so they know you’re not crazy], then see how they work:
[I’m using the word “amp” below for the ampersand: &]
If I use the actual “&” symbol, the HTML will mess it up here. Understand? OK, so to make “°C”, use: amp#x2103
For °F use amp#x2109
For different kinds of degree symbols [°], try:
ampdeg;
ampordm;
Option + k
Option + 0
Option + shift + 8 [all 3 keys together]
[The last 3 work on Macs, I don’t know about PCs.]
Don’t forget to replace “amp” with &. And the semicolon [;] is part of the HTML, so put it in, just like in the examples above.
Hey, now you can write code. hAx⊗R dude!
The pitfall of Global Warming causes Global Cooling lies in the nature of cycles.
It should read “Global Warming preceeds Global Cooling cycles and vice-versa”. The March of Climes. Much like the wave behavior of iight leads to contructive and destructive interference. There are many waves in the pond of climate.
Buying into thier abberation of the natural world leads to paralysis of perception.
Well yes, the environmental enthusiasm in the press continues to paper over the causal link between CO2 emissions and temp increase with such terms as ‘wealth of evidence,’ ‘proven fact,’ ‘unequivical.’ At best is correlation = causation as with Emanuel’s ‘is consistent with…’. And political speech writers continue to make little logical leaps such as the popular one of proof of warming to proof that CO2 emissions are causing it.
(Mosher’s views of press coverage is apposite
The old defence that the science is too complicated for the public to understand is also still used to paper over this gap in the science. And yet it is not complicated to explain the gap, as Andy Revkin shows in a exceptional discussion of Lacis comments on the exec summary. While Lacis would later pull back, Revkin presses the point:
(Andy, we dont need unequivocal or definitive, lets start discussing the evidence for starters.)
What will be interesting in the next few weeks is whether the Alarmists will still be able to roll out the scientists to hold out on this link. And perhaps not. I have to keep reminding myself of Jones’s recent admissions of: 1. previous warming periods perhaps as warm as now and we dont know what caused them; 2. there only being a negative defence of the recent warming as AGW (Put #1 with #2 we get:But if we dont know what caused those previous warmings, then how do we know emissions caused this one?); and 3. no significant warming in the record since 1995.
Dr Mann remains an enigmaTEXT. I would love to see a conversation between Lindzen and Mann.
BTW: I once saw an anti-AGW doco from 1997 (?) staring Lindzen on the web somewhere – does anyone know where this is?
Complete playlist
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=88AB827556B04768
Embed:
.
Robert (13:22:28) :
Hysterical….. Since the predictor has now been shown to have his finger on the scale of confirmation….. and he was still wrong!
David, you can get the ° symbol a couple of ways. If you have a numpad on your keyboard, you can simply press and hold down the ALT key and type 2 4 8 on the numpad (this doesn’t work with the normal numbers on top). You can do this on a laptop keyboard by enabling the numlock and pressing ALT 2 4 8. Otherwise, you can open the character map from the start menu – accessories – system tools – character map, and double click on the symbol, press the copy button, and hit paste.
What a breath of fresh air.
Professor Lindzen has restored my faith that the science can be rescued from this catastrophe.
I need a bumper sticker that reads;- “It’s The Water; Stupid !”
And I reiterate; that H2O is the ONLY atmospheric GHG that exists in earth’s atmosphere in ALL THREE PHASES. Learn to live with that.
So Dr .Lindzen, is this an option to prove/disapprove AGW ?
So what type of experiment could be performed to test this AGW hypothesis? If there were satellites in orbit monitoring the emission of OLR over time at the same location, then OLR could be measured in a very controlled manner. If, over time, the emission of OLR in the wavelengths that CO2 absorbs decreases over time, then that would prove the AGW hypothesis (i.e., that OLR is being absorbed by CO2 and heating the planet instead of being emitted from the atmosphere). But what if, over time (say, over thirty years), the emissions of OLR wavelengths that CO2 absorb remained constant? That would disprove the hypothesis and put the AGW argument to bed.
Thank you, Professor Lindzen, for having the courage to publicly challenge Kerry Emanuel’s statement that “Climate changes are proven fact.”
Far from proven, the bandwagon of CO2-based climate change – and the federal funds diverted into that propaganda – are an embarrassment to all legitimate science programs.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Sciences
Former NASA PI for Apollop
The degree symbol on a PC is Alt-0176 … like this: °
Hold the Alt, type 0176 on the keypad.
It is currently 1°C where I am. Brrr.
By the way, troll Robert’s comment about Hansen being “spectacularly” right was an absolute gas! I even showed it around work and we were all laughing.
“The Peculiar Issue of Global Warming”
http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/100210Lindzen/index.htm#
Lindzen note about president Obama visited MIT, Obama emphasized the importance of scientific freedom and stressed that AGW deniers had to be marginalized.
“”” Theo Goodwin (14:02:48) :
Robert writes:
“The close match between GHG concentrations and temperature increases, predicted 20 years ago and now an observed fact, is strong empirical evidence of global warming theory.” “””
Well based on the recent assertion by the head of the CRU that there hasn’t been any warming since 1995; which several other had also asserted several years ago, so that is 14 years of no warming; then we have but six years of whatever warming the predictors predicted (or is that projected) but all 20 years of the GHG concentrations; well actually only the CO2 and other trace GHGs, because the H2O primary GHG hasn’t changed much, I somehow doubt that that “now observed fact”, however strongly empirical, is any evidence whatsoever, of a cause and effect relationship.
There’s probalby an even better correlation with the number of cell phones in worldwide use.
I would suggest that here Robert seems to be uncharacteristically grasping at straws.
The science of meteorology/climate has still not yet understood that trying to model a highly complex inter-linked system is a fools errand. The sun is the main energy provider and we still do not understand the myriad ways it interacts with our climate.
Deterministic chaos means that none of the complex GCMs being used have any predictive power beyond a few days.
It’s great to see Prof Richard Lindzen coolly dismiss the climate modellers muddled mutterings as the nonsense they are.
In the words of Richard Feynman, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
“Makes me literally LOL to think how intolerable Dr. Lindzen’s existence must be to the inner core of the AGW alarmist camp.”
Dr. Hansen talks a good bit about his interactions with Dr. Lindzen in “Storms of My Grandchildren.” His predominant emotion seems to be pity.
“David (14:16:24) :
Re: Robert (Feb 19 13:22), Robert
Your statement is quite simply untrue. I have taken the trouble to read Hansen’s paper, and you can too:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha02700w
His preferred scenario, scenario B, expects an anomaly of 1.1% for 2010. ”
1.1% of what? What’s the anomaly in degrees? I have read the paper and I make it an estimated .85 C compared to observed .74C. I am reading it off the graph in the paper and comparing it to GISS numbers. How are you getting your figures?
RE: The original Emanuel article.
Here is a quote I find funny:
“Science cannot now and probably never will be able to do better than to assign probabilities to various outcomes of the uncontrolled experiment we are now performing, and the time lag between emissions and the response of the climate to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations forces us to make decisions sooner than we would like.”
What does RC say?
Thus, both CO2 and ice volume should lag temperature somewhat, depending on the characteristic response times of these different components of the climate system. Ice volume should lag temperature by about 10,000 years, due to the relatively long time period required to grow or shrink ice sheets. CO2 might well be expected to lag temperature by about 1000 years, which is the timescale we expect from changes in ocean circulation and the strength of the “carbon pump” (i.e. marine biological photosynthesis) that transfers carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
Get it now? CO2 lags temperature by 800 years, except when we need you to act now. Ice lags temperature by 10,000 years, unless it is CO2 doing the melting. Then it is much, much sooner. Are all you oil-funded meanies understanding now?
Oh crud, scratch what I said about CO2, but the comment about the ice, that is interesting.
This is how RC spun Phil Jone’s intervire with the BBC:
RealClimate 15 February 2010
Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled “Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995″.
The title itself is a distortion of what Jones actually said in an interview with the BBC. What Jones actually said is that, while the globe has nominally warmed since 1995, it is difficult to establish the statistical significance of that warming given the short nature of the time interval (1995-present) involved. The warming trend consequently doesn’t quite achieve statistical significance.
This is what Jones actually said, not what RC ascribed to him:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm
Question B –
Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Answer
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.
The Daily Mail headline is correct, there is either significance or there isn’t. “Only just” is meaningless. If there were statistically significant warming, would he qualify it by saying “only just”? I somehow doubt it.
Intervire? Interview I think.
Close to 18 years ago I had the chance to visit M.I.T. and got to talk to Dr. Lindzen, for a few minutes, and Peter Stone for about an hour about the Lunar declinational tidal studies I was working on. After looking through the satellite photo archives there in Building 54, and was able to further define the global circulation, into four repeating patterns of the 27.32 day lunar declinational tidal cycle.
Peter Stone encouraged me to go ahead and work on my project, as see if it ever produced any thing worthwhile, well here its.
With the dismal failure of the AGW climate models due to their concentration on the wrong driving forces of the weather and climate, I thought you might like to look at what a model derived from the “Natural Variability Patterns” could do at predicting the next 4 years of daily weather for the continental USA.
It has several differences from the “Business as usual” NOAA NWS forecast models, in that it uses all raw data from any stations found, considers the periodic influences from the Moon, and is based on past patterns of global circulation, to produce a “Natural Analog Weather Forecast” that works better than “their models.”
I put this forecast together back in 2007, posted it to web site in December of 2007, has remained there unchanged since, still has maps posted until beginning of January of 2014.
http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
I post it here again to expose an idea to those who say models don’t work, they do if they consider all of the important influences driving the weather and hence the long term patterns, the climate.
The patterns it produces do not have a solar activity level component figured into the method, so the decrease in solar activity from the reference periods, shows the decrease in temperatures, that could then be insinuated as due to the solar changes, notable as the more southern movement of the Jet streams, although the daily timing of the arrival of the fronts stays sound, and the precipitation patterns stay about the same as forecast, there is a shift to more snow than rain, as noted in the Southeast USA.
Feel free to look at the daily maps from the past two years, or for the next 4 years. I am currently getting a lot of hits from the AGW team servers in England, it seems they are learning something.
I thought you might like to keep up with the current forward edge of research in this area.