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.
mikael pihlström (04:19:23) :
However, in the end it comes: the target of Lindzen & brothers is not mainly climate science is it? The real targets are groups, movements, politicians and public servants, who broadly speaking have a ‘Solidarity agenda’. The analysis behind is chilling, but correct; even a moderate ‘Solidarity agenda’ has difficulties, given the present dominance of cynical, conservative, non-egalitarian and national selfishness ideas. So if you are a privileged relatively affluent person who does not like taxes (dreams of bureaucrats) and on the other hand loves ‘freedom’ reigning in society as well as in nature, the worst thing now would be a surge of justified guilt feelings and then solidarity resulting from recognition of AGW.
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.
So now were supposed to call it the “Solidarity agenda”. Of all the euphemistic neologisms the statist collectivists have adopted for their soul killing philosophy I find this one the most egregious and offensive. I am old enough to remember when people first took to the streets under banners of “Solidarity”. They were protesting and dying to demand release from the tender mercies of a system whose philosophical descendants apparently now want to co-opt their banner to once again attempt to put fresh lipstick on the pig that is their anti-humanist creed. BTW, did you never ask yourself why, if these ideas are so wonderful for the humanity you are trying to convince to adopt them, they seem to require such frequent and obfuscatory renamings? Why they can never be called by anything that even remotely suggests their true intent?
From the tone of your comment I have to assume you are a relatively young person, who seems to suffer from the common belief of young people nowadays and perhaps always, that world snapped into existence at the moment of your birth. That everything that came before you was the primitive and ignorant ditherings of those incapable of the wisdom of your keen insights into the human condition. If you are old enough to have lived through any significant part of the last half of the 20th century and still clinging to the ideas you seem to promote, I have to assume you are an idiot. IMHO, anyone who is even remotely aware of the almost incalculable misery and death inflicted on the world by those who took your “Solidarity agenda” to its logical and inevitable conclusion i.e, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, etc.,and still clings to the possibility of a statist Utopia cannot be otherwise.
I’m sure you will argue that this current version is a much more kindly and benign form of tyranny, but it is still tyranny. If history has shown us anything, it’s that no matter how lightly the tyrant’s boot is placed upon our necks at the beginning, the pressure curve for that heel moves only one direction and tends to accelerate in a manner that makes Mann’s hockey stick look like the Nebraska plains.
You seem to be worried by a possible lack of resilience and sustainability in both humans and the planet, which makes your philosophical choices doubly curious, since the very institutions you suggest we should surrender our personal and national sovereignty too, are pretty much the pinnacle of anything humanity has ever created in terms of rigidity and unsustainablity.
“Mike (05:42:45) :
[…]
research. That’s who is running realclimate.org. Their site also has a lot of links to major research centers. See:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
It takes time and effort to do serious reading. […]”
The hardest part for me was understanding that in their papers they often present “evidence” as if they had measured it when they have in fact only MODELLED something with some computer program and interpreted the output of the program, calling it evidence.
House-Of-Cards-Science that. And often using euphemisms to hide the flakyness of their conjecture. If Gavin Schmidt at realclimate doesn’t delete your comments outright he’ll tell you that he’s got no time for people with an unscientific attitude (meaning skeptics) and points you to his collection of 800 AGW papers, all building on top of each other, with Bristlecone pine tree ring data and the climatological variant of statistics as the rock-solid foundation.
Mauna Loa is an extraordinarily poor place to measure CO2, being next to an adjacent Volcano and not exactly down from the prevailing trades. It is well within the atmospheric penumbra of Kilauea.
Anu (16:51:16) : The reason they divide Science up into different fields, is because one person has a difficult enough time mastering, and improving, his own field…Yup, different Professors for different fields. Sad but true…It’s no secret that meteorologists and geologists are the scientists that least agree with climate scientists about global warming…
________________
By this logic we should discount Arrhenius’ views on climate science because he was only a physical chemist? Both your argument and mine are based on the logical fallacy of argument to authority. the results opinion polls never change the underlying facts.
rw (10:45:34) :
Bill Tuttle:
“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?”
Which IPCC are you referring to? No IPCC that I know of has ever said such a thing.
Whooops. You’re right — the IPCC backed off on the catastrophic glacier melt and the catastrophic sea-level rise portions but remains steadfast in asserting that “anthropological influenced” atmospheric circulation is heating things up.
Hard to tell if the visiting AGW trolls are being obtuse, stupid or merely disingenuous in some of their postings. Francisco, just above, did a good job of explaining the “warmest decade” flap, but lets make it even more explicit:
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.
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.
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?
Bill Tuttle (06:38:07) :
“Malthusians make that argument. Most recently (and most famously), Paul Ehrlich claimed in 1968 that we’d all be freezing to death in the dark by 1980, and when that didn’t happen, he said he’d miscalculated, but we’d all be dying of starvation by 2000, and when that didn’t happen, he claimed he’d dropped a decimal, and we’d all be dead of the plague by 2010, and when that didn’t happen, he claimed he’d been misquoted all along”.
Malthus would have said that population is the problem, Paul Ehrlich that population+consumption
is the problem. I would say that excessive consumption is a problem, but have no issue with Lindzen on that topic.
My issue with Lindzen’s article and other non-alarmist stands is the dissemination of a complacent attitude to climate change: it is just normal variation. But, even if it was so, it would be normal variation (+ some effect from CO2 , Lindzer admits that much) in a real world of 6.8 billion people
and a global socio-ecological system with little inbuilt resilience. It is clear that moderate climate change will first affect people dependent on ecosystem-incomes; this translates into poor people in densely populated, coastal areas or drought sensitive areas.
Now, Lindzer’s ‘no cause for alarm’ message is of course directed at his opponents in the AGW debate. But, what he says has consequences beyond that, which he should have thought about.
In the latter part of his article, which is not even a necessary component,
in an article criticizing the science behind AGW, the reasons for his complacency and thoughtlessness seems to have connections to a
political agenda, which is not a solidarity agenda.
David Ball (07:18:52) :
“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 !!
David: it might be just you. Where do you find ‘cancel democracy’ in my text?
A C Osborn (07:23:46) :
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 there would be plenty of Food and Power to maintain the world population.
‘If we spend half the money’ arguments are useful, but often need more specification: who are ‘we’ and what spending category are we talking about. For the USA it could be: if you had spent half your current deficit (12 trillion) you could certainly do something effective about energy and partly food. Then the spending to cut would have been war costs, tax cuts for the
affluent, bailing out banks.
I think any saving in research budget is contradictory to using ‘ingenuity of man’ in solving problems? If you target climate research, it is a ridiculously small sum in view of your aim: 130-150 billion globally and total over time (source: Dave Wendt (00:57:07): DCC (23:14:27) :), and the figure probably contains a lot else than pure climate change research. In one single year the USA spends ca 370 billions on research – looking at the long run, from the sixties to today the big winners are Space research gradually replaced by Health research. Energy research is a small receiver and actually diminishing lately! I doubt if climate research would even be visible in a graph!
And I do not subscribe to your view that it is wasted. Although I try to be open-minded and realize that there are many unknown factors, I do believe that the current evidence supports AGW.
For food, ingenuity is not so helpful: food production always needs space, water and a suitable climate. So, I repeat my criticism of Lindzer’s complacent attitude to climate change on the grounds given above, especially in relation to food.
Generally, I think the debate on climate change research funding on this blog is not very thoughtful.
– climatologists are accused of supporting AGW theories for the sake of getting grants and therefore state 97 % belief that it is happening, when polled?
– but meteorologists and geologists also apply for grants and the topic can certainly be climate change, since it is a multidisciplinary research area
if any.
– so, the lesser belief in AGW in these groups, is probably due to different expertise and different backgrounds.
– do people here have experience of grant applications? You do not take a stand on AGW in the application, you do not speculate on the conclusions. The research question is rather neutral and the result and conclusions are
not predetermined in real science.
– science is a progressive venture; the funded areas should not be the same as in the 70’s. It is a good thing for everyone that science is now biting into complex dynamic systems in a cross-cutting way. Should we really ban research on the earth system?
@ur momisugly davidmhoffer (12:04:43) :
Unless there is a time lag. You know, the extra W/m^2 is hiding in the ocean. But the assumption is made that the extra energy is used to evaporate the ocean, and hence the positive feedback.
“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.”
Okay… I opt to start with one molecule of CO2. Two molecules would give 2 degrees of warming from whatever T(0) was. Four molecules, another two degrees. Eight molecules, another two degrees… By the time we get to a single mole of CO2, it’s getting pretty warm! How many moles of CO2 in a gigaton?
Seems to me there’s something a little “funny” about the “generally accepted answer”. There “must”(?) be some range within which “constant increase per doubling” works. Or what?
I’m not blaming Dr. Lindzen for this. Nice essay, Dr. Lindzen! Thanks for bringing it to us, Anthony!
Best,
Frank
rw (11:58:57) :
“Nothing changed in 1998. Warming continues”
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Kevin Trenberth – 2009
To resolve this “travesty,” Trenberth, goes on to claim that, since warming is needed by the theory, but warming can’t be found, and the theory is surely right, then: “the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
That’s cute. But your method of resolving the travesty is even cuter. The lack of warming of the last decade or so, implies (to you) that warming has continued all along. No need to check any data.
Elsewhere you declare that a 14 year trend is meaningless (if there is no warming). Ah, but a 20 year trend is pregnant with meaning, if there is warming
1. The 0.6-0.7 C of warming over the course of the 20th century is not reliable because the instrumental record prior to 1980 can only be believed on faith. It can’t be replicated because much of the data and treatment methods hve been “lost” or destroyed, or simply made up. It cannot be trusted in light of what we have learned over the last few months.
2. Even if that record were true, the amount of warming it shows is too small to be attributed to any specific cause. Any number of causes, or combination of them, could have produced it, including measurement errors.
3. Even if the record were true, and all of it could be attributed exclusively to CO2 increases, it would only show that the effect of CO2 increases over the course of the last century is much smaller on temperature than assumed, and not a cause of concern.
What we are left with is a 30-year satellite record that shows about 15-20 years of a warming trend, and 10-15 years of stasis. Whatever that means, if it means anything, is really anybody’s guess, which is why climate will continue to be an inexhaustible topic of discussion for the foreseeable future, and a goldmine for charlatans.
Dave F (15:59:10) :
@ur momisugly davidmhoffer (12:04:43) :
Unless there is a time lag. You know, the extra W/m^2 is hiding in the ocean. But the assumption is made that the extra energy is used to evaporate the ocean, and hence the positive feedback.>>
Which ocean is it hiding in? The ones showing decreased ocean heat content? Or the ones with increasing ice coverage on them? Are there some oceans I missed?
Extra energy going into evaporation and hence positive feedback? Yes… and as the forcing diminishes, the positive feedback driven by the forcing must also diminish… Or are you labouring under the impression that it will just take off on its own now?
Richard M (08:02:49) :
[…] long before ClimateGate and the ensuing highlighting of the IPCC lies.
===
Speaking of the IPCC “lies” … One of the most frequently repeated claims of the IPCC is that it is all “peer-reviewed”. A Citizen Audit of this claim has been conducted, and the results will be available next week.
Coming very soon to a monitor near you … “F21“.
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/coming-very-soon-to-a-monitor-near-you-f21/
@ur momisugly mikael pihlström (15:57:43) :
I don’t think that anyone was suggesting that we ban research. I think that we are suggesting more research.
Dave F (16:31:10) :
I don’t think that anyone was suggesting that we ban research. I think that we are suggesting more research.
It read ‘ban research on earth system?’ Inevitably, most of that would be
climate research.
Pascvaks (06:55:58) :
“wish someone would invent the flux capacitor…”
It’s called LENR and you can catch up with the 60 Minutes report on it:
mikael pihlström (15:53:25) :
So you are a Malthus fan. So what?
@ur momisugly kadaka (07:26:41) : “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, … You take realclimate, I’ll stick with Real Science.”
Why not read them both? That’s what I do. A. Watts probably does too.
@ur momisugly A C Osborn (07:30:30) : “All 97% of them have a vested interest in everybody believing their “story”.”
And the anti-AGW folks don’t? Don’t be naïve.
”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?”
If you will provide actual references I’ll look at them.
@ur momisuglyJosualdo (12:02:14) : “Suppose that the person there, instead of just eating too many sinful hamburgers and pizzas, was consulting on the need for a risky, very expensive surgery, of very dubious outcome? Or suppose he/she wasn’t even that sick — the hypochondria hypothesis above?”
What have you have said is that if we assume you are right (“suppose he/she wasn’t even that sick”), then we should bet that you will be right! Try that in Vegas. “But, I said suppose that the ball landed on 17, thus I win!” They’d carry you out.
To further the analogy, suppose you go to 10 qualified oncologists. Nine say there is a 95% chance your tumor will kill you without surgery, radiation and chemo, and a 20% chance you’ll die anyway. One, also well qualified, says you tumor will most likely go away on its own through the body’s self correcting mechanizes. It could happen. Such cases have been reported. It is a tough decision. Good luck.
One thing that is different about the climate change issue is that most of the uncertainty is in when rather than if CO2 emissions will cause serious environmental and economic damage.
@ur momisugly Richard M (08:02:49) :
Mike (19:53:31) ,
“If you’re going to come here and spout disinformation you will be called on it.”
Hmm?
“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.”
You do not give any evidence, like a source, for your first two claims. Let us know if you find a more recent study. You can read published paper here:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
I did not find the number “41” in it or the word “severe” in it. But, your point is silly: even Linzden admits he is in the minority. Otherwise we would not even be having this debate!
“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.”
I live in coal country in Southern Illinois. There is only one climatologist on our faculty. I have no idea what the opinions of my colleagues in the Math Dept are. Group-think happens when people only read one side.
“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?”
I think innuendo is silly. If you have facts, state them and document them. I read anti-AGW websites at conservative think tanks that are funded by big business. I’ll read anything.
Enjoy the weekend! The weather where I live is great! 🙂
DocMartyn,
I can get a really good fit to the Mauna Loa data by using an exponential function with a time constant that increases linearly with time. So what. It has no physical meaning. Does your model fit not only Mauna Loa but Law Dome as well using as input only total annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel, cement production and land use changes? Your model only works if you have a magical carbon sink with infinite capacity that has a rate constant of zero at ~280 ppm CO2. The real world doesn’t work that way. The 151,000 Tg of carbon that was emitted between 1959 and 2005 but isn’t in the atmosphere now went somewhere. It didn’t just go away and can’t be ignored.
Mike (18:15:33)
I feel left out. Why didn’t you respond to my question upthread, when you stated that 97% of all climatologists believe Prof Lindzen is wrong:
Still waiting for that list, and what 97% of all climatologists say Prof Lindzen is “wrong” about.
*
“Your Honor, my question goes to the credibility of the witness, Mr Mike.”
Mike (05:42:45) :
Fair enough.
I completely dispute any assertion that RealClimate represents any kind of 97% majority view however. To suggest so is to demonstrate your bias or ignorance. The only reason they have any kind of majority view is the rigorous and instant squashing of any kind of dissent. They actually represent a tiny but very vocal (and self-interested) minority in the field.
That 97% figure is unfounded AFIK. Can you justify it with hard data? No ‘consensus’ has ever been proved. The rigorous exclusion of dissenting papers from peer-reviewed journals (proven to be assisted by the same authors of RealClimate) has severely skewed the perception toward a bogus consensus to date.
For Smokey:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Read the source. If you decide you disagree with my use of it, fine. But read the source.
Would Linzden answer yes with this statement: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 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?
“DeWitt Payne (18:48:46) :
DocMartyn,
I can get a really good fit to the Mauna Loa data by using an exponential function with a time constant that increases linearly with time. So what. It has no physical meaning. Does your model fit not only Mauna Loa but Law Dome as well using as input only total annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel, cement production and land use changes? Your model only works if you have a magical carbon sink with infinite capacity that has a rate constant of zero at ~280 ppm CO2. The real world doesn’t work that way. The 151,000 Tg of carbon that was emitted between 1959 and 2005 but isn’t in the atmosphere now went somewhere. It didn’t just go away and can’t be ignored.
“I can get a really good fit to the Mauna Loa data by using an exponential function with a time constant that increases linearly with time.”
Where as a first order rate is the first tool used by kineticists, I used no trickery, just simple science and a simple model.
“Your model only works if you have a magical carbon sink with infinite capacity that has a rate constant of zero at ~280 ppm CO2.”
No, it is a steady state fit. The efflux has a constant rate, at steady state influx = efflux. STEADY STATE. You know, a DYNAMIC SYSTEM. Not an equilibrium, but a steady state.
At 80 ppm the t1/2 is 29 years, at 280 ppm its 29 years and at 2800 ppm its 29 years. It’s a rate. In units of time.
KINETICS; the study of rates of change.
“So what. It has no physical meaning.”
So you do not think that there are CO2 inputs into the atmosphere and fluxes from the atmosphere?
Or do I take it you believe that before burning fossil fuels there was some sort of constant level of atmospheric CO2, where each year the same amount of CO2 was added to the atmosphere as was removed? Same efflux rate as influx rate; that would be a steady state. Increase the influx and the steady state rises but the efflux rate stays the same.
“It didn’t just go away and can’t be ignored.”
You mean you want me to put it into a box?
I have a better suggesting. Do the fit yourself, all you need are the total levels of atmospheric carbon (about 750 Gt in 2006) and the human emissions since 1750 and fit the line shape of Keelings curves using as many boxes as you want. Then tell me how good you fit is.
The Earth has two tried and proven carbon sinks, plants and organic calcium carbonate. Recent evidence shows plants have increased in biomass by 25% in the last decade. I would expect a similar result of a study on mollusks and unadulterated corals.
Mike (19:36:29),
So now we’re down to only 77 climatologists from your previous claim of “all climatologists”?
Hmm-mm. Somehow your argument doesn’t seem so strong.