This is an essay professor Richard Lindzen of MIT sent to the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va for their Opinion Page in March, and was recently republished in the Janesville, WI Gazette Extra where it got notice from many WUWT readers. It is well worth the read. – Anthony
To a significant extent, the issue of climate change revolves around the elevation of the commonplace to the ancient level of ominous omen. In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption. In a world where we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day, we treat changes of a few tenths of a degree in some statistical residue, known as the global mean temperature anomaly (GATA), as portents of disaster.
Earth has had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a 100,000-year cycle for the last 700,000 years, and there have been previous interglacials that appear to have been warmer than the present despite lower carbon-dioxide levels. 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, and, indeed, some alpine glaciers are advancing again.
For small changes in GATA, there is no need for any external cause. 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. Examples include El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, etc. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for all change in the globally averaged temperature anomaly since the 19th century. To be sure, man’s emissions of carbon dioxide must have some impact. The question of importance, however, is how much.
A generally accepted answer is that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (it turns out that one gets the same value for a doubling regardless of what value one starts from) would perturb the energy balance of Earth about 2 percent, and this would produce about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warming in the absence of feedbacks. The observed warming over the past century, even if it were all due to increases in carbon dioxide, would not imply any greater warming.
However, current climate models do predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide might produce more warming: from 3.6 degrees F to 9 degrees F or more. They do so because within these models the far more important radiative substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever an increase in carbon dioxide might do. This is known as positive feedback. Thus, if adding carbon dioxide reduces the ability of the earth system to cool by emitting thermal radiation to space, the positive feedbacks will further reduce this ability.
It is again acknowledged that such processes are poorly handled in current models, and there is substantial evidence that the feedbacks may actually be negative rather than positive. Citing but one example, 2.5 billion years ago the sun’s brightness was 20 percent to 30 percent less than it is today (compared to the 2 percent change in energy balance associated with a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels) yet the oceans were unfrozen and the temperatures appear to have been similar to today’s.
This was referred to by Carl Sagan as the Early Faint Sun Paradox. For 30 years, there has been an unsuccessful search for a greenhouse gas resolution of the paradox, but it turns out that a modest negative feedback from clouds is entirely adequate. With the positive feedback in current models, the resolution would be essentially impossible. [Note: readers, see this recent story on WUWT from Stanford that shows Greenhouse theory isn’t needed in the faint young sun paradox at all – Anthony]
Interestingly, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the greenhouse forcing from manmade gases is already about 86 percent of what one expects from a doubling of carbon dioxide (with about half coming from methane, nitrous oxide, freons, and ozone). Thus, these models should show much more warming than has been observed. The reason they don’t is that they have arbitrarily removed the difference and attributed this to essentially unknown aerosols.
The IPCC claim that most of the recent warming (since the 1950s) is due to man assumed that current models adequately accounted for natural internal variability. The failure of these models to anticipate the fact that there has been no statistically significant warming for the past 14 years or so contradicts this assumption. This has been acknowledged by major modeling groups in England and Germany.
However, the modelers chose not to stress this. Rather they suggested that the models could be further corrected, and that warming would resume by 2009, 2013, or even 2030.
Global warming enthusiasts have responded to the absence of warming in recent years by arguing that the past decade has been the warmest on record. We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question. Since we are, according to these records, in a relatively warm period, it is not surprising that the past decade was the warmest on record. This in no way contradicts the absence of increasing temperatures for over a decade.
Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) suggests that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, so too is the basis for alarm. However, 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., all depend not on GATA but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind and the state of the ocean.
The fact that some models suggest changes in alarming phenomena will accompany global warming does not logically imply that changes in these phenomena imply global warming. This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred, and this will not change in the future. Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this. However, history tells us that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience.
One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years. When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 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 carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.
Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted to save Earth. Nations see how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. So do private firms. The case of Enron (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, Enron was one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon-emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to trillions of dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions.
It is probably no accident that Al Gore himself is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense.
Finally, there are the well-meaning individuals who believe that in accepting the alarmist view of climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue. For them, psychic welfare is at stake.
Clearly, the possibility that warming may have ceased could provoke a sense of urgency. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, the need to courageously resist hysteria is equally clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever-present climate change is no substitute for prudence.
Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT. Readers may send him e-mail at rlindzenmit.edu. He wrote this for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va.
Vincent (02:31:41) :
Mike,
“According to the survey 97.4%, 75 out of 77, climatologist said yes. Maybe the other two are right. But, do you really want to bet the farm on that.”
75 climatologists out of 77 said yes and only 2 said no? Do you even believe these figures? I can list more than 2 climatologists who dispute that most of the 20th century warming was caused by man made greenhouse gases. Here are some of them, other than Lindzen:
Spencer, Christy, Ball, Pielke, Akasofu, Keenan, Soon, Scafetta, Zorita, Loehle, Douglass, Michaels, Singer, Tidsdale.
That’s 14 straight off. If you were curious, wouldn’t you now ask why they only surveyed 77? Why did they leave these out?
To Vincent: Some of the people you listed would not qualify as climatologists under the definition used in the survey. But, the survey, like all surveys, is a sample. Clearly there are more than 77 climatologists! To learn how the survey was done read the study for yourself here:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Then you can form your own opinion as to its reliability. Maybe you can find or conduct a better survey. But surely you would acknowledge that most climatologists believe in AGW.
TLM (10:59:00) :
Francisco (08:25:54) :
Norman (08:18:05) :
Neither of you understand the point at all!
Norman’s graphs are completely irrelevent, they simply show the effect I am stating which is that when cloud cover is higher, temperatures are lower – and vice versa.
TLM, Did you scroll down to look at Graph number 5? It compares Low Tropical clouds to Global Temperature. Look at the time frame for how long the clouds persist. In the 1980’s (relatively cool period) the cloud % was around 66%, and in the 1990’s it went down to 62% (only a 4% decrease). These %’s are only eyeball analysis, they fluctuate but it looks close, you may disagree. You are saying clouds just are seasonal or daily. Look at the graph and see a certain cloud cover % can persist in that pattern for a decade (maybe more). A Cloud pattern can last quite some time so that should answer your question.
I will repost the web page. http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm#TotalCloudCoverVersusGlobalTemperature
Also check out the correlation with carbon dioxide and global temperature on the next link. The carbon dioxide continues to climb but the global temperature have stopped going up and look to be trending down…now look again at the Cloud cover % graph (graph 5) and you see the decline in cloud cover has stopped. If CO2 was the primary driver, then why have the temperatures not continued to climb? If Low level tropical clouds are the driver it can explain this. There is a theory that increased CO2 decreases the cloud cover, if so then why has the cloud cover stopped going down?.
Check out this link again if you have time. It may answer your questions.
http://www.climate4you.com/index.htm
To see Carbon Dioxide amount vs Global temp go to the link with the CO2 and it shows numerous graphs of the fact that although CO2 continues to rise in the atmposphere, the temperature does not follow it. Why?
mikael pihlström (13:12:03),
I’ll try answer your questions:
1) Yes. If empirical evidence, based on raw data, tested and verified by skeptical scientists, using the same code, algorithms and methods used by Michael Mann, Phil Jones, the IPCC or anyone else showed a cause and effect relationship between rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions followed by rising global temperatures, the amount of which could be quantified and measured, I would have to accept that catastrophic AGW was the likely cause. But if there were such evidence, it would have been presented.
2) I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.
3) This question is hard to understand, too, and requires understanding question #2. But let me try to answer what I think you’re asking: Nothing I’ve seen claiming that human emitted CO2 causes, or will cause catastrophic climate change, is convincing in the least. CO2 is a beneficial and harmless minor trace gas, wrongly demonized as the evil “carbon.” The hypothesis that a rise in CO2 will cause climate catastrophe fails under scrutiny.
There is no testable, empirical evidence showing that a rise in CO2 causes, or has caused in the geological past, a subsequent rise in the global temperature. Scientifically, CAGW is simply a conjecture.
If you re-phrase your questions so I can understand exactly what you’re asking, I will respond. Your English is far better than my foreign language skills, and I’m not ridiculing you. Please try again, especially on question #2.
quote –
‘To be sure, man’s emissions of carbon dioxide must have some impact’.
He is a believer.
kadaka (13:57:24) :
I love the term “climatology”!
Rhymes with Scientology, if you don’t agree with them then you are just not thinking “clearly”, they hold the Absolute Truth, doubters need to be open-minded and willing to be presented with the Truth, it’s all based in solid scientific principles… And one way or another, everyone has to shell out whatever money is needed in service of the Truth.
Perfect!
Here’s some more science disciplines that rhyme with Climatology:
Primatology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Herpetology, Parasitology, Teratology, Cytohematology, Cytology, Histology, Implantology, Diabetology, Hematology, Rheumatology, Traumatology.
See if any of those remind you of some whacko religion.
Heard of Alientology yet ?
I’ve heard parasitology is imperiously ruled by a bunch of corrupt reprobates that don’t allow dissenting opinions to be published or funded, but I haven’t found any good websites exposing all their research as incompetent yet.
They must be out there – this is the Age of Citizen Science Patrols.
Carbon dioxide is just one of many molecules that humanity is releasing into the environment. It is not as toxic as many of the other chemicals, nor is it as long-lasting. The by-products of metal-working and plastic production are seriously toxic and mutagenic; pharmaceuticals and pesticides are found in all levels of the water supply. Promoting fear of future climate patterns is a prestidigitation, encouraging people to waste time and effort that would be better applied to detoxifying our one and only environment. It will not matter in the least if the planet is warming or cooling if we poison ourselves first.
Os Xiong (20:50:20) :
Correction: CO2 is not “toxic,” and there is no need to “detoxify” our planet of CO2.
Lumping harmless, beneficial CO2 in with toxic molecules is either dishonest, or the result of ignorance. If CO2 was toxic, you would poison yourself every time you exhaled.
@ur momisugly Anu (15:29:38) :
What is your point? That the newspaper got his title wrong? SFW? Maybe, as I said he taught an atmospheric science class this term, and told the contact at the newspaper what he was teaching this term when asked ‘What do you teach at MIT?’ You are picking the nit off of a nit’s back. And please do not try to conflate the difference between ‘Professor of blahblahblah’ with other inaccuracies that are obviously of different magnitudes.
Of course, I believe that you pointed it out as a cheap shot, but I could be wrong. So tell me, why is that difference so important to you?
L (14:33:19) ::
If the decade 1990-2000 saw warming of- say- .5C and the decade 2000-2009 saw cooling of- say- .1C, then the latter decade would be warmer on average than the former, even though the ending temperature was .1C lower than the start. This works on any scale as long as the rise of the 90’s is larger than the decline of the 00’s.
Well done, you stabbed the Straw Man right in the heart.
But why play with toys, when you can have the real thing ?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Decade of the 90’s: 1990 to 1999
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.37° C
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.32° C
Decade of the 00’s: 2000 to 2009
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.33° C
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.57° C
Definite warming in the 00’s. Warmest decade on record.
If the next few decades continued the same cooling trend, then 2010-2019 would then be the “second warmest on record” and so on, even though the trend over time would still be downwards.
Yes, if the next few decades continue this “cooling” trend, the warming will start to change the climate or something.
Someone should look into this, sounds serious.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Please don’t try to tell me that the warmists can’t understand this. They surely can, but it suits their purposes to pretend that they don’t or, more accurately, to insist that Dr. Lindzen is wrong. What’s not to like about such people?
Maybe you should continue playing with your Straw Man.
Or maybe a different data source would be more agreeable to your speculation?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Anomalies wrt to a different baseline:
Decade of the 90’s: 1990 to 1999
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.255° C
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.297° C
Decade of the 00’s: 2000 to 2009
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.271° C
Jan to Dec temp anomaly of 0.441° C
Nope, that’s even worse.
Better go dig out some pre-corrected UAH data.
Or, keep killing your Straw Man.
“If the world was different, the world might actually be cooling.” Yeah, good point.
Well, ANU, snarky though you may be, you raise a nominally interesting point; the problem, however, is that the amounts are anomalies; so the 90’s are on average a certain amount above the average of the base period; now to compare the increase in anomalies in the noughties, which are higher than the nineties and say this is evidence of progressive warming, hottest ever, or whatever is the current alarmist catch-cry, ignores the fact that the true measure of the warming is not the absolute anomalies but their difference; that is the amounts for the noughties should have the amounts for the nineties subtracted from them and then compared with the nineties after they have the eighties subtracted from them. Why? Because that is a proper measure of the change in rate of warming which is different from saying the noughties are warmer; of course they are because we are in a warming period which began in 1850; compared with an anomaly base in the 50’s or 60’s, succeeding decades will be absolutely warmer but whether they are warming at the same rate is really the test.
Do that will you Anu and report back; then we can look at PDO phase shift.
Anu (15:32:52) :
You say:
“Richard S Courtney (00:34:10) :
Yes, and the reason is that “… geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time…
I don’t think you know what geologists do.”
Hmmmm.
And I think you know nothing about the subject on which you pontificate but attempt to demean Richard Lindzen because his work provides doubt to the belief system you proselityse.
Richard
PS I worked as a research scientist for a coal industry for decades and that industry’s geologists elected me to represent them.
Mike,
“But, the survey, like all surveys, is a sample.”
So stacking the deck is ok in your eyes? Fair enough.
Anu,
“Very colorful. In your “impartial and objective” style, of course.”
Sorry typo on last post. You GOT me there
Anu,
I just realised. You went through all my posts on another thread to build up a case that I too used colourful language.
I’m flattered.
Anu:
Additionally, I point out that your selective quotation of me misleads.
I wrote:
“Yes, and the reason is that “meteorologists and geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time than the collection of substandard computer modellers and incompetent statisticians who call themselves ‘climatologists’.”
And you quote:
““… geologists” know much, much more about the mechanisms of the atmosphere and its variations over time…”
Richard
Norman, I am very familiar with these graphs – Climate4you is one of my favourite web sites. However they tell you nothing about the feedback effect of cloud cover. Roy Spencer has done lots of research on this and his most recent post is very informative. In effect he is saying that it is almost impossible to differentiate the forcing effect of cloud cover from the feedback effect – and without being able to do this you cannot quantify the feedback sensitvity of the climate using cloud cover data. I look forward to reading his paper when it is published.
However he then states that this has misled climate scientists into assuming that the climate is more sensitive than it really is. I hate to use clichés, but I am afraid this is putting up a “straw man” in order to knock it down. As far as I know climate scientists do not infer anything very much at all from cloud cover analysis (which paradoxically is another of Spencer’s complaints!). Most of their calculations of climate sensitivity and feedbacks are based on long term palaeoclimatology (ice cores, sediment etc) and reactions to known forcing events such as the Mt Pinatubo volcano.
Most climate scientists would view data on cloud cover as “weather” as it flips so quickly from being a forcing to a feedback and back again and is sometimes both at the same time! It is pointless trying to analyse weather in order to try and infer anything about the climate. You need decades of averaged data in order to show trends in the climate. In fact if you go to RealClimate and try and say that the temperature has levelled out in the last 10 years you will be lambasted because you are talking about “weather”. They state the minimum period needed to identify a “climate” trend is 30 years.
For instance in the C4U graphs it is clear that in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s tropical temperatures rose and cloud cover declined. Now is this
– rising temperatures are causing cloud to decline?
or
– falling cloud cover is causing temperatures to rise?
or
– neither, they are independent variables?
As far as I know there is no way to tell. But what do we see since 2000? Yes, falling temperatures and rising cloud cover. Is this
– falling temperatures are causing cloud cover to increase?
or
– rising cloud cover is causing temperatures to fall?
or
– neither, they are independent variables?
The impossibility of answering this question is one of the reasons “climatologists” avoid it and weather forecasters are so interested.
Os Xiong (20:50:20) :
“[Carbon dioxide] is not as toxic as many of the other chemicals, nor is it as long-lasting.”
=================
Not as *toxic*??
That so many people have come to think of CO2 as “toxic” is a remarkable achievment of the climate propaganda industry.
There is an old story I’ve always enjoyed by chemist-writer Primo Levi, conceived by him while imprisoned in Auschwitz, titled “Story of a Carbon Atom”. The first part is rather uneventful, as this atom lies for hundreds of millions of years in limestone rock near the surface. The action begins when it gets mined, makes it to a kiln, is separated from its calcium buddies and begins its “adventures” with two oxygen companions in a CO2 molecule. It travels the earth many times over, it goes into the sea, into rivers, back out, back in, goes in and out of life… all kinds of things, and eventually ends up in the brain of the narrator, participating in the neural processes that direct the action to put the final dot on the story. At some point, the narrator makes the following aside about CO2. He speaks of it with the veneration others reserve for our heavenly Father. But then again this was before climate change industry had been invented.
**quote** http://tinyurl.com/8tkrxc
“But there is more and worse, to our shame and that of our art. Carbon dioxide, that is, the aerial form of the carbon of which we have up till now spoken: this gas which constitutes the raw material of life, the permanent store upon which all that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all flesh, is not one of the principal components of air but rather a ridiculous remnant, an ‘impurity’, thirty times less abundant than argon, which nobody even notices. The air contains 0.03 percent; if Italy was air, the only Italians fit to build life would be, for example, the fifteen thousand inhabitants of Milazzo in the province of Messina. This, on the human scale, is ironic acrobatics, a juggler’s trick, an incomprehensible display of omnipotence-arrogance, since from this ever renewed impurity of the air we come, we animals and we plants, and we the human species, with our four billion discordant opinions, our milleniums of history, our wars and shames, nobility and pride. In any event, our very presence on the planet becomes laughable in geometric terms: if all of humanity, about 250 million tons, were distributed in a layer of homogeneous thickness on all the emergent lands, the ‘stature of man’ would not be visible to the naked eye; the thickness one would obtain would be around sixteen thousandths of a millimeter.” http://tinyurl.com/8tkrxc
And right before that, at the moment it enters the structures of life (a vine leaf), Levi says:
“Our atom of carbon enters the leaf, colliding with other innumerable (but here useless) molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. It adheres to a large and complicated molecule that activates it, and simultaneously receives the decisive message from the sky, in the flashing form of a packet of solar light: in an instant, like an insect caught by a spider, it is separated from its oxygen, combined with hydrogen and (one thinks) phosphorus, and finally inserted in a chain, whether long or short does not matter, but it is the chain of life. All this happens swiftly, in silence, at the temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, and gratis: dear colleagues, when we learn to do likewise we will be sicut Deus [like God], and we will have also solved the problem of hunger in the world.”
TLM (03:47:16) :
“Roy Spencer has done lots of research on this and his most recent post is very informative. In effect he is saying that it is almost impossible to differentiate the forcing effect of cloud cover from the feedback effect”
===============
The way I see it, his main point seems to be the opposite: that it IS indeed possible and he shows how.
He said that his paper “shows how one can tell the difference between cause and effect — between clouds causing a temperature change, and temperature causing a cloud change. And when this is done during the analysis of satellite data, it is clear that warming causes an increase in the sunshade effect of clouds.” http://tinyurl.com/cee2qj
And in his most recent post he repeats the point:
“This is the cause-versus-effect issue I have been harping on for years: You cannot measure cloud FEEDBACK (temperature changes causing cloud changes) unless you can quantify and remove the effect of internal radiative FORCING (cloud changes causing temperature changes). Causation in one direction must be accounted for in order to measure causation in the other direction.”
“We use a combination of (1) 9 years of global satellite data, (2) a simple forcing-feedback model of climate variability, and (3) output from the IPCC climate models, to demonstrate various aspects of this issue. We also show the only circumstances under which feedback CAN be measured in satellite data…and what that feedback looks like.” http://tinyurl.com/y34w6lc
Francisco,
OK on re-reading the Spencer blog articles it looks like he thinks he can calculate cloud feedbacks from the satellite data. I await the full article.
Meanwhile it does not answer the main point of my last post, which is that that most climatologists view this aspect of the earth’s environment as “weather” (or statistical noise) and that if you measure temperatures for long enough periods of time (30+ years) the effect of clouds, rain and water vapour average out and a temperature trend signal will become apparent.
Warming forced by CO2 (as opposed to natural internal variability) will have the following characteristics:
– More warming at night than during the day
– More warming in winter than in summer
– More warming at high latitudes than at low latitudes.
– More warming in the troposphere than in the Stratosphere.
Long-term temperature studies show that all of these effects are being seen. In order to effectively challenge that CO2 is changing our climate you will have to find another cause for these changes.
Mike (16:25:46) :
This is the absolute epitome of closed mindedness. To refuse to read the views of one’s adversaries on the grounds that do to would be akin to taking drugs or diving into a septic tank shows a weak mind and shallow spirit. I certainly don’t think kadaka’s mindset is typical of climate skeptics, at least I hope not.
That actually comes from a hard lesson learned about being too open-minded.
Some years ago, I was at Wal-Mart after work, tired, found a little book that purported to explain about Scientology, made by that group. Well, as I told myself, I should be open-minded, let them present their case. Got it, went home, started reading it. Had a lot of plausible ideas, things to wonder about, was quite a page-turner…
Something made me drop it. Literally. I became aware of pain. I could FEEL my mind warping. It needed time to get un-twisted and settled. Don’t remember where I chucked that little book, but I do know I have zero desire to look inside it again and give it another shot at me.
Plausible ideas, building on each other. Assembled by masters of propaganda who KNOW psychology and how to generate reactions. Held together with a promise that you, yes you, can do something great that will benefit yourself, your fellow man, even the entire world! As with a large stone that one cannot move with brute force, the cunning application of small wedges and slowly building pressures can shift it exactly where one wants it.
I see the packaging of CAGW, so like that used from cults to multi-level marketing schemes, and I am wary. Rather than being open minded and diving on in, I peruse the opinions and judgments of others as to its worth. Being open minded is not an absolute virtue that must be pursued for its own sake, as I have found. Approach cautiously, check for warning signs, then enter and investigate. Works for things from caves to abandoned houses to strange bars, so why not do so for wide-ranging concepts like CAGW?
Besides, you’ve made a very wrong assumption. I was open minded, I did read and listen, I was a believer in CAGW, as were many on this site. However I was saved from needing an “Omigod It’s All A Sham!” moment to snap out of it, because I researched too much. I saw how the IPCC reports said the warming would continue for a very long time, centuries or more, even if we shut down civilization tomorrow. Thus the ever-increasing hype of having to act now made no sense, as the warming was coming regardless, mitigation of the damage and adaptation to the changed climate was the only logical course. So I shut out the hype, then being open minded I started reading up on how shaky the CAGW foundation really was.
Now I am here. And you are over there. Do you enjoy the view?
@ur momisugly Anu,
Quote: ““….It’s no secret that meteorologists and geologists are the scientists that least agree with climate scientists about global warming.”
Anu, have a look at JamesE. Hansen’s latest award:
– 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, American Meteorological Society,
(http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/cv/cv_hansen_200912.pdf)
What are you talking about dude???
Re: Anu (20:42:04)
Oh my, it seems I have gotten you worked up.
…
TLM (03:47:16) :
“– rising temperatures are causing cloud to decline?
or
– falling cloud cover is causing temperatures to rise?
or
– neither, they are independent variables?”
Low clouds reflect solar energy. If solar energy does not reach the ground it cannot warm the surface.. It seems the physical nature of clouds reflecting radiation sould mean “falling cloud cover is causing temperatures to rise?”
Can’t see them as independent variables. Logically that is.
Also Cloud cover can explain warmer nights. Warmer winters (if they have lots of clouds…in winter thick clouds actually warm since there is less daylight and there cooling effect is now reversed to warming by retaining the heat…reflecting more IR than carbon dioxide can do, depending upon the type of cloud). It seems it can explain all your questions.
I do not have enough knowledge to know what forms the % of Clouds in the Tropics.
“– More warming at night than during the day
– More warming in winter than in summer
– More warming at high latitudes than at low latitudes.
– More warming in the troposphere than in the Stratosphere”
Clouds reflect IR back to Earth preventing it from reaching the CO2 in the Stratosphere and keeping that area cooler but warming the tropsphere.
I thought the graph of the clouds showing that a pattern can exist for decades might satisfy you. Also Cloud cover % is very recent measurements. We cannot go back to see how cloud cover has changed or if there are your 30 year cycles.
Still you have to answer what is holding the temperatures down for the last 10 years.
cohenite (01:15:06) :
Who cares about “a proper measure of the change in rate of warming” ? If each decade warmed at exactly 0.2° C, that would still make each new decade “the warmest on record”. A noticeable speedup in the underlying rate of warming is not expected for several more decades.
Also, arguing that the start/end points of a decade are not a true measure of the decade’s warming, would also have been a valid point of discussion.
“we are in a warming period which began in 1850” is not really a scientific explanation, now is it ?
That’s like a doctor telling you “your child is in a dying period, which began in January”. Not really a good diagnosis, although the prognosis sounds rather grim. The reason scientists use dozens of satellites, and thousands of measuring stations and ocean floats and balloons and aircraft and other such measuring operations, over many decades, is so they can say more than a post-Ice Age Cro-Magnon man – “We are in a warming period”.
Why and how now – that’s the question.
TLM (08:20:22),
The concept of the null hypothesis must be difficult for many people to understand, since so many can’t seem to grasp it. You say:
“In order to effectively challenge that CO2 is changing our climate you will have to find another cause for these changes.”
No, skeptics don’t “have to find another cause” for anything. Scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The purveyors of a new hypothesis must convincingly show that it explains reality better than the null hypothesis.
Those believing the CO2=CAGW hypothesis have the burden of showing that CO2 will cause runaway global warming, but they have consistently failed, without exception.
The climate is acting normally. You can pick any number of criteria that purport to show that CO2 causes global warming, but that is nothing more than the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.
I notice, for example, that you left out the major claim: that an increase in CO2 is followed by an increase in global temperature. That is not happening. Global temperatures vary up and down regardless of the steady increase in CO2, which is really a very minor component of the atmosphere: click
If CO2 forces global warming as you believe, then that force must be extremely weak, and easily overcome by many other climate forcings.
It is obvious that the effect of CO2 is so insignificant that it can be disregarded for all practical purposes.