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.
rw (05:22:03) :
“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.”
No study worth the paper it is printed on has suggested such a thing. Recent work has found, in fact, that natural influences cannot explain recent global warming, and that it is vanishingly unlikely to be a statistical fluke. This is all well summarised by the IPCC’s last report.
Would that be the report that the IPCC said it would have to “do-over” because it was so riddled with unjustified assumptions and disproven claims that it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny?
rw (05:22:03) :
“In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption.”
Not really. Consumption doesn’t imply emission of CO2. “Sinful” is a very strange choice of word. All we need to do to avoid the possibility of triggering disastrous climate change is emit less CO2.
A carefully chosen word. As is “indulgences.” e.g. “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.”
AGW alarmists reflect the classic Roman church. They preach hellfire and damnation to extort indulgent taxes. A viable scheme until Luther had the audacity to nail 95 Theses to the church door. Lindzen, Luther… Can you grasp the parallel rw??
Human Beings are more like Lemmings than Lemmings are. When humans turn their brains off there’s just no stopping them. Perhaps, just perhaps, the voice of reason will one day prevail and people will see that there really is no difference between wanton stupidity and great causes like ‘Anthroprogenic Global Warming’. But, I really doubt that day will come. I fear the lesson we must learn will come at great cost of wealth and lives. Boy! I sure wish someone would discover the fluxcapacitor soon so we can all get out of here and back to the futrue.
Oh well, time to cut the lawn.
Gail Combs (18:57:34)
Kum Dollison (19:58:37)
One US Gallon of Ethanol energy content is approx 90MJ
Avg. male daily energy input req. is approx 13MJ
One US Gallon of Ethanol has approx 7 days energy content for avg. male?
“Solidarity agenda”. Hmmmmm. Is it just me, or does this seem like another way to say communism? Cancel democracy until we get this climate thingy sorted out? I’m thinking NO !!
” Simon Filiatrault (04:39:50) :
Could George E. Smith or Docmartyn, explain where they see this in the CO2 data?
” if you look up the Mauna Loa data on the NOAA web site; you will see that every year, ML sees a 6 ppm drop in CO2 in just 5 months ”
Looking at this graph
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
I don’t see any drop, just increase?
Please enlighten me… Thanks”
You see the red line? The red line shows that every year CO2 goes up/CO2 goes down. The blue line is the mean tread. The ‘saw-tooth’ pattern tells us that CO2 is under biotic control and that the system is very dynamic.
Plot the AMOUNT of carbon have generated vs. the atmospheric [CO2] and the two intercepts give you the natural background [CO2] levels (about 280ppm) and the intercpt on the x-axis give (-) natural carbon flux into the atmosphere.
The steady state [CO2] level is a function of two rates, the influx (conversion of plant material into CO2, burning fossil fuels and vulcanism) and efflux (fixation of carbon, mineralization of carbon). The saw-tooth tells us that biotic sequestration of CO2 is the major pathway.
If one were to take images of the whole Earth, with a chlorophyll filter, during the course of a year one would find that the chages in chlorophyll mirror the changes in the [CO2] psuedo-steady state. When [CO2] is going down at is fastest rate (July-Aug, Northern hemisphere summer), planetary photosynthesis is at its maximum.
mikael pihlström (04:19:23) : I think that you severely under-estimate the enginuity of man. If we could spend half the money being wasted on Climate research and Carbon Trading ther would be plenty of Food and Power to maintain the world population.
My take:
Geologists study earth… mostly think CAGW is bunk
Meteorologists study weather… mostly think CAGW is bunk
Climatologists study grant applications… mostly think whatever is necessary
From Mike (05:42:45) :
If you want to be open to new ideas, you should read the people who are creating new ideas, that is, the people doing the actual research. That’s who is running realclimate.org.
And at this point I know I can safely stop reading as nothing worthwhile can come from continuing. I’ll stick with reading the new ideas and new research found here at WUWT, where people are actually interested in finding out about how weather and climate works (among other puzzling things) rather than concentrated on continually propping up old concepts despite evidence that shows they are flawed because they are unable to admit the foundation of their mighty CAGW edifice could ever have even a single crack.
You take realclimate, I’ll stick with Real Science.
Good Professor Lindzen…if at equilibrium the earth then its “orbital” would be perfectly circular ☺. About “In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption This is the key of the problem, it has never be a scientific issue but a political one; now, to inmediately “cure” those “sinful levels of consumption” nothing better than to make a needed “economical shock”, as we called them in our SA past, what means to devaluate your currency to its REAL value, so you will face reality and, consequently, you will reach the actual consumption levels, then, you will soon recover your good habits of, blessed by God, “sinful levels of consumption” which are not sinful but in the mind of those intoxicated with poisonus Kool-Aid.
Mike (05:42:45) :
I am saying they should read the views of other climatologists too, 97% of whom believe Linzden is wrong.
All 97% of them have a vested interest in everybody believing their “story”.
If you have read the latest research which refutes practically every part of the story I am amazed you can still believe in it yourself.
As a mathematician have a look at chiefio’s work on the Temperature Record that supposedly underpins CAGW.
Also take a look at Bart’s Thread where VS and Tim Cullin Statistically prove that there is NO CORRELATION between CO2 and Temperature eithe rGlobally or locally.
But of course you will choose not to believe them won’t you?
Dear Anthony,
I saw your insertion in the context of Lindzen’s theory of the Faint Young Sun Paradox —
[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]
I am a little confused about this. Although I’m just a layperson, it appears to me that whilst it’s true that neither theory involves greenhouse gases in the explanation, Lindzen’s theory that the Faint Young Sun Paradox can be resolved by assuming negative cloud feedbacks is not compatible with the Stanford theory you refer to that the Faint Young Sun Paradox can be resolved by appeal to differences in surface albedo.
I am concerned that either I have misunderstood this, or that your note may be misleading.
(It would be great, of course, to know if Dr. Lindzen himself sees this Stanford theory as supporting his own theory.)
Anyhow, thanks; I always enjoy the posts here.
Best regards,
Alex Harvey
We really need to understand if water vapour and clouds are reacting the way the theory and the climate models predict.
The feedback of water vapour makes up more than half of the total warming expected. It is a make or break factor along with clouds.
But there is no solid data regarding the trends. At this point in this important debate, it is remarkable that we are still relying on theory and a few old water vapour equations that do not consistently reflect the real world climate anyway.
The only data we do have shows declining water vapour levels (in the lower atmosphere, troposphere and stratosphere, surface is rising though) and declining overall cloudiness levels. [There is an occasional study showing water vapour changes from an ENSO but this is nothing to go on since the data is too short and contradicts some predictions of the models anyway].
Since it is warming somewhat, GHGs are likely responsible for some of that, but we need to know if the bigger-impact feedback effects are actually ocurring (and what sign they have in the real world). We can’t even answer those questions.
Even more clarity can be found in this lecture video by Dr. Lindzen:
Richard: Nice article. I notice you had Mike Sullivan circling the wagons with a group-think defense in the Daily Egyptian. But he’s only a mathematician. (/Troll) This climate scandal has finally penetrated the non-climate scientific circle that I run in. About a year ago, people thought I was a Ron Paul supporter for questioning the climate “consensus”. Now, the scientist in them is taking over and they’re seeing the foolishness. I hope your short explanation gets a wider play than the local paper.
Mike (19:53:31) ,
If you’re going to come here and spout disinformation you will be called on it.
Obviously you never looked at the survey you quote. Did you know that Lindzen would fall into the 97% number? Did you know that only 41% of the surveyed scientists thought AGW was a SEVERE problem? Now, keep in mind this survey was take 3-4 years ago, long before ClimateGate and the ensuing highlighting of the IPCC lies.
I think we once again see group-think in action. Even though folks like Mike are intelligent they never take the time to apply critical thinking to this issue because they live in any environment where AGW is accepted as fact.
The bottom line is Mike ends up looking silly when he tries to foster his group-think on those who actually have applied critical thinking to the topic.
As for Realclimate … well, those of us here know who funds that website, do you?
Anu once again tries the appeal to authority game, obviously not understanding that most of the older generation scientists in climate do not have a climate science degree because it simply did not exist.
I guess we can all now safely ignore James Hansen as well. Is that right, Anu?
Maybe it would be useful to see what RealClimate is saying about Lindzen behind closed doors: “Fortunately, these two are clowns, neither remotely as sharp as Lindzen or as slick as Michaels” – Michael Mann, Climategate email 1060002347.txt. I hate to attempt parsing climate researchers because they’re seldom taken “in context,” but that sounds to me like the authors of Realclimate are forced to do some heavy lifting before they publicly dismiss Lindzen’s arguments with a condescending pat on the head (they probably have to search for some obscure paper that somehow slipped past peer-review and is therefore beyond reproach). Since true genius in this world is in short supply, I don’t really care that Lindzen supposedly disagrees with 97% of his colleagues.
Dave F;
I was saying it is possible that the feedbacks are worse than anticipated, which I also doubt, but the fact that we have experienced 86% of calculated effects proves nothing one way or another>>
Right. It proves nothing one way or the other. The point is that if the theory is correct, then the next century of emissions will have a fraction of the effect of the last century. The century after that a fraction of a fraction. Any feedback loops must also fall in effect because if their driving factor is forcing from CO2, then the driving factor is dropping. So go with “worst case scenario” of 4.5 degrees for co2 doubling from 280 to 560. We’re at 380 and 86% of that so:
Last century +100ppm (380) => +3.9 degrees
next century +100ppm (480) => + 0.4
another century +100ppm (580) => +0.2
another centrury +100ppm(680) => +0.1
My math is rough guestimates but close enbough to make the point. The worst case scenario theory as presented by the IPCC, feedbacks included, shows that if they are correct, we’ve incurred +3.9 degrees from the last century of emissions. Another THREE centuries at the same rate of emissions, adds only (feedbacks included) another 0.7 degrees.
So in the WORST CASE scenario, the bulk of the damage is DONE and adding THREE TIMES as much CO2 to the atmosphere as we already have has a FRACTION of the effect of what we have already done.
By way of analogy, when you take out a mortgage on a house, your first payment might be 99% interest and 1% principal. So for your first $1000 payment, the bank gets $990 and you get to build up equity in your house of a whopping $10. Good deal for the bank. By the end of the mortgage, the bank is only getting $10 in interest, your equity is is going up by $990. The dollars per month hasn’t changed, but the bank isn’t making very much money any more because their profitability on the loan keeps diminishing over time. Triple your payments at the start of the mortgage, and you make a GIGANTIC difference to how much goes into interest. Triple your payments in the last 10% of the mortgage payments and the amount of interest you save is negligible.
What ever “harm” is coming from increased CO2, we have already “bought” most of what we are EVER going to get. We’ve paid down the morgage to the point that the monthly interest is tiny compared to the monthly payment, and increasing or decreasing the payment at this point makes diddly squat difference in comparison to the interest we have already paid.
And that’s the WORST CASE scenario.
@kwik (04:43:49) :”DCC (19:58:24) asked : “My research says those combined costs in 2005 dollars were 22+132= $154 billion dollars. How much are you assuming has been spent on climate research?”
kwik replied: “Here is another post on Climate Research cost;
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/”
Thanks. “$79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.” That’s only US government funding. Looks like worldwide the figure could easily reach $150 billion or so.
Simon Filiatrault (04:39:50) :
“I don’t see any drop, just increase?”
You’re looking at the black line, which is annually averaged.
If you look at the red line, you’ll see a regular drop once every year.
@Mike quoted DCC: “If your arguments were not so ludicrous, I might feel sorry for you both. Please do not tell us what school or university you people inhabit. It would be very bad publicity for the campus.”
To which Mike replied: “Now who is being ‘ad hominem’?”
Oh dear, Mike. I simply suggested that you are a poor representative for your campus. That is unrelated to an ad hominem. You best let this quicksand rest.
George E. Smith (16:44:53) :
“”” Edward Bancroft (15:44:45) :
“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.” Something is puzzling me over the effects that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will bring. If the following question is nonsense, please feel free to correct any assumptions.
CO2 is an IR-reactive molecule, converting incoming radiant daytime IR energy to kinetic temperature energy thereby heating the surrounding N2/O2 (non-IR reactive) atmospheric gases. Does CO2 also cool those same N2/O2 gases by emitting IR at night, when there is no incoming IR from the Earth’s surface?
If this is true, then is there a balancing equilibrium, more CO2 means more heat absorbed by day, but (equally?) more lost at night? “””
Well Edward, you have things scramble up a bit.
CO2 has very little (but not zero) interraction with incoming sunlight. The effect is small enough to ignore relative to more important effects. Water vapor on the other hand interracts significantly with incoming sunlight, and may absorb as much as 20% of it; and that WILL warm the atmosphere (N2 and O2) by collisions (conduction).
CO2 has its main influence in that it absorbs well over parts of the spectrum of long wave Infra-red thermal radiation emitted from the earth’s surfaces, and from the lower atmosphere. It is the interference with the exit of that radiation that caises a resulting atmospheric warming.
Once again water vapor (H2O) does exactly the same thing; only moreso than carbon dioxide; and it is also much more abundant in the atmosphere; even over the most arid deserts.
You shouldn’t be looking at things happening in daylight and different things happening at night.
The sun strongly heats the desert ground during the mid-day , in tropical areas. But those surfaces do NOT wait till after sunset and then somehow switch to radiators that emit energy at night. In fact they emit far more energy in the middle of the day that they do at night; so those hot surfaces in the daytime, are the most efficient radiation coolers on the planet. At night when they are cooler (from loss of energy) they are far less effective as radiators so do much less cooling at night than in the day time.
George E Smith,
I read your reply to Edward Bancroft (not sure if you will look at this but if you do). I was thinking in similar lines as Edward but opposite. I was working on the idea that CO2 can cool the air at night by the opposite process Mr. Bancroft suggested. The CO2 will warm the air by trapping the ground IR radiation, I believe this is the established part of the AGW theory both day and night. But N2 and O2 are mostly IR inert, they neither absorb nor emit IR (based upon the electrial nature of the molecule…symetrical). Warming ground warms these inert molecules by Conduction, then they transfer a lot of heat to higher levels of the Troposphere via Convection (carries a lot more energy in air then conduction….air is a very good heat insulator). But once that warm air is at higher levels it will not drop down and once equilibrium is reached with the surrounding air then you have a warmer layer above at night. The air next to the ground at night will cool by conduction but a reverse convection will not take place (the ground cools by radiation loss). But will not the O2 and N2 in the upper Troposphere (warmed by daytime convection) bump into CO2 and Water Vapor causing them to vibrate and give off IR. The IR can go both up and down so some of this stored heat energy in the nonreactive gases will go down but the other will go up. Since they would stay warm without the CO2 and Water Vapor (only cooling very slowly via conduction) doesn’t the CO2 also have this cooling effect as well as the warming? I really do not know that it the reason for asking. Thanks to anyone with an answer!
@ur momisugly mikael pihlström (04:19:23) who said:”But even if, (1) anthropogenic emissions would have little to do with climate change, (2) the climate change in the next 100 years will be moderate, we have to face the fact that our Earth system (includes people) is not resilient nor sustainable in view of resource use, and the energy question is critical. We cannot solve this equation without a Solidarity agenda.”
Why does your conclusion scare the poop out of me? Perhaps that’s what you intended, but I assure you it does not convince me to join the AGW bandwagon, “justified guilt feelings” notwithstanding. I much prefer a moderate increase in temperature to suffering in the cold or spending trillions for something everyone agrees cannot rationally be accomplished. If, instead, you are arguing for efforts to alleviate human suffering, Bill Gates and I are on your side. Just don’t cloak it in irrational fears.
@Anu (16:51:16) :
Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT.
Well, that sounds much more appropriate for climatology than
“Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology”
Which he is.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm
================
The notion that Lindzen is “only” a meteorologist and not a “real” climatologist is an amusing crock often used by warmists. James Hansen’s training is in physics and astronomy. And I wonder how many of the high priests of climate science have a PhD in climatology. When was the first time that a PhD in climatology was issued?
Atmospheric sciences, by the way, encompass both meteorology and climatology, and many departments where these things are taught, such as at MIT, are called “Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences” or just “Atmospheric Sciences”
Georgia’s state climatologist, David Stooksbury says the following:
“The difference [between meteorology and climatology] is more historical than modern. Climatology came out of geography and meteorology came out of physics, but modern climatology and modern meteorology have merged to the point that the distinction is mostly a question of time scale. […] Meteorology deals with the weather, what’s happening right now and for maybe 48 or 72 hours. Anything beyond that would be considered climatology.”
http://www.uga.edu/columns/001030/campnews1.html
Now, on Lindzen’s MIT page, which you link, we read that Lindzen’s research involves studies on, among other things:
“…the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity […] the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, […] the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. […] models for the Earth’s climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate.”
So the notion that Lindzen is a weatherman unfamiliar with climatology is… well, one of those robotic reflexes that “warming enthusiasts” pull when they have nothing of any substance to say, which is most of the time.