Reposted from Populartechnology.net by invitation
Seven Eminent Physicists; Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin (Nobel Prize), Edward Teller, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg all skeptical of “man-made” global warming (AGW) alarm.
Freeman Dyson, Scholar, Winchester College (1936-1941), B.A. Mathematics, Cambridge University (1945), Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University (1946–1947), Commonwealth Fellow, Cornell University, (1947–1948), Commonwealth Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1948–1949), Research Fellow, University of Birmingham (1949–1951), Professor of Physics, Cornell University (1951-1953), Fellow, Royal Society (1952), Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1953-1994), Chairman, Federation of American Scientists (1962-1963), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1964), Danny Heineman Prize, American Physical Society (1965), Lorentz Medal, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1966), Visiting Professor, Yeshiva University (1967-1968), Hughes Medal, The Royal Society (1968), Max Planck Medal, German Physical Society (1969), J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize (1970), Visiting Professor, Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (1974-1975), Corresponding Member, Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1975), Harvey Prize (1977), Wolf Prize in Physics (1981), Andrew Gemant Award, American Institute of Physics (1988), Enrico Fermi Award, United States Department of Energy (1993), Professor Emeritus of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1994-Present), Member, London Mathematical Society (2000), Member, NASA Advisory Council (2001-2003), President, Space Studies Institute (2003-Present)
Notable: Unification of Quantum Electrodynamics Theory.
Signed: Global Warming Petition Project
“My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.” – Freeman Dyson
Ivar Giaever, M.E., Norwegian Institute of Technology (1952), Ph.D. Theoretical Physics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1964), Engineer, Advanced Engineering Program, General Electric Company (1954–1956), Applied Mathematician, Research and Development Center, General Electric Company (1956–1958), Researcher, Research and Development Center, General Electric Company (1958–1988), Guggenheim Fellowship, Biophysics, Cambridge University (1969-1970), Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1965), Nobel Prize in Physics (1973), Member, American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1974), Member, National Academy of Science (1974), Member, National Academy of Engineering (1975), Adjunct Professor of Physics, University of California, San Diego (1975), Visiting Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies (1975), Professor of Physics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1988-2005), Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Applied BioPhysics (1991-Present), Professor Emeritus of Physics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2005-Present)
Notable: Nobel Prize in Physics.
“I’m a skeptic. …Global Warming it’s become a new religion. You’re not supposed to be against Global Warming. You have basically no choice. And I tell you how many scientists support that. But the number of scientists is not important. The only thing that’s important is if the scientists are correct; that’s the important part.” – Ivar Giaever
Robert Laughlin, A.B. Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley (1972), Ph.D. Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979), Fellow, IBM (1976-1978), Postdoctoral Member, Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories (1979–1981), Research Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1982–2004), Associate Professor of Physics, Stanford University (1985–1989), E.O. Lawrence Award for Physics (1985), Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1986), Eastman Kodak Lecturer, University of Rochester (1989), Professor of Physics, Stanford University (1989–1993), Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1990), Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics, Stanford University (1992–Present), Professor of Applied Physics, Stanford University (1993-2007), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1994), Nobel Prize in Physics (1998), Board Member, Science Foundation Ireland (2002-2003), President, Asia-Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (2004-2006), President, Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (2004–2006)
Notable: Nobel Prize in Physics.
“The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we’re gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control.” – Robert Laughlin
Edward Teller, B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Karlsruhe (1928), Ph.D. Physics, University of Leipzig (1930), Research Associate, University of Leipzig (1929–1931), Research Associate, University of Göttingen (1931–1933), Rockefeller Fellow, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen (1933–1934), Lecturer, London City College (1934), Professor of Physics, George Washington University (1935-1941), Researcher, Manhattan Project, Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory (1942-1943), Group Leader, Manhattan Project, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943-1946), Professor of Physics, University of Chicago (1946-1952), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1948), Assistant Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1949-1952), Developer, Hydrogen Bomb (1951), Founder, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1952), Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1953-1975), Associate Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1954–1958), Harrison Medal (1955), Albert Einstein Award (1958), Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1958-1960), Professor, Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace, Stanford University (1960–1975), Enrico Fermi Award, United States Atomic Energy Commission (1962), Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution (1975-2003), Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1975–2003), National Medal of Science (1982), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2003), (Died: September 9, 2003)
Notable: Manhattan Project Member, Developer of the Hydrogen Bomb and Founder of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
Signed: Global Warming Petition Project
“Society’s emissions of carbon dioxide may or may not turn out to have something significant to do with global warming–the jury is still out.” – Edward Teller
Frederick Seitz, A.B. Mathematics, Stanford University (1932), Ph.D. Physics, Princeton University (1934), Proctor Fellow, Princeton University (1934–1935), Instructor in Physics, University of Rochester (1935–1936), Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Rochester (1936–1937), Research Physicist, General Electric Company (1937–1939), Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania (1939–1941), Associate Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania (1941-1942), Professor of Physics, Carnegie Institute of Technology (1942-1949), Research Professor of Physics, University of Illinois (1949-1965), Chairman, American Institute of Physics (1954-1960), President Emeritus, American Physical Society (1961), President Emeritus, National Academy of Sciences (1962-1969), Graduate College Dean, University of Illinois (1964-1965), President Emeritus, Rockefeller University (1968-1978), Franklin Medal (1965), American Institute of Physics Compton Medal (1970), National Medal of Science (1973), (Died: March 2, 2008)
Notable: Pioneer in the field of solid-state physics and President Emeritus of the National Academy of Sciences.
Signed: Global Warming Petition Project
“Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.” – Frederick Seitz
Robert Jastrow, A.B. Physics, Columbia University (1944), A.M. Physics, Columbia University (1945), Ph.D. Physics, Columbia University (1948), Adjunct Professor of Geophysics, Columbia University (1944–1982), Postdoctoral Fellow, Leiden University, Netherlands (1948-1949), Scholar, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1949-1950, 1953), Assistant Professor of Physics, Yale (1953-1954), Chief, NASA Theoretical Division (1958-61), Founding Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (1961-1981), NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement (1968), Professor of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College (1981-1992), Chairman, Mount Wilson Institute (1992–2003), (Died: February 8, 2008)
Notable: Founding Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and hosted more than 100 CBS-TV network programs on space science.
Signed: Global Warming Petition Project
“The scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities.” – Robert Jastrow
William Nierenberg, B.S. Physics, City College of New York (1939), M.A. Physics, Columbia University (1942), Ph.D. Physics, Columbia University (1947), Researcher, Manhattan Project, Columbia SAM Laboratories (1942-1945), Instructor in Physics, Columbia University (1946–1948), Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Michigan (1948–1950), Associate Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1950-1953), Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1954–1965), Assistant Secretary General for Scientific Affairs, NATO (1960-1962), Director Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1965-1986), Member, White House Task Force on Oceanography (1969-1970), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1971), Chairman, National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere (1971-1975), Member, National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere (1971–1978), Member, National Science Board (1972–1978, 1982–1988), Chairman, Advisory Council, NASA (1978-1982), Member, Space Panel, Naval Studies Board, National Research Council (1978–1984), Member, Council of the National Academy of Sciences (1979-1982), Chairman, Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, National Academy of Sciences (1980–1983), NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1982), (Died: September 10, 2000)
Notable: Manhattan Project Member and Director Emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Signed: Global Warming Petition Project
“The available data on climate change, however, do not support these predictions, nor do they support the idea that human activity has caused, or will cause, a dangerous increase in global temperatures. …These facts indicate that theoretical estimates of the greenhouse problem have greatly exaggerated its seriousness.” – William Nierenberg
Peer-Reviewed Climate Publications:
Can we control the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
(Energy, Volume 2, Issue 3, pp. 287-291, September 1977)
– Freeman J. Dyson
Evidence for long-term brightness changes of solar-type stars
(Nature, Volume 348, Number 6301, pp. 520-523, December 1990)
– Robert Jastrow
Evidence on the climate impact of solar variations
(Energy, Volume 18, Issue 12, pp. 1285-1295, December 1993)
– Robert Jastrow
Global warming: What does the science tell us?
(Energy, Volume 16, Issues 11-12, pp. 1331-1345, November-December 1991)
– Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg, Frederick Seitz
Keeping cool on global warming
(The Electricity Journal, Volume 5, Issue 6, pp. 32-41, July 1992)
– Frederick Seitz, William Nierenberg, Robert Jastrow
Rebuttals:
A Rebuttal to “Jason and the Secret Climate Change War” (PDF) (Nicolas Nierenberg, Walter R. Tschinkel, Victoria J. Tschinkel)
Clouding the Truth: A Critique of Merchants of Doubt (PDF) (The Marshall Institute)
Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate (PDF) (Nicolas Nierenberg, Walter R. Tschinkel, Victoria J. Tschinkel)
Vanity Scare (TCS Daily)
References:
2008 – 58th Meeting of Nobel Laureates (PDF) (University of Hartford)
Do people cause global warming? (The Heartland Institute)
Heretical thoughts about science and society (Edge: The Third Culture)
Letter from Frederick Seitz (Petition Project)
The Planet Needs a Sunscreen (The Wall Street Journal)
What the Earth Knows (The American Scholar)
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Freeman Dyson is the coolest egghead evah.
Wonderful!
Hey, what about me?
============
A few adults have come down stairs to see what the kids are up to.
There will doubtless be hundreds of AGW-sceptical scientists out there – the AGW science is just too weak and blatantly corrupted for it to be otherwise. Some of these sceptics will be keeping quiet in return for a quiet life and steady career. Some will be disingenuously pushing the alarm button in return for ever more grants. Some will be in a state of denial over their inner doubts about AGW in order to sleep at night whilst riding the alarmist train. And many, like those men featured above, will speak out in the face of threats and ostracism simply because they have a conscience and because it is the right thing to do.
Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies, one cannot help thinking of the remark of Max Planck:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?
But,but they aren’t Climate Scientists! like AlGor-oh wait …
Never Miiind. (Channelling Emily Litella)…
An excellent piece recently published by Robert Laughlin:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/what-the-earth-knows/
I don’t believe that the number of scientist that believe in a particular theory is germane.
When Albert Einstein was
informed of the publication of a book entitled 100 Authors
Against Einstein, he is said to have remarked, “If I were wrong,
then one would have been enough (Hawking, 1988); however,
that one opposing scientist would have needed proof in the form
of testable results.”
That brings us to the big lack in the climate alarmists argument, the lack of testable results. Since we don’t have a spare earth to experiment on we must use models which will only be testable if they are correct in 100 years.
So far they haven’t predicted the lack of “statistically significant” warming since 1995 very well. Statistically significant means that getting excited over a .1 ° C rise in 10 years makes no sense if many years rise or lower by .4 ° C from previous ones.
Dyson’s video is well worth watching on poptech.
I have to comment here if only to be in such exalted company.
The words and qualifications are the thing, just wish the message these Gentlemen are sending will be heard in the MSM…….oh yeah………..but “the science is settled!”
Any sane politicians listening?
Is there such a thing as a sane politician?
Not in Britain seemingly.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/march-of-progress.html
Sigh!
You don’t have to be a “climate scientist” to understand the basic tenets of science. I think things are summarized best by “Sometimes you know what you don’t know and sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know”.
Good collection, but what organization awards the “Noble Prize”?
Surely, all are (or were) in the employ of Big Oil, besides being just old (or deceased) white men. Sarc/off
“The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we’re gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control.” – Robert Laughlin.
Well said! Maybe the ignorant Media and climatology modellers should be taught a bit of geology to show that Redwood like forests existed 45 million years ago within the Arctic Circle about 1000 miles away from present day living trees. But don’t expect these so called climatologists to admit it when their grant money might be in danger of disappearing. As for the media, bad news always outsells good news.
So the Science is only “settled” when you ignore the views of unsettling Scientists and any studies that indicate alternative theories, is that it?
On such “incontrovertible” and “robust” foundations we have erected castles-in-the-sky, resource-sapping cathedrals and self-congratulationary monuments to hubristic
fantasies and greed that demand no less than a full suspension of disbelief.
I have little problem with the politicos who wash down their trough foraging with this swill. They meet my expectations, in general, and I occasionally experience pleasurable twinges when the odd individual sticks a brave neck out.
I can’t even find it in me to blame the silent majority of Scientists who, er keep silent, can’t afford to rock the good ship, SS Government Funding.
I have nothing other than bilious contempt for those who’ve hijacked the educational establishment to brainwash a generation of children with a brand of nihilism and propoganda
that shamelessly pushes political propoganda before dispassionate and objective learning.
A “bit” at odds with the official policy of the American Physical Society. I guess the membership’s attempt to retract the 2007 statement ended with the update in April 2010.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm should have a link here, and now it does. 🙂
The long list of Scientists, cv’s and their skeptical quotes about climate should be gathered and an article written about it. This should give public opinion a great balance about the established idea of how scientists “major” support the AGW idea….
It took the physicists to fully question Cold Fusion as well. Perhaps they have a little more humility and are more demanding of themselves and others in the face of nonlinear dynamics and complexity.
They are true scientists in every respect, and as such can’t be trusted.
How possibly could they compete in physics and chemistry with a railway engineer?
AGW proponents say: certainly not, no contest; the Indian railway’s (the envy of the western world) expert wins hands down.
Re: Toby
Wow. You’ve convinced me with your infallible logic. From now on I will never believe anything said by any scientist who has received funding from any industry. I will only believe scientists who, throughout their career, have only had funding from special interest groups and government (who as we all know are completely neutral). I wont bother investigating any of the science behind their claims, I’ll just dismiss any claims they make.
I sometimes wonder if anyone has done the 8th-grade calculation regarding feedback. The way a History graduate would look at basic demographics. Wait — I am a history graduate (M.A., Columbia University, 1985). So I’ll take an 8th-grade look. I won’t even use algebra (though one could).
Let us consider the gross factors.
— We have a 40% increase in CO2.
I will stipulate this. We add c. 7 Bil. Metric Tons Carbon to the atmosphere annually. Somewhat over half this is absorbed by land and sea sinks. The rest accumulates in the atmospheric sink (which contains c. 750 BMTC). The amount absorbed is variable and the persistence of CO2 (long or short) are factors, but the basic fact, confirmed by independent measurements so far show we are — at this point — increasing atmospheric CO2 at 0.4% per year.
— There has been some warming this century. How much is at issue.
Adjusted data shows a global increase of roughly 0.7C. We do not know what the raw data shows. However, it is a fact that if one takes a straight average of USHCN stations for the 20th century, one finds that raw data shows a trend of +0.14C per station average and adjusted data is +0.59. If you grid the data, you get roughly +0.25C raw vs. +0.72 adjusted. So we can infer, until such a time that the raw data is actually available, that global raw vs. global adjusted will tell us roughly the same story.
— A doubling of CO2 without any feedback (positive or negative) is roughly a +1.2C forcing.
Again, this is not without dispute. But as it is accepted by Drs. Spencer, Christy, and Lindzen, we will stipulate that it is enough to be going along with at this time.
— There are factors other than CO2 that produce warming.
We’ll consider land use (as endorsed by Dr. Pielke) and “black carbon”, which creates the “dirty snow” phenomenon in the Arctic (reducing albedo by c. 3% and having a “salt-in-the-driveway” effect).
— There is a natural warming trend going back to 1650 roughly equivalent to 20th century warming.
We have to rely on proxy data, and there is controversy concerning the historical record. However, we can reasonably infer that at least part of 20th century warming is natural (especially when one examines the period from 1920 – 1940).
So, we have as our working figures pro tem:
— A 40% increase in CO2.
— A temperature increase of roughly +0.25C (raw), and +0.72 (adjusted).
— +1.2C warming (without feedback) per doubling of CO2.
— Warming from other (non-CO2) anthropogenic factors.
— Some natural warming.
Well, as we look at it with our 8th-grader minds, we can see that a 40% increase in CO2 will produce around a +0.6C forcing. That is well in excess of raw temperature increase and nearly equal to adjusted temperature increase. And this is on top of some natural warming and non-CO2 anthropogenic warming.
The IPCC mainstream estimate indicates that positive feed back will almost triple the raw warming effects of CO2. So a CO2 forcing of 0.6C should produce an increase in temperatures of c. +1.5C. (Or at least some magnification even if the effect is not proportional.) This has not happened.
Therefore, one may reasonably conclude, for now, that observational data is not consistent with any positive CO2 feedback so far and that it is possible, even likely (depending on the degree of natural and non-CO2 manmade warming) that there has been at least some negative feedback.
The view of the eminent scientists is heart warming, but
“Water is the driver of nature” ; Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
Only about 0.001 percent of the total Earth’s water is in the atmosphere, with a the residence time of about 9 to 10 days. The replacement comes mainly from the ocean, which have an average depth of 3800 meters and a temperature of 4° Celsius. The climate change issue would be served decisively if the ocean would be much more in focus.
John of Cloverdale WA says:
July 25, 2010 at 8:03 am
“… Redwood like forests existed 45 million years ago within the Arctic Circle …”
The Dye 3 ice core from southern Greenland has basal forest remains with an estimated age of ~450,000 years (a little closer to present day).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2694912/
after hearing the first of the reith Lectures on ABC Radio National in Aus theis arvo,
I,d love to get this on their screens, however R Williams is so ardent a warmie I doubt it would get a passing derisory mention:-(
Please read the links in the Rebuttals section debunking the Tobacco smears, especially
‘Clouding the Truth: A Critique of Merchants of Doubt’ and ‘Vanity Scare’.
“Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.” – Frederick Seitz
===========================================================
In any other time, on any other planet, warmer and more plants would be a good thing.
That’s what is so confusing to me. Obviously warmists are not sensible people, because any sensible person would be all for it. Considering our planet has spent most of it’s time very cold.
That is only if you believe that CO2 carries that much weight in the first place.
Here is an excert from ‘Vanity Scare’ regarding Dr. Seitz,
Teller, Seitz, Jastrow, and Nierenberg are all deceased, so describing them as present tense skeptical of AGW is not correct. They were when they were alive, but they are not alive now-which doesn’t mean they believe now, it’s just not normal to use the present tense when speaking of the dead.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
“Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies,”
1) prove that they were paid by tobacco companies
2) prove that they were paid “shills” of the tobacco companies – keeping in mind that you must prove that they knew they were just saying whatever the tobacco companies wanted them to say and that they didn’t really believe it.
3) and while you’re at it, prove that whatever it was that the tobacco companies were alledgely paying them to say, was in fact, false.
for the record, i think smoking is disgusting and stupid and have never smoked. my interest is in the truth regardless of what that truth may be or whether i might find it unpleasant.
Okay, HURRY, get those names on the Black List!
Cannot have them running around publishing any papers! We need to know who they are, so we can stop them in the Peer review process!!!
What? Some magazine might take their papers anyway???? Then boycott that paper.
Casper says on July 25, 2010 at 7:57 am
Those are the real Nobel Prizes, not the other ones that are more like encouragement prizes given out during graduation.
Have the likes of Stephen Hawking or Roger Penrose ever aired their thoughts on AGW?
The peer-reviewed articles given are dated 1977-1993. The newest is
seventeen years old. A lot of new research has been done meanwhile.
I do know that Dyson’s dissent is more recent.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
“Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies,
Reply:
Have you read the rebuttals?
Teller (Dr. Strangelove) was one of the original global warming alarmists- going back to the 1950s. As he got older, he got a little smarter.
Richard Sharpe says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:04 am
Casper says on July 25, 2010 at 7:57 am
Good collection, but what organization awards the “Noble Prize”?
Those are the real Nobel Prizes, not the other ones that are more like encouragement prizes given out during graduation.
I think he was trying to point out the typo…;)
Physicists V ‘Calamtalogy‘? Who will win out? Time will tell.
evanmjones says: July 25, 2010 at 8:44 am
… Something about being in 8th grade, but it was difficult to follow.
evanmjones, have you considered the following:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1790-1830 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, occurred during the Dalton Minimum.
1. The Sun was quiet for 40 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum
The Maunder Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1645-1715 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age.
1. The Sun was quiet for 70 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporer_Minimum
The Sporer Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1460-1550 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
1. The Sun was quiet for 90 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
In science correlation is not causation however in all cases of solar minimums we always see a significant long term drop in global temperature, every single time, there are no exceptions. We do not see any periods of prolonged cold temperatures in the last 500 years that happened during normal solar activity, again no exceptions.
At one time we just knew that there was a connection between smoking and cancer, but it took and examination of actual cases over decades with modern technology to determine the exact relationship.
We have entered another Solar Minima. We now have an actual case and this time we have the modern technology we need to actually measure and finally understand the exact relationship as it unfolds in the coming decades.
If we can truly understand what actually happens during the event, based on actual measurements, and not models, then we will be in a better position to understand and perhaps even explain the warming of the recent past.
We must get out of the lab, stop with the models and go outside and look at the real thing.
[REPLY – Yes, I’ve considered that. There’s some correlation, although the Oort Minimum occurred during the Medieval Warm period. The Spoerer, Wolf, Maunder, and Dalton minimums partially, but not completely, correlate with the LIA. We may or may not be entering one now (someone wanted to cal it the “Ad Ho Minimum”, which gets my vote). Leif Svalgaard, our solar expert, contends the correlation of the Seuss/DeVries and Gleissberg cycles with cooling periods is not great and the TSI delta is insufficient. So I’m not sure what to think. Svensmark may be about to be real-world tested, though, now. We’ll observe! ~ Evan]
Maybe I am not up on the various degrees of augustness, but what became of S. Fred Singer in this list? Philip Abelson expressed skepticism about the quality of supporting data as well, but maybe post humus one’s opinions evaporate.
It is striking how many senior (and emeritus) scientists that are not swayed by the AWG orthodoxy. The independence between scientific results and the monthly pay check is a striking characteristic of a “climate skeptic”.
londo says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:41 am
It is striking how many senior (and emeritus) scientists that are not swayed by the AWG orthodoxy. The independence between scientific results and the monthly pay check is a striking characteristic of a “climate skeptic”.
——-
It is striking how many, many more senior scientist are convinced by AGW theory.
The independence between scientific result – pay check is a striking characteristic
of a scientist.
Kirly says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:02 am
“……..3) and while you’re at it, prove that whatever it was that the tobacco companies were alledgely paying them to say, was in fact, false……”
While its probably too late to rehash the smoking debate, we can learn from the history of the debate. When the EPA conducted the testing to determine if second-hand smoke was harmful, the EPA had standards and benchmarks in their tests that whatever substance being test had to meet before the EPA could make the “harmful” determination. Second-hand smoke never met the criteria. The EPA’s response was to lower the standards only for second-had smoke and made the determination it was harmful. Today, most regard second-hand smoke being harmful as proven scientific fact.
Your disclaimer…”for the record, i think smoking is disgusting and stupid and have never smoked.”
My disclaimer…..I’ve smoked for all of my adult life. While it is an expensive habit, I get the bonus of being ostracized from certain segments of society which has a very pleasant outcome for people such as myself. When I think of the smoking debate of the past, I’m reminiscent of a quote from Gerry Spence, in what is seemingly an unrelated incident. But on further inspection, they are very closely tied. Gerry Spence, in a response to a colleague questioning his decision to represent Randy Weaver or Ruby Ridge fame/infamy. Partial quote…
“This man is wrong, his beliefs are wrong. His relationship to mankind is wrong. He was perhaps legally wrong when he failed to appear and defend himself in court. But the first wrong was not his. Nor was the first wrong the government’s. The first wrong was ours.
In this country we embrace the myth that we are still a democracy when we know that we are not a democracy, that we are not free, that the government does not serve us but subjugates us. Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last has become the people’s master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed, first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf. We did not care about the weak or about the strays. They were not a part of the flock. We did not care about those on the outer edges. They had chosen to be there. But as the wolf worked its way towards the center of the flock we discovered that we were now on the outer edges. Now we must look the wolf squarely in the eye. That we did not do so when
the first of us was ripped and torn and eaten was the first wrong. It was our wrong.
That none of us felt responsible for having lost our freedom has been a part of an insidious progression. In the beginning the attention of the flock was directed not to the marauding wolf but to our own deviant members within the flock. We rejoiced as the wolf destroyed them for they were our enemies. We were told that the weak lay under the rocks while we faced the blizzards to rustle our food, and we did not care when the wolf took them. We argued that they deserved it. When one of our flock faced the wolf alone it was always eaten. Each of us was afraid of the wolf, but as a flock we were not afraid. Indeed the wolf cleansed the herd by destroying the weak and dismembering the aberrant element within. As time went by, strangely, the herd felt more secure under the rule of the wolf. It believed that by belonging to this wolf it would remain safe from all the other wolves. But
we were eaten just the same.”……..
evanmjones (july 25, 2010 8:44am)
Your 40% is misleading. As a concentration of total volume its .01% or 100ppm. This is equivalent to adding just 1 extra molecule per 10,000. You forgot about N2 and O2.
You say “a 40% increase in CO2 will produce around a +0.6C forcing.”
Really, what proof does anybody have that this will occur except for some questionable mathematics.
You say “observational data is not consistent with any positive CO2 feedback so far”. This would be a true statement since there are no “positive feedbacks”. If there was feedback working like they claim, it would have been detected immediately. There would be no grey area or confusion. Co2 influencing climate? Forget about it . I view it as a scientific superstition.
[REPLY – Perhaps. Perhaps not. But leading skeptics such as Dr. Lindzen think it is so, so I am willing to stipulate it for purpose of initial testing. It wouldn’t be the first time in the cosmos a small factor made a significant difference. And the result is that even if CO2 forcing is true and even if world temperature increase-according-to-CRU is true (which I doubt), there are STILL no positive feedbacks in evidence. ~ Evan]
Multiple typos, actually.
I don’t believe scond hand smoke causes cancer, unless you have the same exposure as a smoker, then maybe. But it IS annoying, and can be harmful to those with adverse respiratory conditions. It’s a habit that involves others against their will, and that’s why it should be banned in public places.
stevengoddard says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:28 am
Teller (Dr. Strangelove) was one of the original global warming alarmists- going back to the 1950s. As he got older, he got a little smarter:
….. It’s wonderful to think that the world is so very wealthy that a single nation–America–can consider spending $100 billion or so each year to address a problem that may not exist–and that, if it does exist, certainly has unknown dimensions.
——
If a problem has ‘unknown dimensions’ you might want to recommend
some research?
The sceptic SPPI talks about 79 billion spent since 1989 – where does
Teller get the 100 billion/year from?
Anyhow, science would be progressing towards research on global-wide
systems, with or without climate fears.
And it seems to me that at least WUWT bloggers are passionate about
this kind of research?
Andrew30 says:
“We must get out of the lab, stop with the models and go outside and look at the real thing.”
Heh, its a SCORCHER in Charlotte, NC just like it was in Hotlanta, GA. The wind feels like its coming straight from the SUN!
In a way it really is… have you looked at the solar wind lately? Or the sun?
http://sdowww.lmsal.com/sdomedia/SunInTime/2010/07/25/f_HMImag_171.jpg
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
“Given the age of these august gentlemen…”
Many thinking 30 yr-olds working as post docs in the unbelievably large number of institutions that rely on the largesse of AGW ideologue promoters, are closet sceptics, but short of quitting their science to make a living at something else, what are they to do. The answer is attain oldguy-gal-hood and then speak your mind.
Now I have one for you. Could you at least be honest here and admit that you were shocked and disappointed at the revelations of Climategate – even the loudest journalists on the side of AGW (Monbiot and others) had the integrity to do so. They felt betrayed. Many have changed their minds about the verity of AGW theory in the face of the egregious, unscientific, partisan manipulations and creation of false data. It is not as much fun a place to be these days compared to the free-for-all-love-in it was prior to November 2009.
Darn it, if the world is heading for calamitous AGW disaster, the data shouldn’t need enhancements and augmentations of a few tenths of a degree here and there. Even the raw data should be marching in lockstep with CO2 trends and we shouldn’t be needing to adjust it upward. If we adjust it upward, it must be that the effect is not imposing enough as it is. I have already predicted in other threads that as the earth slips deeper into its present cooling stage, the AGW hangers on will be the residual banner-carrying-Luddite-end-of-the-world bunch that is always a statistical part of any movement. At least have an exit strategy toby.
7 out of 10 people I meet think Global Warming is a bunch of crap. They use those specific words more often than not.
I find 3 out of 10 who still think that C02 is dangerous, but they don’t know why. They are miffed that the geovernmet/scientists have no solutions or plan for the traditional pollution problems.
A lot of those people are concerned about the change in climate, but not the kind the AGW theory blasts on the airwaves.
They are worried about the ability of the long-range weather forecasters to get it right.
All of these people are looking for answers, but they have given up getting them from the current agenda.
They are being convinced more every day that they are being fed a line of bs.
I dunno about Penrose. I’ve googled for him and a couple of keywords but come up empty. Hawking is an alarmist — alarmed, anyway.
As a follow-up to this thread, how about “Seven Eminent Skeptical Chemists / Biologists / Meteorologists / etc.?
@toby
“The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?”
Unfortunately you probably won’t see many coming out of Old Blighty (UK) any time soon:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/7829448/New-science-GCSEs-still-too-easy.html
In reply to RoyFOMR @ July 25, 2010 at 8:05 am
Not so much castles in the sky, rather the Island of Laputa comes to mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laputa
Brian W says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:59 am
evanmjones (july 25, 2010 8:44am)
He said “We have a 40% increase in CO2,” not an increase to 40% of the atmosphere or whatever it is you are suggesting. I assume the 40% is from the 280 “floor” to the current 390 ppm. Umm, 39.3% increase. Close enough.
The figure mostly in dispute is “A doubling of CO2 without any feedback (positive or negative) is roughly a +1.2C forcing.” Evan is merely using it, he’s not claiming he derived it. I would have gone for 1.2 * 1.40 ~= 0.5, though given the logarithmic nature of the beast, 40% is about a half a doubling (another 40% would be 1.40 * 1.40 = 1.96).
I don’t have any problem with Evan’s math, not even his use of percentages! I learned about logarithms and geometric progressions by the 8th grade, so I won’t complain about the grade level either.
[REPLY – I’m a crusty old pre-computer wargamer. Whenever I got my percentages wrong I got my ass kicked. An even better incentive than government funding. ~ Evan]
Andrew30 says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:33 am
evanmjones says: July 25, 2010 at 8:44 am
… Something about being in 8th grade, but it was difficult to follow.
evanmjones, have you considered the following:
[Reply; Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction April 20th 1993]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1790-1830 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, occurred during the Dalton Minimum.
1. The Sun was quiet for 40 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
[reply; Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1814]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum
The Maunder Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1645-1715 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age.
1. The Sun was quiet for 70 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
[Reply; Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1635]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporer_Minimum
The Sporer Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1460-1550 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
1. The Sun was quiet for 90 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
[Reply; Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1456]
In science correlation is not causation however in all cases of solar minimums we always see a significant long term drop in global temperature, every single time, there are no exceptions. We do not see any periods of prolonged cold temperatures in the last 500 years that happened during normal solar activity, again no exceptions.
At one time we just knew that there was a connection between smoking and cancer, but it took and examination of actual cases over decades with modern technology to determine the exact relationship.
We have entered another Solar Minima. We now have an actual case and this time we have the modern technology we need to actually measure and finally understand the exact relationship as it unfolds in the coming decades.
If we can truly understand what actually happens during the event, based on actual measurements, and not models, then we will be in a better position to understand and perhaps even explain the warming of the recent past.
We must get out of the lab, stop with the models and go outside and look at the real thing.
[REPLY – Doc Leif is very down on that theory. He says the gravitational effect is insufficient to affect the sun. (Even though the sun is gaseous and the Jovian planet tugs appear to affect earth’s orbital eccentricity.) Again, I’m not sure what to think. But I do accept that the recovery from the nadir of the LIA to the Modern Optimum has to be largely non-CO2 related, as it started around 1650. ~ Evan]
Another crack in the dam.
“Mikael Pihlström says:
The peer-reviewed articles given are dated 1977-1993. The newest is
seventeen years old. A lot of new research has been done meanwhile.
I do know that Dyson’s dissent is more recent.”
However, those of us who followed the carb/nutrition/insulin debate for some time know that the research done and published during the 50’th got it right and almost two decades of BS followed before the research community got rid of the carb religion.
The similarities when looking at the interplay between (the so called) science, politics and media is so strikingly similar it deserves a theory on its own.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies, one cannot help thinking of the remark of Max Planck:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?
________________________________________
Your argument might have had some merit except for two points.
First young scientists are concerned about careers and do not rock the boat. The peer reviewed papers on that fact are listed here (start at the BOTTOM of the listed papers)
“For young academics who wish to be published in such journals, Armstrong said, “the factors that would seem to be a deadly combination would be choosing an important problem and obtaining surprising results.”
Other studies, Armstrong said, indicate that obscure writing helps those who have little to say. And having little to say may also be an advantage, especially if the author withholds some significant data. “This will allow the researcher to continue publishing slightly different versions of the same research,” which Armstrong says is a common practice…..
If you want to publish an article in some scientific or medical journal, here is some unusual advice from Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School: Choose an unimportant topic. Agree with existing beliefs. Use convoluted methods. Withhold some of your data. And write the whole thing in stilted, obtuse prose. “ Plain Prose: It’s Seldom Seen in Journals
The second point is the education today stinks thanks to John Dewey. It does not produce independent literate thinkers.
“…In order to do so he analyzed the traditional curriculum that sustained the capitalist, individualistic system and found what he believed was the sustaining linchpin — that is, the key element that held the entire system together: high literacy. To Dewey, the greatest obstacle to socialism was the private mind that seeks knowledge in order to exercise its own private judgment and intellectual authority. High literacy gave the individual the means to seek knowledge independently…”
Dumbing Down America
There is independent validation that today’s education stinks
“”For 10 years, William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, has looked at how U.S. students stack up against students in other countries in math and science. “In fourth-grade, we start out pretty well, near the top of the distribution among countries; by eighth-grade, we’re around average, and by 12th-grade, we’re at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa.”
History as she is wrote: Every textbook, left behind
“….. Surveys of corporations consistently find that businesses are focused outside • the U.S. to recruit necessary talent….“If I wanted to recruit people who are both technically skilled and culturally aware, I wouldn’t even waste time looking for them on U.S. college campuses…. In 2000, 28 percent of all freshmen entering a degree-granting institution required remedial coursework.” Junk Food Diet
“…It has taken modern educators only 50 years to disassemble an educational system that took thousands of years to refine and establish. The classical method was born in ancient Greece and Rome, and by the 16th century, it was used throughout the Western world. This system educated most of America’s founding fathers as well as the world’s philosophers, scientists and leaders between the 10th and 19th centuries. What other period can claim so many advances in science, philosophy, art, and literature?…
In 1947, Dorothy Sayers, a pioneer in the return to classical education, observed, “although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ’subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think.”…” The Classical Approach
I think I prefer older scientists who are no longer concerned with being “Team Players” so they do not get fired and blackballed as I did. I also prefer older scientists who have had a “classical” education that teaches them to be independent thinkers instead of a “progressive” education that teaches them to be good little “codependent” socialists.
Ref Freeman Dyson – you forgot the most important thing : Winchester College, Scholar
Let me give you the list with links, of why the model predictions are falsified; the models that are used in the IPCC AR4 and by the governments who want to push a pyramid scheme of cap and trade, and reduce the western world to 19th century energy consumption.
1) Global temperatures, such as they are, are in stasis the past ten years and maybe are diminishing while CO2 rises merrily.
2)There is no tropical troposphere footprint as the IPCC predicted.
3)There is no positive feedback, necessary for the models
4)Specific humidity is reducing instead of increasing as expected from the feedback assumption of the models
5)The missing energy is not in the oceans
6)The models do not reproduce absolute temperatures, let alone cloud cover so important for albedo
7)Hydrological predictions of the models are off.
Even one falsification of a prediction sends a theory to the trash basket, let alone model runs and their predictions. I have listed seven here.
As Freeman Dyson says, the whole IPCC AGW hypothesis is based on computer climate modeling. The first person to try a computer climate model was Edward Lorenz. What he found was that tiny changes in the starting conditions, temperature, pressure etc, changes in the fourth, fifth and sixth places after the decimal point had huge effects in the outcome. Since initial conditions can never be measured to that degree of accuracy, he concluded that computer climate modeling was not possible in principle. ( Deterministic Non-Periodic Flow, Journal of Atmospheric Science, 1963. ) This paper has been seen to lay the foundation for the mathematical theory of Deterministic Chaos. This is certainly known by the IPCC. One of the scientists writing the Third Assessment Report wrote: ” In climate research and modeling, we should realise that we are dealing with a coupled, non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that long range forecasting of of future climate states is not possible.” ( 3AR Sec 14.2.2.2.) Computer climate models are still used in forecasting and give fairly accurate forecasts for about three days in advance. From three days to a week the forecast is a bit more speculative, and beyond that consulting the Old Farmers Almanac is just as likely to give you an accurate forecast, and be a lot cheaper. The British Meteorological Office got the message after last year’s debacle. They promised a ” barbecue summer.” It turned out to be cold and wet with record flooding in several areas. This was to be followed by ” a mild winter.” They got record snowfalls and record low temperatures. The Met Office has now discontinued issuing seasonal forecasts. Instead they give forecasts for one month ahead which are updated weekly. Freeman Dyson was recently quoted as saying: ” Computer models must constantly be checked against reality, and if you can’t do that, don’t trust the model.”
Consensus among all these old dudes (and some of them dead dudes) must mean there are right? Right?
In the 60’s and early 70’s there were a bunch of old dudes who called Plate Tectonics a “religion” and “pseudoscience” and went to their graves denying plate tectonics.
I am not sure what this article is really trying to do? Science is not a populations contest. The screaming from the “deniers” about how consensus is meaning less in science makes this article even more baffling to show up here.
P.S. There is a group of scientist who think the earth is only 6k years old, does that mean they are right because their little group has a consensus?
Well at least 4 of these scientists are dead, so is it really fair to count them as sceptics?
REPLY: By that logic then, is it really fair to count the late Dr. Stephen Schneider as an AGW believer? No disrespect intended to him or to his family, but your logic fails in the reverse. A person’s body of work, quotes, and opinions can’t change after death (unless history rewriters at Wiki start on it) – Anthony
and a typo above…popularity* contest…not a populations contest!
Since several of them are dead, one for ten years, I do find the timliness of this somewhat curious.
anna v says: @ July 25, 2010 at 11:16 am
Let me give you the list with links, of why the model predictions are falsified;
Thank you Anna. How many times can a theory be disproved before eventually the nakedness is seen? Your list should end all discussion, frankly. We simply don’t understand climate and this particular AGW theory of climate fails spectacularly.
Unfortunately, science is now controlled by governments 🙁
Kinda OT but thought some might be interested. The EPA was mentioned in the thread. And, yes, I think they should celebrate their Goreious history, as mentioned at the link below…”advocate for the little guy…” Puhleeze
Kinda funny and kinda scary at the same time, check it out.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011422.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+worldchanging_fulltext+%28WorldChanging.com+Full+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
PS – Sorry, don’t know how to do the short version.
Richard Holle says: July 25, 2010 at 11:04 am
Re: ‘Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in …”
Current Minima: 2008 –
Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1993
Relationship: start – 15 years = synod
Dalton Minimum 1790-1830
Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1814
Relationship: start + 24 years = synod = end – 16 years
Maunder Minimum 1645-1715
Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1635
Relationship: start – 10 years = synod = end – 80 years
Sporer Minimum 1460-1550
Neptune and Uranus had a synod conjunction in 1456
Relationship: start – 4 years = synod = end – 94 years
Worst allignment:
Synod 24 years After start of event
Synon 94 years Before end of event.
Have Neptune and Uranus ever had a synod conjunction in the last 500 years that did not result in a prolonged period of global cooling?
Min/Max duration of Mimima: 40/90 years
Min/Max duration of Synod: few hours/days
The correlation does not look very good.
What Measurements do you have from the April 20th 1993 event on the affect that the event had on the Earth or the Sun?
Do you have any speculation on how one of the outer planets could have any affect whatsoever on the Sun?
Does the Earth need to exist to support the speculation?
Do you have any speculation on how one of the outer planets could have any affect whatsoever on the Earth?
I don’t know what you are getting at, but as I am fond of saying: “Just because you do not understand something does not mean that it is wrong”. I also apply this saying to myself.
[snip – “Deniers,” “Nazis.” That’s what got your post snipped. ~dbstealey, mod.]
The eccentric Kary Mullis needs to be added to the list.
Here’s a video of a talk he gave – criticises AGW science near the end. Lots of entertaining anecodotes. You’ll love it!
The comments about second hand tobacco smoke are interesting. Fred Singer continues to catch a lot of grief about this. The fact is the EPA reduced their confidence interval to 90% in order to make the data match their desired outcome – which was a finding of “harmful”. There is absolutely no statistical significance associated with this finding. But if you go out and ask 100 people in the street if second hand smoke is harmful you’ll probably get 99 YES answers and a few who will tell you the EPA proved it.
The EPA proved nothing at all…well, not scientifically. They DID prove that if you repeat a lie often enough eventually the public will accept it as “truth”. Personally I’m rather ambivalent about smoking. Of course it’s bad for you and it annoys those who don’t smoke but I rather cling to that archaic notion that individuals have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior if they so choose.
If you don’t want to be around smoke stay away from places where smokers congregate. Recently Michigan outlawed smoking in bars. This doesn’t affect me as I don’t live in Michigan and I really don’t like bars. But the consequences of this ban are interesting. Bar owners report a significant decrease in patronage. Also, their patrons frequently go outside to smoke and buy less food and drink much to the detriment of the proprietors. And the kicker is that only the non-smokers who are bothered by cigarette smoke gained anything. Everybody else loses and nobody’s health is protected in the process.
Extrapolate this to taxing CO2. The only winners are those who collect the taxes and those that believe the AGW myth. Everybody else loses and absolutely no measurable change in climate will result.
Gary Pearse, excellent Gary good comment sir.
I have always believed the majority of informed scientists are not pro AGW but because of their positions/sinecures/livelihoods are not in a position to be able to comment, this is why we were supposed to have a 99.0% ‘consensus in AGW’, not because everybody believed but because not everybody spoke out.
The cracks grow ever wider, the truth will out and that basic truth is; there is no truth in the rumours and alchemy of AGW.
So alarmist masters of necromancy put away your flasks and infernal machines, the world grows wise to your deceits.
We’ve got these guys, Anthony, Steve et al.
Who have they got? The Hokey team… Jo Abess… The Mad Dhog…
Anybody mentioned this to Lisa Jackson or Obama. Oh sorry the science is settled.
And an oustanding clip of IVAR GIAEVER.
Also with funny anecdotes!
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/ivar-giaever-on-winning-the-big-prize/
Well worth the time watching!!
dear geo
Although the timeliness of this posting might be questioned, it’s your English that I find curious.
James Sexton writes:
“While its probably too late to rehash the smoking debate, we can learn from the history of the debate. When the EPA conducted the testing to determine if second-hand smoke was harmful, the EPA had standards and benchmarks in their tests that whatever substance being test had to meet before the EPA could make the “harmful” determination. Second-hand smoke never met the criteria. The EPA’s response was to lower the standards only for second-had smoke and made the determination it was harmful. Today, most regard second-hand smoke being harmful as proven scientific fact.”
The smoking debate, so-called, was the precursor of later statist expansions of government and it became a model for statists who intentionally confuse matters of science and policy. As long as those confusions are permitted to exist, science, policy, and the people will suffer while statists will prosper. There was never any good science behind the smoking debate, so-called, and after the debate was won by statists, the science was simply discontinued.
Statists have just won the healthcare debate. Though statists would argue otherwise, there is no science that would lend credence to the claim that Obamacare is better healthcare, that it is affordable, or that it will not stifle scientific innovation. Statists won on a pure power play.
Statists are drawing back from the AGW debate, so-called, because science offers the only grounds for believing that GW requires that humans take action or that human action can make a difference. Yet there is nothing worthy of the name “science” that supports AGW. This fact is becoming evident to all fair-minded people. The gravity of our sickness is shown by the fact that NAS will put their reputation on the line for science that is, at best, in its infancy. Another case of policy being intentionally confused with science for the purpose of supporting statism.
There are many other examples.
In these times, each individual has the most stringent moral duty to undertake or support the most exhaustive criticisms of scientific claims, so-called, that are undertaken to support statist ends. The burden of proof must be born by the scientists whose science, so-called, supports statist ends.
When the smoking wars were happening, I thought it was just a fight between smokers and non-smokers. Little did I see that the non-smokers were just useful idiots for the statists. I will not be that naive again. Neither should anyone else.
How sad it is that Richard Feynman is no longer with us. His language would have been so colourful and candid.
The likes of Hansen, Jones, Mann and Briffa aren’t fit to make the tea for the big hitters. I don’t even think that Feynman would have recognised the dendropaleo snake oilers as scientists in the first place.
Richard Holle says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:04 am
1. The Sun was quiet for xx years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
When this minimum drags on, and the 1st icy plunges hit, they’ll be saying “Who knew?”.
Answer: The historians who documented those times, for the sake of the poor slobs living in the next go-round.
evanmjones says:
July 25, 2010 at 8:44 am
The problem with your arguments, which are quite good, is that most people do not get math. In particular, they do not get ‘word problems’. They rely on others to explain math things to them.
Winston Churchill was terrible at math and word problems. He had his own math interpreter to help him with the inevitable word problems arising from running a world war. Even then he never ‘got’ logistics, which is a collection of word problems. Brooke, his chief of staff, earned his pay by keeping Churchill’s desire to start landing troops everywhere basically under control Norway in particular, seemed to be a big attraction for him.
The one time Churchill slipped the controls of his keeper was Anzio. It was almost a disaster. Of course the guy in charge became the scapegoat.
[REPLY – Well, to those guys, I’d just say, “Prime Minister, the amount of added CO2 so far has not created warming in the past at the same rate the IPCC says it will in the future. It just doesn’t add up. Sir.” ~ Evan]
Anna V. writes:
“Let me give you the list with links, of why the model predictions are falsified; the models that are used in the IPCC AR4 and by the governments who want to push a pyramid scheme of cap and trade, and reduce the western world to 19th century energy consumption.”
You give them too much credit. Models are not up to the level of hypotheses and cannot be used to make predictions and, for that reason, cannot be falsified. For models, the best that you can say is that they are consistent with what is observed in the world. The AGW models have a long way to go before they are so much as consistent with what we know about the world. They are incomplete analytical tools at this time. When they are consistent with what we know about the world, some decades in the future, then they will be good analytical tools. They can be used to teach us all that is implicit in our assumptions. But they will never be hypotheses and useful for prediction.
The Magnificent Seven
Richard Holle says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:04 am
“We must get out of the lab, stop with the models and go outside and look at the real thing.”
“modeling is just like masturbation….you put your mind to it and do it long enough…you start believing it’s the real thing”
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6737#comment-678870
hmm. well things do change over time, so its often useful to take a look at the articles cited.
Jastrow 1991 article..
“Computer models predict that clear signs of the greenhouse effect should have appeared as a consequence of increases in greenhouse gases, equivalent to a 50% increase in carbon dioxide in the last 100 years. The predictions are contradicted by the climate record in nearly every important respect. Contrary to the models:”
1. (1) the Northern Hemisphere has not warmed more than the Southern Hemisphere,
2. (2) high latitudes have not warmed more than low latitudes, and
3. (3) the U.S. has not shown the predicted warming trend, although this is the largest area in the world for which well-distributed, reliable records are available.
Finally, all of the computations of the greenhouse effect show an accelerating increase in temperature in the 1980s, reflecting the rapid increase in greenhouse gases in recent years. However, measurements from orbiting satellites with a precision of 0.01 °C show no trend to higher temperatures in the 1980s.”
Revisiting those claims, 20 years later.. Busted. That doesnt make AGW right, but the claims made in the paper cited have not held up.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
“Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies,[…]”
Are we maybe being a little afraid now?
Andrew30 says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:33 am
evanmjones, have you considered the following:
The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, from about 1790-1830 that coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, occurred during the Dalton Minimum.
1. The Sun was quiet for 40 years.
2. The Earth got very cold.
3. We don’t understand the exact relationship.
The Maunder Minimum was a period of low solar activity….
The Sporer Minimum was a period of low solar activity,….
We have entered another Solar Minima. We now have an actual case and this time we have the modern technology we need to actually measure and finally understand the exact relationship as it unfolds in the coming decades.
If we can truly understand what actually happens during the event, based on actual measurements, and not models, then we will be in a better position to understand and perhaps even explain the warming of the recent past.
We must get out of the lab, stop with the models and go outside and look at the real thing.
________________________________________________________
evanmjones
[REPLY – Yes, I’ve considered that. There’s some correlation, although the Oort Minimum occurred during the Medieval Warm period. The Spoerer, Wolf, Maunder, and Dalton minimums partially, but not completely, correlate with the LIA. We may or may not be entering one now (someone wanted to cal it the “Ad Ho Minimum”, which gets my vote). Lief Svalgaard, our solar expert, contends the correlation of the Seuss/DeVries and Gleissberg cycles with cooling periods is not great and the TSI delta is insufficient. So I’m not sure what to think. Svensmark may be about to be real-world tested, though, now. We’ll observe! ~ Evan]
_______________________________________________
evanmjones, have you also considered the following:
Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, USA et al
“….Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3° C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present….”
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception
Ulrich C. Müller & Jörg Pross, Institute of Geosciences, University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
“Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….”
I do not get a very warm and fuzzy feeling from either of those peer-reviewed papers.
[REPLY – Not those papers, specifically, but I have certainly considered that we are near the end of the current optimum, and that Milankovitch cycles are reverting towards ice age conditions, and that we are in cooler times than we were a few thousand years back. As to whether a grand minimum will be the first domino or standard ice age feedback, I would not know. What I do know is that IPCC CO2 positive feedback theory does not appear to add up. (It seems to fail the 8th-grade arithmetic test.) ~ Evan]
fFreddy,
I updated his bio and sent it to Anthony,
Freeman Dyson, Scholar, Winchester College (1936-1941), B.A. Mathematics, Cambridge University (1945), Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University (1946–1947), Commonwealth Fellow, Cornell University, (1947–1948), Commonwealth Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1948–1949), Research Fellow, University of Birmingham (1949–1951), Professor of Physics, Cornell University (1951-1953), Fellow, Royal Society (1952), Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1953-1994), Chairman, Federation of American Scientists (1962-1963), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1964), Danny Heineman Prize, American Physical Society (1965), Lorentz Medal, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1966), Visiting Professor, Yeshiva University (1967-1968), Hughes Medal, The Royal Society (1968), Max Planck Medal, German Physical Society (1969), J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize (1970), Visiting Professor, Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (1974-1975), Corresponding Member, Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1975), Harvey Prize (1977), Wolf Prize in Physics (1981), Andrew Gemant Award, American Institute of Physics (1988), Enrico Fermi Award, United States Department of Energy (1993), Professor Emeritus of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1994-Present), Member, London Mathematical Society (2000), Member, NASA Advisory Council (2001-2003), President, Space Studies Institute (2003-Present)
He received so many awards it gets a little ridiculous but why not?
toby says: “…sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies…The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?”
Ad hominem. Non sequitur. Numbers. Zzzzzzzzz.
On the surface, Freeman Dyson may seem to have some minor qualifications, but does he know as much as Al Gore?
stevengoddard says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:28 am
Teller (Dr. Strangelove) was one of the original global warming alarmists- going back to the 1950s. As he got older, he got a little smarter:
….. It’s wonderful to think that the world is so very wealthy that a single nation–America–can consider spending $100 billion or so each year to address a problem that may not exist–and that, if it does exist, certainly has unknown dimensions.
——
Mikael Pihlström says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:14 am
If a problem has ‘unknown dimensions’ you might want to recommend
some research?
The sceptic SPPI talks about 79 billion spent since 1989 – where does
Teller get the 100 billion/year from?
Anyhow, science would be progressing towards research on global-wide
systems, with or without climate fears.
And it seems to me that at least WUWT bloggers are passionate about
this kind of research?
_______________________________________________________________
Teller is not speaking about research, he is talking about the cost of dismantling Western Civilization.
“A massive campaign [global warming] must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren wrote in a 1973 book he co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlch and Anne H. Ehrlich. “De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.”
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy [Agenda 21] in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.” http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/51702
That is the goal and has always been the goal. A return to serfdom for every one but the privileged few. It has been called by various names: Feudalism, totalitarianism, fascism, socialism, and communism. In the US and the EU we have “Corporatism” by that I mean dominance of government by large corporations.
No matter what its form or what we call it a few men claw their way to the top of the heap and try to control all their fellow men either by armed force or through propaganda or usually a combination of both.
This Marxist site sums it up very nicely:
“What unites the many different forms of Socialism.. is the conception that socialism (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control…” http://search.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/0-2souls.htm
Socialism and communism and fascism and corporatism are just other names for feudalism. The control of the many by the select few, with a few different twists thrown in to hoodwink the masses.
Anthony some minor corrections,
1. ‘Nobel’ is spelled wrong in two places under Giaever and Laughlin’s bios, “Notable: Noble Prize in Physics.” should be “Notable: Nobel Prize in Physics.”
2. Change the first sentence to,
Seven Eminent Physicists; Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin (Nobel Prize), Edward Teller, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg, all skeptical of “man-made” global warming (AGW) alarm.
…remove the ‘are’.
3. I updated Dyson’s bio.
Thanks.
Uh oh it’s a blacklist.
Ric Werme (july 25, 2010 8:44am)
I know precisely what he is doing as I have seen that figure many times. Don’t patronize me. I’m quite aware of how to do a percentage. You miss the point. By referencing Co2 to itself only and not the rest of the atmosphere you are being deceptive. We do not live in a Co2 only atmosphere. The use of 40% is a classic warmer tactic to make something sound far worse than it really is. Properly expressed its a .01% increase. Really, it is, I wouldn’t kid you. Methinks you have smoked the warmist pipe too long.
Evan: Interesting reply but I predict they will not find it, just like the hot spot.
[REPLY – Please bear in mind that Ric is not in any way an alarmist. What I am saying is that even assuming standard CO2 forcing theory is correct, it appears that there is no positive feedback whatever in evidence. ~ Evan]
“The use of 40% is a classic warmer tactic to make something sound far worse than it really is. Properly expressed its a .01% increase. Really, it is, I wouldn’t kid you. Methinks you have smoked the warmist pipe too long.”
280 to 390 is not a 0.01% increase.
Feynman was the last great scientist to insist on attention to scientific method in all matters scientific. He would hav scorched the likes of Jones, Mann, Al Gore and the whole bunch.
@ toby, July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am: Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies[…]”
Wow, your logic is unassailable. So according to you:
The tobacco companies funded junk science.
These “august gentleman sullied their reputations by becoming paid shills of tobacco companies.”
Therefore, they’re wrong. (Or AGW is true.)
Seriously? Prove it.
It’s an Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. What these men did before is irrelevant to the strength, cogency, and validity of their AGW arguments. It’s an attempt to distract from the fact that you have no real argument that will hold up.
Steven Mosher writes:
“Revisiting those claims, 20 years later.. Busted. That doesnt make AGW right, but the claims made in the paper cited have not held up.”
Are you suggesting that the USA has shown the predicted warming trends? Maybe you are not and maybe I misunderstand you. What we know about warming trends in the USA for the last twenty years are that there are none and that Warmists scientists, so-called, have lied through their teeth in an effort to convice the public that Al Gore is right.
Another quote Freeman Dyson is famous for:
“You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.”
So you have found seven “sceptical” physicists, neither of whom has worked in climate science, four of whom are dead, two of whom are over 80 years old … Impressive, to say the least!
“Mikael Pihlström says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:25 am
The peer-reviewed articles given are dated 1977-1993. The newest is
seventeen years old. A lot of new research has been done meanwhile.”
Nope nothing new at all.
A lot more tap dancing, but nothing new.
Not one step closer to understanding any of it.
Anders L.,
Not one word from you about the statements of these scientists, just a mindless ad hominem attack. Is that the only response you’re capable of making?
Just for the record, what are your qualifications, vs the eminent physicists in the article? That will help us to figure out who to listen to: them? Or …you.
Testing Svensmark without an effective monitoring of global volcanic eruption volume/altitudes is useless…
Erik says:
July 25, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Reply; I originated none of the quotes in your post, link is OT.
Andrew30 says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:55 am
Reply; I am acquiring data for processing at this time, when I get it posted to the research area of my site we can all look at it. (Nice to see I am getting close enough to the truth to attract pro AGW hecklers)
Tallbloke has some of these data sets already posted…Try a through read of several of the latest posts, or for that matter the whole site, Education is the key to understanding, researching is where you find the combination of the information needed to further unlock the truth… keep looking at new things.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
Onion (july 25, 2010 2:37pm)
Read all of my previous posts. I have no time for brainlessness.
Benjamin P. says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:20 am
Consensus among all these old dudes (and some of them dead dudes) must mean there are right? Right?
In the 60′s and early 70′s there were a bunch of old dudes who called Plate Tectonics a “religion” and “pseudoscience” and went to their graves denying plate tectonics.
I am not sure what this article is really trying to do? Science is not a populations contest. The screaming from the “deniers” about how consensus is meaning less in science makes this article even more baffling to show up here.
———————-
One of the puzzling things about Naomi Oreskes is that she is the historian par excellence of the whole plate tectonics story, and is well aware of the role of group-think and consensus in holding up scientific advance. Yet she turns around and uses consensus arguments to belittle those who question global warming ‘scientific’ alarmism. The point of this article on ‘old dudes’ is that independent, well formed, and respected minds reject the consensus. These individuals might not actually form a consensus in terms of the reasons for their rejection of AGW alarmism. The point of the article is that people like Naomi Oreskes and other CAGW proponents like to argue that no real scientist who has any value or respect rejects the theory of CAGW. I thought that was obvious.
anna v says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:16 am
Let me give you the list with links, of why the model predictions are falsified; the models that are used in the IPCC AR4 and by the governments who want to push a pyramid scheme of cap and trade, and reduce the western world to 19th century energy consumption.
__________________________________
I have recently asked if anyone has done any micro-climate studies , perhaps in the Sahara desert, to link CO2 changes to temperature. The Sahara has a very low humidity 4%-30% It would be an excellent place to correlate CO2, humidity, solar insolation and temperature data from the Atlantic all the way to the Nile in Egypt and study the effects of CO2, and water vapor on temperatures at the same latitude, elevation and solar insolation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sahara_satellite_hires.jpg
It would also be an excellent site for doing OTC -Open Top Container studies on the effect of CO2. http://www.sisef.it/iforest/show.php?id=544
With the billions of dollars spent it would seem someone would have done either of these two studies. I have often thought the assumption “CO2 is well mix in the atmosphere” was used to discourage this type of study. We know that water vapor can have local effects on temperature. If CO2 is supposed to be a big player in climate change it should have measurable effects if either a correlation study or open top container study is done.
This is what I have found so far:
Empirical relations for the determination of solar radiation in Ibadan, Nigeria
Junk science
Measured solar radiation in a Nigerian environment compared with predicted data
the structure, composition, dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere
Land Use and Weather/Climate Issues
Ed Murphy says: July 25, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Testing Svensmark without an effective monitoring of global volcanic eruption volume/altitudes is useless…
Well, if a grand minimum clicks in, there is a large increase in cloud formations (with cosmic rays implicated in the droplets), and all this is followed by a drop in world temperatures by over 0.5C, we may not be able to quantify it exactly, but it would be the stuff of pretty darn strong general theory.
That’s got to be the most idiotic argument I’ve ever heard. So, because some people have bad habits that affect the people around them, those other people should just stay home. Makes perfect (non)sense.
re: James Sexton says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:58 am
James, THANK YOU for posting that most excellent parable. I don’t smoke, but respect the rights of those who do even tho I’ve seen its ravages with my own parents – but that parable is such an excellent description of where we are today as a nation and how we got here…. I’ve already passed it along. So, thanks again!
Oh, and fwiw… my father is 82, born in 1928. He started smoking when he was 15 or 16 years old. When I was young and we were discussing smoking, he told me that even back when he first started smoking they commonly called cigarettes either “coffin nails” or “cancer sticks.” Smoking’s relation to cancer has never been a secret. He’s utterly disgusted with the whole “second hand smoke causes cancer” meme tho, as am I.
evanmjones says: July 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm
“Well, if a grand minimum clicks in…”
If grand minimum happens then we are in a position to get a lot of data about a lot of things, and that will be great.
It is wishfull thinking but you know, I think that it would be wonderful if somewhere, some backyard astronomer using an old 10 foot satellite dish and a comodore-64 rigged up as a low grade radio-telescope looking at some insignificant part of the night sky noticed an interstellar cross wind or some such thing. Coming from only one direction, something that was the key to cooling puzzle, the Earths default state; but had been held back at a the Heliopause by the active Sun. Invisible and waiting for the Sun to recede to it could tunnel through and resume its affect once again.
Something no one had thought of or predicted or suspected; like discovery used to be, no money, just passion, interest and wonder.
‘Hmm, that’s interesting, I wonder….’
If only.
Benjamin P. says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:20 am
“…In the 60′s and early 70′s there were a bunch of old dudes who called Plate Tectonics a “religion” and “pseudoscience” and went to their graves denying plate tectonics….”
Yeah, I was a grad student in the middle of that, and organized a Journal Club meeting in which the President of the AAPG – a noted denier – gave his presentation to, approximately, every geologist in Northern California. It nearly erupted in a riot.
Nevertheless, the skeptics in that case had no unifying theory (ok, the “geosynclinal theory” which basically said: Hey, geosynclines form now and then, but more than that we do not know). The plate tectonicists beat them over the head with data from geophysics (magnetic stripes; measured seismic epicenters following a plane down below convergence zones; remanent magnetism showing how rocks had been formed in places far away from their present locations); isotope studies (no oceanic crust older than so many millions of years); geologic mapping; paleontological studies; and on and on. If any died still in disbelief (can you prove that?) then they have my pity.
Here, in this global warming thing, we “skeptics” haven’t been hit with the kitchen sink. In fact, much of what the proponents throw at us can be shown to be [bs]. They have a mantra that sounds like geologists of old: “Geosynclinal Theory”. Whatever you think it is, is. No arguments, please.
Hilarious.
May I add my humble voice?
“AGW is rubbish !”
On second-hand smoke:
The metastudy that supposedly proved that second-hand smoke increases mortality had 30 studies they could use. 11 of them suggested increased mortality, 18 showed no significant change in mortality, and the 30th showed a decrease in mortality. However, that 30th study was larger than all other 29 studies combined. So the FDA ingored that study completely.
The range of confidence was 3000 deaths per year, plus or minus 6,000. So it not only did not make the 95th percentile, it didn’t even make the 80th percentile.
On the other hand, second-hand smoke and morbidity is easily proven. Morbidity, as measured in health costs, is at least 10% more for those non-smokers who are exposed regularly to second-hand smoke (spouse or job). Days off due to illness is also greater than 10% more. These numbers are significant at the 99.9% level.
Raw temperatures are up 0.25 degrees in the last 100 years. Removing urban temperatures, the raw temperatures are slightly down (less than 0.30 degrees). However, the stations used in global studies are almost all urban airport stations, which have raw temperature changes of 0.25 degrees. Since airports and vicinity are less than 0.1% of earth, the numbers would appear to average out to cooling over the last 100 years. Of course, ocean temperatures need to be in the mix to draw any meaningful conclusions (specific heat etc.).
I remember a book called “The Limits To Growth”, published in 1970, which was required reading at the college I attended. The most striking detail about their graphs was that none of them had a defined vertical axis. Forty years later, the other striking detail is how wrong they were. Birth rates are down, except in southwest Asia, pollution is down, so much so that the political class has had to invent a new pollutant, CO2, and make extravagant claims about its danger.
Jeff Alberts says:
July 25, 2010 at 5:12 pm
If you don’t want to be around smoke stay away from places where smokers congregate.
——————–
We already did the staying away part, Jeff. That’s why the rules got changed. Only about 26% of the adult population smokes, and businesses can’t get by with ignoring the other 74%, who have been voting through their non-attendance.
I think the solution is for all businesses to be required to post a sign at their entrances saying either “smoking allowed” or “no smoking allowed.” The market will take care of the problem. I’d have no problem avoiding smoke, and could still go into a smoking allowed business if I really needed to do so. Smokers would have places to go where smoking is allowed. Win-win. Except for the health-controllers of course.
Ahem … bad example; yet another consensus-arrived at conclusion … plus, big-monied HOT fusion could have none of that ‘cold’ stuff …
Double check my assertions – research continues in this field as there are yet-unexplained phenomena (excess heat and other effects) taking place … none other than the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, California had been quietly studying cold fusion continually since 1989 …
.
@Jeff Alberts says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:12 am
You said, “I don’t believe scond hand smoke causes cancer, unless you have the same exposure as a smoker, then maybe. But it IS annoying, and can be harmful to those with adverse respiratory conditions. It’s a habit that involves others against their will, and that’s why it should be banned in public places.”
I used smoking as a parallel to what is occurring today and what has happened in the past with regards to the AGW issue. Theo Goodwin @ July 25, 2010 at 12:22 pm rightly observed the political bastardization of science during the smoking debate by statists. The AGW debate is a direct assault upon individual liberties and freedoms. As Mr. Spence aptly pointed out, “We did not care about those on the outer edges. They had chosen to be there. But as the wolf worked its way towards the center of the flock we discovered that we were now on the outer edges. Now we must look the wolf squarely in the eye. That we did not do so when the first of us was ripped and torn and eaten was the first wrong. It was our wrong.” and “That none of us felt responsible for having lost our freedom has been a part of an insidious progression.”
Your argument, “It’s a habit that involves others against their will, and that’s why it should be banned in public places.” is fallacious. To my knowledge, no one in this nation has ever been forced to inhale second-hand smoke in a public place. In this nation, we are free to move about as we choose, we have a right to freely associate with whomever we choose. No one was ever “forced” to inhale second-hand smoke. They did it willfully and freely. The state of Kansas recently enacted a ban on smoking in public places. Shortly thereafter, I had the occasion to venture to a local tavern to shoot a few games of pool. Sure enough, the ban was being enforced in the tavern much to the chagrin of the owners. As we all took turns smoking outside the tavern, we took a head count of smokers vs. non-smokers. The count was 15 to 5. Of the 5 non-smokers, 2 were spouses of smokers, 2 were pool players who have for years endured second-hand smoke without complaint and will again when we shoot at a private club(exempt from the ban, for now) and 1 was a regular at the tavern who again, inhaled second-hand smoke for years without complaint. No one in that tavern contrived, voted for, or otherwise wished for the ban to occur.
Like the cigarette, our liberties and freedoms have been extinguished. In this particular instance we lost our liberties and freedoms to save someone from a hypothetical annoyance.
“It’s a habit that involves others against their will, and that’s why it should be banned in public places.” That statement has never been true in this country. With thoughts expressed such as that, it is a small wonder why we’re in the shape we’re in. As I said earlier, “…..I get the bonus of being ostracized from certain segments of society which has a very pleasant outcome for people such as myself.” I’ll stand for liberties and freedoms, while you can decide for what you stand.
There you go again ‘coat-racking’ to the extreme … reading your words, I get the idea we should just head back to the caves … and you offer no alternative, just the usual ‘populist’ moaning and complaining repeating the same mantra (in effect, if I may take it back a generation, “pointing out a ‘commie’ under every rock) …
We fought that battle and WON – REMEMBER?
.
I think we may be getting to the crux of the issue; a) a tendency to attribute wrongful ‘things’ to grand conspiratorial intent rather fallible humans (human error) or human wants and desires (this includes greed et al); this might certainly disqualify someone from further advancement.
b) new minds, new perspectives are required in the sciences and in all branches of science (any field, really) … even Einstein ran into a brick wall as it were with trying to take his theories beyond what observational and experimental physics were indicating …
c) The continued coat-racking of issues not directly tied to subject matter in the thread: is this a product of bitterness, vengefulness at not having achieved a level of success one ‘expected’? A striking out as it were at an ‘America’ too dumb to ‘get it’? I have a level of faith that we will succeed, naysayers (much like yourself) notwithstanding … with regard to science: the immutable laws of nature (and of God) stand regardless of what any one individual, or any group of individuals believe or would like to believe … do you not have that kind of faith anymore?
It would seem not …
.
Theo Goodwin says:
July 25, 2010 at 12:37 pm
You give them too much credit. Models are not up to the level of hypotheses and cannot be used to make predictions and, for that reason, cannot be falsified. For models, the best that you can say is that they are consistent with what is observed in the world. The AGW models have a long way to go before they are so much as consistent with what we know about the world. They are incomplete analytical tools at this time. When they are consistent with what we know about the world, some decades in the future, then they will be good analytical tools. They can be used to teach us all that is implicit in our assumptions. But they will never be hypotheses and useful for prediction.
They are treated as a theory with outcomes that impact on the world not only by their creators, but by politicians the world over who use them saying the science is settled.
After all, all theories are modeled, mathematics is a modeling tool.
Any theory, from general relativity to electrodynamics can be treated as a black box: input the hypothesis and axioms output predictions.
Climate models are not different , except in the levels of trivial complexity and multiplicity of assumptions; and they are being used as predictive oracles, and they can be falsified, and in this case they are.
Falsification means the assumptions built in the models have to be redone/rethought from scratch, and the IPCC results cannot be used as definitive predictions of the future of the earth, which is what most governments are doing.
Gail Combs says:
July 25, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I have recently asked if anyone has done any micro-climate studies , perhaps in the Sahara desert, to link CO2 changes to temperature. The Sahara has a very low humidity 4%-30% It would be an excellent place to correlate CO2, humidity, solar insolation and temperature data from the Atlantic all the way to the Nile in Egypt and study the effects of CO2, and water vapor on temperatures at the same latitude, elevation and solar insolation.
Yes, you are right, I have often pointed out the deserts as green house poor regions , both to refute the well mixed business ( why do they get so cold at night then?) and various exaggerations of the “greenhouse ” hypothesis . They should be studied but I guess such proposals would be like proposing to Lysenko carefully controlled experiments of seed generation.
On the other hand, the fact that CO2 has no different heat capacity than the rest of the gases in the atmosphere and no magic heat retention properties has been amply proven in the open market. It is decades since we are sold double and triple level glass windows for insulation without loss of view. Have you heard of anybody using CO2 between the layers, if CO2 is so magical? It is N2 as far as I know that is between the layers.
In any group there are going to be some who will worry about *something*. The AGW alarmists are simply this bunch grown old. Just live folks…..
I would like to thank Meremortal and James Sexton for their comments. In truth I really don’t care about cigarette smoking in the same way I don’t really care about abortion…it doesn’t affect me. In another sense I care deeply about both issues as they relate to liberty.
My practice is in the field of healthcare so I’m obviously biased against smoking. But I’m something of stickler for statistical proof. To date there exists no statistically valid evidence to link second hand smoke to health problems (the plural of anecdote is not data).
I think it’s an excellent idea to have non-smoking bars and restaurants. I like that there is no smoking in most airports but I applaud Atlanta for providing “reasonable accommodation” to smokers by means of having glassed-in negative pressure smoking areas available. If a bar or restaurant wishes to cater to smokers (and those not offended by tobacco smoke) they should be allowed to do so. Non-smokers (and those easily offended) are free to go elsewhere. The converse is also true. If a place of business is posted “no smoking”, then go elsewhere unless you agree to comply.
I’m not defending smoking. I’m defending freedom. The second hand smoke imbroglio simply demonstrates how easily “science” can be co-opted to further a political agenda. It stinks and it’s annoying, but nobody’s health is really at risk except the smoker. A specious claim that CO2 will cause doom and gloom could very well destroy the economy of the modern world. Only those who collect the taxes for “fair redistribution” and the eco-geek believers in the myth win.
Dr Dave says
My practice is in the field of healthcare so I’m obviously biased against smoking. But I’m something of stickler for statistical proof. To date there exists no statistically valid evidence to link second hand smoke to health problems (the plural of anecdote is not data).
If second hand smoking causes cancer, that’s just rubbing it in. It’s akin to be assaulted. Your clothes smell, your sinuses clog, lungs are irritated and eyes tear. It’s obnoxious. This is the issue, regarding simple observation, not scientific analysis.
Would it be okay if I pinned you down and farted on your face? It probably doesn’t cause cancer so under your logic you have no right to object.
re: Jim says: July 25, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Hi Jim,
I have no idea wrt the merits of ‘cold fusion’ – but I just want to point out that an agency or even noted government/military group researching something for ages doesn’t necessarily mean that the thing is ‘real’ or will pan out. Look at the current situation with AGW research.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies, one cannot help thinking of the remark of Max Planck:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?_______________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
No they are not “Shills”….. They were paid for their scientific expertise.
As concerns Tobacco. The science doesn’t support the theory that Tobacco smoking ALONE causes cancer….. Otherwise ALL smokers would develop lung cancer and all non smokers wouldn’t.
The truth is that few smokers develop lung cancer as pertains to their demographic, while many non smokers DO develop lung cancer as pertains to theirs…. Thus the meme of ” Passive smoke” became derigour so as to present a “legal” arguement, but not a “scientific” one. In that regard it was successful.
Smoke of all kinds is bad for the lungs, but the mechanism for developing cancer and tobacco smoke is not understood nor explained in any science. One can easily explain the effects and mechanisms for the toxicity of cyanide on biology, from whoa to go. But cannot even approch that level of detail in explaining the carcinogenic effect of tobacco smoke.
Don’t get me wrong. Smoking damages the lungs, is a bad habit and is addictive because of the substance called nicotine….. But it is not significant in it’s effect as pertains to Lung cancer.
Henri Tuletucker says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:36 pm
“Would it be okay if I pinned you down and farted on your face? It probably doesn’t cause cancer so under your logic you have no right to object.”
Well…actually this WOULD be assault and you would end up with fewer teeth and a permanent limp. One of the (many) reasons I don’t like bars is cigarette smoke. The solution is easy. I avoid going to bars. But I played in a bluegrass band in my youth and we very frequently played in bars. I had a blast in those days. It was great fun. But bars are (or were) smokey places. As an adult I choose to avoid them. This is MY own personal choice. If an establishment wishes to allow smoking that should be their choice and your choice not to patronize such establishments if this behavior offends your sensibilities. Geez…this is a no-brainer.
The real issue here is the tyranny of the polemic. Second hand smoke has not been proven to cause cancer. CO2 has not been proven to cause catastrophic global warming. The corruption of science to fit a political agenda can have perilous consequences for all of us.
If smoking were outlawed tomorrow it wouldn’t matter much to me. It wouldn’t affect me personally. But if it is outlawed it should be for a scientifically provable reason (i.e. if person A smokes, person B is endangered by being in proximity), not because someone merely finds it objectionable. I don’t care how many “anthropogenic CO2 will kill the planet” worshipers there are out there. If they can’t back up their claims they need to shut up.
@J.Hansford
Wow. I am at a loss of words after reading what you write.
One fine point that should be borne in mind in the discussion of second-hand smoke is that between regular exposure at home or on the job, and intermittent exposure (in a bar, etc.) The evidence on the harmfulness of the latter is weak. I think that certain warmist sites have tarred free-market think tanks that have objected to prohibitions on intermittent exposure as being “deniers” of “tobacco’s harmfulness,” or something of the sort.
Jim July 25, 2010 at 8:02pm,
No Jim, we only think we won. The battle we should have been fighting contemporaneously was with the stated aim (Antonio Gramsci, 1920’s) of infiltrating the West’s Institutions, to obtain a collapse from within. This was reiterated by Kruschev, and a defector from the KGB in the ’80’s, and the Fabian society and other socialist think tanks ever since.
The reason that in critical areas, math, science and language America has fallen behind is that the institutions of learning have been subverted with post modernist thinking,(no absolutes, every point of view has equal validity) as have the civil service and law.
It is not for nothing that the “motif” of the Fabian society has a clearly depicted ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ in the background !
Dr. Dave says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:49 pm
“…………. One of the (many) reasons I don’t like bars is cigarette smoke. The solution is easy. I avoid going to bars. But I played in a bluegrass band in my youth and we very frequently played in bars. I had a blast in those days. It was great fun. But bars are (or were) smokey places. As an adult I choose to avoid them. This is MY own personal choice. If an establishment wishes to allow smoking that should be their choice and your choice not to patronize such establishments if this behavior offends your sensibilities. Geez…this is a no-brainer.
The real issue here is the tyranny of the polemic. Second hand smoke has not been proven to cause cancer. CO2 has not been proven to cause catastrophic global warming. The corruption of science to fit a political agenda can have perilous consequences for all of us.”
Dave, thank you for tying the smoking conversation up quite nicely. You were quite eloquent in demonstrating how one defends others liberties by using your own. Well done. I hadn’t intended to start such a discussion, or debate smoking, but I think it is necessary to place historical events in their proper context to allow people to understand what is really happening.
While there may be some paranoid doomsayers that honestly believe we’re all going to die by the hand of CO2 emissions, I don’t think any sane people really do. We know Al Gore doesn’t. He just bought a mansion on the ocean front. The greenies fly to their meetings, rent limos, and otherwise engage in the same behaviors which we are told is going to destroy the earth. Either these are the most callous people in the history of the world, or, they can’t possibly believe the tripe they spew. So, why then all of the hyperbole and alarm? It’s just run of the mill tyranny. Nothing new here. They use psuedo-science to attempt to give their position an appearance of legitimacy. Again, nothing new, given the discussion here about the smoking issue, we can see the same was done not so long ago. While I didn’t expect it here, we had the good fortune to have commentators that showed us how easy it is to become a tyrant in the name of science(or health) while not recognizing their own selfishness. And how there is always an issue for someone to seize upon that wishes to control the behavior of the masses.
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” — Thomas Jefferson
This is exactly true as the free-market think tanks arguments relating to tobacco are not that it is harmless but that the harms are exaggerated especially in relation to second hand smoke and that it is the right of a business to decide who’s clientele it wishes to serve just like it is the right of the customer to choose if they wish to patronize said business. These logical arguments are ignored by those who like to argue against against liberty in the guise of the nanny state.
The Tobacco argument is a propagandist tool to smear highly credentialed scientists since most alarmists highly value credentials and those whom they perceive as “intellectuals”. Accepting that such scientists exist that do not support their alarmist position would create a cognitive dissonance. Thus their method to cope is to smear these scientists as “evil” by linking them to tobacco companies, whom they already regard as “evil”.
I’ve provided the rebuttals to these smears in the rebuttals section yet people continue to ignore my comments on this earlier and have obviously not taken the time to read them. So again read: ‘Vanity Scare’ and ‘Clouding the Truth: A Critique of Merchants of Doubt’,
You see just the association of where the research funds originated is all alarmists need to attempt to smear any scientist associated with those funds as “evil”, they never speak of the actual research they did with the money, their results or their outspoken position on the issue, they simply attempt character assassination by research funding source. You have to remember to alarmists all privately funded research is by default nefarious simply because it was “private” but this is a two for one for them and thus unquestionably sinister. To them facts don’t matter only what they “feel” is the “truth”.
It looks like this post has touched a nerve,
Newsflash: WhatsUpWithIt Irresponsibly Posts Blacklist of Eminent Physicists
I love when they telegraph the posts they feel threatened by.
toby says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies, one cannot help thinking of the remark of Max Planck:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
The question is not about how many eminent old physicists are contrarians, but how many young ones?_______________________________________________
You are simply using the tried and true Warmist tactic of the red herring of one’s age, which you know perfectly well has nothing to do with the validity of a scientific argument. And sorry, but the CAGW/CC argument doesn’t even begin to rise to the level of “scientific truth”. It never actually rose beyond the level of a highly-glorified, much-ballyhooed conjecture. That much is becoming plainer by the day to even the most wooly-headed of climate bed wetters.
I’m a smoker.The laws banning smoking in restaurants and shops,any area where the public mingles indoors is good,banning in pubs–bad.They should have allowed bars for smokers–individual choice,what’s wrong with installing extraction fans as well?
I know the second hand smoke theory is garbage.I look around at all the smokers I know,all the children they have had,need I say more?
That said,I am glad in a way that society came down on smoking,it’s a dirty habit,no good at all.
What amuse me is how Americans in certain parts of the country are embracing smoking in the form of marijuana.Do they know that most people mix marijuana with tobacco?
Next step will be smoking areas for users of marijuana,while smokers are left out in the cold.
It’s a weird world.
Brian W says:
July 25, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Ric Werme (july 25, 2010 8:44am)
I had hoped you might explain what that 0.01% is a percentage of. While you may not kid me, I observe your expositional skills need development. It looks like it has to be the change in CO2 relative to the entire atmosphere – 0.01% of X is a ratio of 0.0001, or 100 ppm. Yep, CO2 as a percentage of the total atmosphere has increased from 0.03% to 0.04%. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up (from those single significant digit amounts) by 30%.
Both ways are valid ways of describing percentages, but any percentage needs to describe what it’s a percentage of. Evan was quite clear and I’ll stand by his numbers.
What you’re doing is emphasizing that CO2 is just a trace gas and trace gasses won’t hurt anyone. (I assume you’re excluding carbon monoxide.) However, CO2 is a very important trace gas. It used to be a lot more important – the first 100 ppm, err, first 0.01%, had a huge impact on blocking long wave radiation. The most recent 0.01% hasn’t had nearly the impact. While I appreciate the stand of some level headed scientists who expect to find an increasing global temperature with increasing CO2, I don’t think we have good enough data to demonstrate that and suspect that increased convection (and Willis’s thunderstorm governor) trumps CO2 increases and changes in mean free path of IR photons, blocking around the edges of the absorpton window, etc.
You’re welcome to your opinion as much as I am to mine. I suspect you have little evidence to support your claim though. I suggest you start with my website above or my essay Science, Method, Climatology, and Forgetting the Basics at http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html .
It needs a little updating, as it’s the first serious web page I created on climate change, but it does reflect my then new understanding that the CO2 IR absorption window is saturated. I think that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment for a trace gas.
As for those making the ridiculous age argument,
With age really DOES come wisdom: Scientists prove older people are less impulsive (The Daily Mail, UK)
Poptech says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:10 am
“This is exactly true as the free-market think tanks arguments relating to tobacco are not that it is harmless but that the harms are exaggerated especially in relation to second hand smoke and that it is the right of a business to decide who’s clientele it wishes to serve just like it is the right of the customer to choose if they wish to patronize said business.”
Absolutely, the lunacy of the argument has always been beyond me. Of course, too much of anything can be detrimental to ones health. For instance, if one spent all day, every day behind a diesel bus one would expect some respiratory difficulties. Same as being a coal miner without proper respiratory equipment. Yet, the typical exposure to second-hand smoke was/is nowhere near the type and levels of exposure in the aforementioned scenarios. What absolutely floors me is the willingness of citizens to voluntarily give up their fellows citizens liberties without seeing how when one of us looses liberty, we all lose our liberty.
I hate rap music. Given the volume and the manner it is listened to, it is beyond a doubt harmful to anyone’s auditory health. I’ve left places that started to play that stuff they try to pass off as music. By the logic used in regards to smoking bans, I should start a movement that criminalizes people that listen to rap. I’m certain I can get any number of hearing specialists to bear witness to the harm the rap player inflicts on other people. It should be my right to be able to go to a night club without having that noise inflicted upon my person and I should insist on that right. I should take it to the EPA, fed, state and local legislatures. If I’m persistent enough, I’ll win. Or I could use the logic handed down to me from generation past and have the sense to avoid things that offend my sensibilities and revel in the freedoms of my fellow Americans.—–I will defend a rap players freedom to play until the very end.
None of these guys say that CO2 is not a warming gas. CO2 holds infrared in the atmosphere; CO2 has increased by 50% in the blink of a geologic eye as TeraTons of it, sequestered over millions of years, is released by humans. I don’t need models. I know that there is warming being added (no matter what the net effect) that would not otherwise be there, and that we are playing around with the planet, using it as an experiment, already. If just half of the physics (or physics-related) PhD’s said there was cause for concern, that would be enough. The stipulated facts are that worrisome.
This is illogical as these are not public locations but private businesses. There has been for over 20 years non-smoking sections in just about every restaurant and there was never a problem. So long as you have a choice to not go into the business, it is illogical to ban smoking there.
This is due to left over rejects from the sixties passing on their brain damaged experiences to other weak minded individuals. Forget mixing it with tobacco as marijuana smoke is worse than smoking on it’s own,
Impact on lungs of 1 cannabis joint equal to up to 5 cigarettes (British Medical Journal)
I detail the the myriad health risks (brain damage, cancer, gum disease, heart disease, infertility, lung disease, obesity, pregnancy failure, viral infections) from pot here.
I had hoped you might explain what that 0.01% is a percentage of.
He means CO2 increase as compared with total volume of atmosphere.
I checked and it seems they are using Argon as filling for double glaze , and a reflective coating for infrared to send infrared back in. Not CO2, the magic gas for heat retention and ball playing.
http://www.windowinfo.co.uk/doubleglazing-fensa-regulations.asp
Anderlan says:
July 26, 2010 at 7:49 am
I don’t need models. I know that there is warming being added (no matter what the net effect) that would not otherwise be there, and that we are playing around with the planet, using it as an experiment, already. If just half of the physics (or physics-related) PhD’s said there was cause for concern, that would be enough. The stipulated facts are that worrisome.
But with no models you end up hand waving. I can hand wave that the next ice age is right around the corner. It does not matter if there are thousands of PhDs handwaving.
They have to have calculations, and in the chaotic complicated climate conditions only models can calculate numerically, and models are as good or bad as their assumptions.
The worrisome stipulated facts, as you state are only stipulated by use of the IPCC GCM models, and these have been falsified, i.e. the real world data do not follow the IPCC predictions/projections.
James Sexton,
“By the logic used in regards to smoking bans, I should start a movement that criminalizes people that listen to rap. I’m certain I can get any number of hearing specialists to bear witness to the harm the rap player inflicts on other people. It should be my right to be able to go to a night club without having that noise inflicted upon my person and I should insist on that right.”
Be careful what you say. There’s probably some self righteous busy body somewhere that will go right ahead and do it.
Anderlan says:
July 26, 2010 at 7:49 am
“I don’t need models. I know that there is warming being added (no matter what the net effect) that would not otherwise be there, and that we are playing around with the planet, using it as an experiment, already.”
It always gets me how warmists trivialise the worlds energy use, by describing it as some sort of experiment. The idea of course is that if it’s just and “experiment” then we don’t need to do it, do we? We can just stop what we’re doing. The truth is nobody has any idea how to meet our energy needs without emitting CO2, and that’s why the mitigation lobby is falling apart. No, CO2 is not just some experiment, it is the single most important resource that underpins global civilization, and all the myriad wonders that we take for granted.
toby says-
‘Given the age of these august gentlemen, some of whom unfortunately sullied their reputations by becoming the paid shills of tobacco companies, one cannot help thinking of the remark of Max Planck:…….’
Some of us, ancient heavy smokers like me, have had an interest in the anti-smoking argument ever since the late Professor Doll (he wasn’t a professor then, just a dermatologist), announced his hypothesis before he had started his questionnaire based data collection back about 1950. Sadly, there was no internet in those days and no medium via which the skeptics could voice their concerns about the shortcomings in Doll’s data collection models or his misuse of statistical manipulation. Doll won the day, but there is no evidence whatever that would meet the scientific method, that says that he was right.
Sorry! ‘models’ should read ‘methods’.
anna v says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Correct. N2 is the preferred gas for double glazing!
For its insulation properties, nothing to do with IR
DaveE.
anna v says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Forgot to mention in the above post; the other reason for using N2 is to increase the life of the aluminium spacer bars due to being relatively inert.
DaveE.
anna v
Oops, should have consulted my friends rather than memory.
Yes, Argon is the preferred gas & only for the inert properties.
Low E glass is an old concept 1st inception being Kappafloat from Pilkington glass of St. Helens, Lancashire.
New coatings can be toughened, unlike the old ‘soft’ coats which had to be applied after toughening
The latest thing is low iron glass which, in the UK has to use sand imported from Spain, then has to be heated more than 1000ºC above ‘normal’ sand to make glass. This allows better transmission of incoming light which is then retained as energy by the coating. (theoretically).
DaveE.
One day, the fool said, “Let’s Go! Let’s do it!” And the wise man said, “Stop! Wait and see!” On another day, the fool said, “Stop! Wait and see!” And the wise man said, “Let’s Go! Let’s do it!” The hardest thing you will ever have to do is determine who is who, every day of your life.
Well, when you’re sitting at a poker game and you pay to see, don’t let anyone grab the pot UNTIL THEY SHOW THEIR CARDS.
evanmjones
[REPLY – Yes, I’ve considered that. There’s some correlation, although the Oort Minimum occurred during the Medieval Warm period. The Spoerer, Wolf, Maunder, and Dalton minimums partially, but not completely, correlate with the LIA. We may or may not be entering one now (someone wanted to cal it the “Ad Ho Minimum”, which gets my vote). Lief Svalgaard, our solar expert, contends the correlation of the Seuss/DeVries and Gleissberg cycles with cooling periods is not great and the TSI delta is insufficient. So I’m not sure what to think. Svensmark may be about to be real-world tested, though, now. We’ll observe! ~ Evan]
I must confess I’m beginning to get heartily sick of all this: ‘Lief Svalgaard, our solar expert, contends ….the TSI delta is insufficient.” stuff.
If you look closely at Svalgaard’s most recent (5/27/10) effort ‘”Has the Sun’s Output Really Changed Significantly Since the Little Ice Age?”
http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
(watch the %20 spaces)
you will inevitably end up with Svalgaard’s Chart 16, where he states “So, Reconstructions of TSI are converging towards having no ‘background'”. This chart includes graphs of 10 TSI reconstructions, including Wang’s and Svalgaard’s own. However, Svalgaard provides no sense of direction for his claimed convergence of ‘no background’ (to TSI variation). The graphs shown don’t converge to anything. He hasn’t even dated them, should one consider time of publication is an important criterion for goodness of fit. They are simply multiple estimates of TSI with no quality factor(s) by which the various estimates might be weighted and combined.
Svalgaard’s conclusion in his 5/27/10 paper is:
• Variation in Solar Output is a Factor of Ten too Small to Account for The Little Ice Age,
• Unless the Climate is Extraordinarily Sensitive to Very Small Changes,
• But Then the Phase (‘Line-Up of Wiggles’) is Not Right
• Way Out: Sensitivity and Phases Vary Semi-Randomly on All Time Scales.
Svalgaard is right to belittle correlation by the “Line-up of Wiggles”. He could throw in visual comparisons of charts, like Judith Lean’s SORCE 2008 beautiful map diagrams (Charts 14, 20), or of co-plots of traces (Charts 24, 27).
http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/2008/08069lean/lean.pdf
The human eye is indeed easily deceived. Correlation is a mathematical operation leading to a lag-dependent number, hence a function. Correlation needs to be quantified, but NEITHER Lean nor Svalgaard have ever attempted to compute the correlation between global average surface temperature and TSI reconstructions.
The key point is Svalgaard’s second bullet point in his Conclusions: “Unless the Climate is … Sensitive to … Small Changes”. About this, Judith Lean says in her Chart 13, current understanding assumes that climate response to solar radiative forcing is thermodynamic…
BUT empirical evidence suggests it is dynamic, rather than (or as well as) thermodynamic…
engages existing circulation patterns (Hadley, Ferrel and Walter cells) and atmosphere-ocean interactions (ENSO)…
involves both direct (surface heating) and indirect (stratospheric influence) components.
and
solar irradiance provides a well specified external climate forcing for testing models and understanding.
Lief Svalgaard likes to both blog and publish as the kidney punching soccer skinhead of solar science, claiming the case of the Sun’s recent deep minimum is evidence that all TSI reconstructions before his own are…..obsolete. In some cases the acrimony is so bad Svalgaard’s ‘non-admirers’ can’t even bring themselves to cite his papers. But examination of the literature suggests at this point in time he is a simply an over-stated ‘consensus’ of ……one.
It’s a bit like good old De Gaulle’s Montreal statement “La France? C’est MOI”.
ecoeng says:
I must confess I’m beginning to get heartily sick of all this: ‘Lief Svalgaard, our solar expert, contends ….the TSI delta is insufficient.” stuff…..
_______________________________________________________
I find it quite interesting that Dr Svalgaard spends so much time here at WUWT trouncing any solar – climate connecting beyond the 0.1C that IPCC allows.
After being an eye witness to the rapid and deliberate spreading of false information (propaganda) by the media on a nation wide basis, one of which left me jobless in 1992 and the current one that will also destroy my present livelihood I have no trust in the establishment.
This is especially true in light of the academic paper, by Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. he argues the U.S. government should ban “conspiracy theorizing.”
Among the beliefs Sunstein wants to ban is the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud. the 2008 paper is here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Sunstein thinks the best government response to “conspiracy theories” is “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups….
“We suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity… [he suggests agents] might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”
That said here are other articles I have found on the variability of the sun. At this point I do not know what to believe, but I do not think any of the current scientists, PHD or not, does either. The we do not know what we don’t know problem.
UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-discover-surprise-in-101025.aspx
UV is that it has the energy to breakup O2 to atomic O, which facilitates O3, which also absorbs uv… And from what i have read on the subject recently it should effect stratospheric temperatures… (and by extension global climate.) http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(1979)036%3C1084:TROSOI%3E2.0.CO;2
NASA article below also raises the question if reduced UV effects upper atmospheric temperatures.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/coolingthermosphere.html
NASA: Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/29sep_cosmicrays/
Cosmic Ray count since 1965
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/10/20&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/12/30&endtime=07:16&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
NASA: Solar Dynamics Observatory: The ‘Variable Sun’ Mission
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05feb_sdo/
Geomagnetism and climate : the last 400 years
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCEQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fadsabs.harvard.edu%2Fabs%2F2003EAEJA…..9655N&ei=G2VQTL63D8SqlAe4y8C4CQ&usg=AFQjCNH0Q16r91LIlv-CmdydDDgDwNpiaQ
NOAA chart of Sunspot – radio flux – -Geomagnetic-
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt
Geomagnetic Disturbance Index
http://www.nwra.com/spawx/ap.html
NOAA – Sun at it’s most active:
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/ThesunNOAA.jpg
NASA:Sun’s brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/
NASA: Solar Variability
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_03.php
SUN -CLIMATE link papers:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VHB-5033Y1W-2&_user=38557&_coverDate=05%2F15%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000004358&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=38557&md5=4e363178f789c1677708384f728ce49d
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1319
Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-50822BB-1&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1414645412&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=97088e0536a3db0e3ea75e7fa28d175c
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception
Ulrich C. Müller & Jörg Pross, Institute of Geosciences, University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4R5G3HY-4&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1411146245&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3e90ecdae545f9a1fa43ca0e021bf5d3
The strong statistical correlation between skepticism and being dead in Mr. Watts selection suggest he should attend more APS meetings.
Their is a strong correlation between Russell Seitz posting and the posts containing inaccurate statements.
Gail Combs says:
July 28, 2010 at 10:39 am
I find it quite interesting that Dr Svalgaard spends so much time here at WUWT trouncing any solar – climate connecting beyond the 0.1C that IPCC allows.
Be fair.
Leif has convinced me that he defends the science results he finds statistically convincing and refutes the rest in a discipline where he has spent a lifetime studying and publishing.
The 0.1 change is not an IPCC number out of the blue. It is what he has estimated from the data and metadata available to him.
Now he might be wrong even in that, but somebody should publish a refutation. Or there might exist several amplification mechanisms, ala Svensmark, plankton etc that together create a chaotic system that destroys direct correlations of global temperature to solar irradiance. Or global temperature is so badly measured that correlations are lost . Or ….
Time will tell.
You should not be mixing him up with cognitive infiltrators though. I get as pugnacious 🙂 when people spout what I think is nonsense in my field ( elementary particles).
Gail, to be fair Leif doesn’t understand the limitations of computer modeling and when I asked him if a model could be programmed to get the results that you wanted, he ridiculously said no. This is unfortunately a common occurrence with scientists who use computers in their field but are not computer scientists and thus have no remote clue about their limitations. It is why they have unrealistic faith in model results. A model can be programmed to get any results that you want and are nothing more than the subjective opinions of the scientists creating them. This alone is enough to make me question his opinion on many things.
I have been told enough times by my AGW skpetic friends that scientific consesus does not equate to truth.
So I am not sure I get why we are listing 7 scientists who may have been skeptical (which is different that disagreeing) with Climate Change (AGW) when they were alive.
If you don’t buy that consensus should have a place in science, certainly scrounging for a scattering of scientists, even eminent ones, who presumably agree with you, should not sway the science either.
FYI – for those in the list who are no longer alive – seems unfair to quote their opinions in perpetuity. They do not have the ability to change their minds anymore.
Tom, pointing out eminent scientists who do not agree with AGW alarm supports the notion for a lack of consensus and thus the skeptic position.
Many educated individuals disagree with the global-warming-caused-by-man theory as poorly principled, inaccurate or otherwise invalid. Each individual seems to have their own individual idea and I can see no common ground among them.
Of the serious comments here I see only a they-are-wrong-and-we-are-right approach. That will not hold water any more than the warming glaciers hold ice.
The true situation is that changes to our planet are occurring which will bring about major changes to our civilizations and probably cause the death of millions as those changes occur.
So besides the I-am-right=you-are-wrong crap what are we doing about the changes in our environment which occur for whatever reason?
Thanx for your un-cited opinion, kbutler.
Saying that the “true situation is that changes to our planet are occurring which will bring about major changes to our civilizations and probably cause the death of millions as those changes occur” is pure conjecture, not the ‘true situation.’
If you go back to RealClimate, you won’t get any “I-am-right=you-are wrong” discussion, for the simple reason that RC [and similar blogs simply don’t allow any points of view contrary to the Party line [CO2=CAGW].
As you may or may not be aware, CO2 has been almost twenty times higher in the geologic past — and many times higher than the present — while the planet descended into long Ice Ages. Where is your god now?
The current claim is if CO2 rises from one molecule in 2,600, to one molecule in 2,500, runaway global warming will result. Those holding that belief ignore the plain fact that CO2 has been much higher many times in the past, with no climate catastrophe.
But of course, belief systems are almost impossible to correct, being caused by cognitive dissonance: if the flying saucers didn’t arrive as scheduled, that can only mean that their arrival has been re-scheduled; it couldn’t possibly mean there are no flying saucers. [See Leon Festinger.]
Cognitive dissonance is a universal hallmark of believers in CAGW. Skeptics are largely immune from CD, because skeptics are simply asking for convincing evidence of CAGW. So far, the only “evidence” comes from computer models. Of course, that is not evidence, it is conjecture.