This is quite something. Sixteen scientists, including such names as Richard Lindzen, William Kininmonth, Wil Happer, and Nir Shaviv, plus engineer Burt Rutan, and Apollo 17 astronaut Dr. Harrison Schmidt, among others, write what amounts to a heretical treatise to the Wall Street Journal, expressing their view that the global warming is oversold, has stalled in the last decade, and that the search for meaningful warming has led to co-opting weather patterns in the blame game. Oh, and a history lesson on Lysenkoism as it relates to today’s warming-science-funding-complex. I can hear Joe Romm’s head exploding all the way out here in California.
Excerpts:
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.
Editor’s Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
…
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
…
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word “incontrovertible” from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question “cui bono?” Or the modern update, “Follow the money.”
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
…
Signed by:
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.
Full letter is online here at the Wall Street Journal
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I like Jaymam’s idea,
it could take take the form of a simple excel file, to which everybody must have excess,
in which on the far left the names of people who signed up appear in alphabetical order.
Mind you , I am not interested in knowing the qualifications. People with PhD have never been a great help to me in the past. All I think we need to know is the field(s) of expertise, like in my case, analytical chemistry and statistics. Then columns for contact details and pseudonyms, etc.
(BTW, I think most people write under false names because they don’t want their employers to know they wrote a comment in the bosses’ time. Does WUWT have to display times?Mind you, note that for some comments a time display is given that was not the real time when he/she wrote it. That means they could be falsely accused of this. I think it would be best if WUWT could remove the time when the comment was put up and just keep to a numbering system for tracking responses)
Then, a column whether CAGW or AGW or LW (lukewarm, don’t know for sure), or SCEP
As I ponder this idea, at this point a question arises:
Suppose, as has been proven in real green houses, that the increase in CO2 does cause some extra vegetation to grow, and that without this extra CO2 on earth this vegetation would have withered and died; and furthermore, that this extra vegetation does cause some actual additional entrapment of heat, as I have postulated (but not yet completely finally proven),
meaning that indirectly the adding of CO2 by man could have caused some additional warming due to the increased vegetation; also of course by man adding to this by planting more trees, gardens and crops;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
then, if I believe that this increase in vegetation by man and extra CO2 could be a contributory factor to global warming in addition to the natural warming (by the increased intensity from the sun and/or less clouds)
then, what does that make me? AGW or SCEP?
Brendan H says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:08 pm
[Richard M: “Since you obviously must know “the extent of dissent”, why didn’t you tell us?”]
My argument doesn’t depend on my knowing the extent of dissent (although that’s not to say that I can’t make a reasonable guess). I’m saying that the signers don’t know the level of dissent.
…
So I think I’m on pretty safe ground in claiming that these scientists don’t really know the extent of dissent.
No, all you did is spew useless generalizations based on nothing but what you WANT to believe. You have yet to post a single fact to back up your statement. Obvious example of confirmation bias. You simply don’t WANT to believe what was stated so you manufacture scenarios to discount what was said. This is typical for religious beliefs.
Folks who respect equally solid science and solid skepticism, always like to go back to the original documents of science and skepticism. In a post above, we saw that James Hansen and his colleagues, in their 1981 article in Science, titled “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”, made some pretty accurate predictions about future climate change (for example, Hansen predicts the opening of the Northwest Passage).
It is natural for skeptic and nonskeptic alike to wonder, are any of the WSJ-16 on-record with similarly accurate predictions? As it turns out, James Lindzen went on-record in his 1989 article in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, titled “Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming” (a PDF of Lindzen’s article is available here).
Although Lindzen’s article is well-written, and makes many valid points, it is evident too that:
(1) Lindzen’s predictive reach is shorter than Hansen’s. Lindzen’s predictive reach is 23 years versus 31 years.
(2) Lindzen’s predictions are vague compared to Hansen’s. The most nearly specific is “These, then, are my (and other people’s) reasons for believing that greenhouse warming may be much smaller than currently publicized estimates.”
(3) Lindzen’s key 1989 predictions ahve turned out wrong. In particular, Lindzen’s review harshly criticizes climate models that predict pronounced warming at high Arctic (but not Antarctic) latitudes (see Lindzen’s Figure 3). Moreover, Lindzen’s review shows temperature anomaly data that are flat for 1900-1985 (see Lindzen’s Figure 4). As is well-known, these anomalies now are showing a pronounced upward trend (that some call the “hockey-stick”).
The Hansen-versus-Lindzen, 1981-versus-1989, skeptic-versus- track record is the rational, objective reason why Hansen’s scientific reputation presently eclipses Lindzen’s.
And so our inspection of the original nonskeptical and skeptical scientific literature leads us to a simple elevator summary:
In balance, Hansen’s 1981 (nonskeptical) climate predictions are more impressive than Lindzen’s 1989 (skeptical) concerns, yet both are valuable.
“R. Gates says:
January 27, 2012 at 11:56 am
Robert Austin says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:55 am
“………They are saying that they know how sensitive the climate is to CO2 forcing from the levels of CO2 we currently have and are likely to see in the upcoming century. ”
Nir Shaviv, on his website, DID calculate climate sensitivity.
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Of course, as he said, we hasve no knowledge of ACTUAL feedback factors but taking geological history into account, the feedbacks are NEGATIVE. Over the last 3 billion yeaes the sun’s luminosity has increased about 20%, and yet we have had life and liquid oceans for all of that time.
When will we be warned of man made global cooling caused by CO2 and the coming ice age. Oh yea, I’ve already seen that movie too!
Oh dear, this idea of stating your position on AGW is going to be difficult! What sort of skeptic are you?
An out and out nutter – you actually know where Einstein went wrong, and if only you could do the maths people would listen to you. You feel the same way about climate science…
Its not warming – you aren’t convinced its warming. This of course includes “its not really warming, its a 60 year cycle”, as well as, “all the temperature data is faked to show warming that isn’t there.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics means there is no greenhouse effect, and of course you can’t believe in something that isn’t there.
There is a greenhouse effect, but there is a negative feedback which makes climate sensitivity about 0.5 C for a doubling of CO2.
There is a greenhouse effect, but there is no feedback, so climate sensitivity is around 1 C for a doubling of CO2.
There is a greenhouse effect, but the rise in CO2 is not of our doing, so there is nothing we can do about it.
There is a greenhouse effect, but it is such a complex nonlinear system that we can’t possibly understand it.
Warming is good, CO2 is plant food, and burning fossil fuels is our sacred duty.
There are so many shades of gray, but I think its important to sort out at exactly what point each persons views differ from (obviously corrupt and deceitful) accepted climate science.
For myself, I accept AGW, and hope that climate sensitivity is at the low end of the estimates.
Doug, please let me refer to the above mentioned 1989 article by (WSJ=16 skeptic) Richard Lindzen titled “Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming“, which discusses this point in-detail.
GHE
AGW.
Richard Lindzen’s critical review affirms that the atmospheric greenhouse effect is caused (in substantial part) by precisely the backradiation mechanisms that you criticize (as shown in Lindzen’s Figures 5 and 6).
Elevator Summary: Even the WSJ-16 skeptics have accepted (for more than 20 years!) the overwhelming mathematical, theoretical, experimental, and observational evidence for the reality of the link GHG
PVE says:
By the way, government subsidy when done carefully can be a good thing for the governed.
Henry@PVE
I do agree! I am a sceptic (I think – I am waiting for the experts to decide)
but saving or re-using energy is always a good thing.
In South Africa we had subsidies to put up solar geysers. I now save 40% on my electricity bill.
At my last visit to LA, I was amazed to find how few people actually have solar geysers there.
Don’t they know that the sun can give warm water for free?
I you are worried about getting caught with cold water when the sun doesn’t shine:
the geysers switch to electric heating when the water temp. falls too low.
“Some Guy says:
January 27, 2012 at 12:25 pm
……….
Henk Tennekes
supported this decisions by referring to biblical texts.
Makes an ad hominem attack by smearing Tennekes as a religious nut. I see WUWT addressed this previously:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/12/scientist-i-don%E2%80%99t-want-to-remain-a-member-of-an-organization-that-screws-up-science-that-badly/
Tennekes is quoted after resigning from the Danish Academy of sciences:
“In my induction speech for the Academy, in January 1984, I introduced the limited predictability of the weather as a prime example of the uncertainties associated with the sensitive dependence of nonlinear systems to initial conditions and to mismatches between Nature and the models we use to compute its evolution. I told my audience that the prediction horizon, in 1950 estimated by John von Neumann at 30 days, in fact is only three days on average. I dwelt only a little on the implications of this for the myth of endless progress in science. Apparently, meteorology is approaching the no-man’s land between the unknown and the unknowable,”…
“Unfortunately, mainstream theology continues to propagate a similar myth, i.e. the stupid idea that one can talk with insight, and write scholarly publications, about God himself. That, in my mind, is an unforgivable epistemological fallacy. Readers not versed in the Bible might find it useful to read the story of Moses stumbling into a psychedelic thorn bush in Exodus 3. Moses hears voices and asks: “please tell me your Name, so I can tell my people who sent me.” The Voice answers: “I am whoever I want to be, that should be good enough for you.”
HenryP says “In South Africa we had subsidies to put up solar geysers. I now save 40% on my electricity bill.”
By that logic, why not increase the subsidies so that everyone gets a check in their electric bill! Imagine, the subsidy is so HUGE everyone is getting rich!
Come now, you are NOT saving 40%, it is just is being paid in a different name…. something called a tax.
By the way, I am not necessarily against all subsidies. Government funded development (such as for fusion energy) can be beneficial in the long run for certain projects, but to claim the subsidy is saving people money in real time is not true.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/27/sixteen-prominent-scientists-publish-a-letter-in-wsj-saying-theres-no-need-to-panic-about-global-warming/#more-55508
Reg Nelson says: January 27, 2012 at 11:12 pm
How can any rational person question the creditably of these 16 scientists?
How many of these scientists have:
– Dodged FOI requests (and are now in court fighting their release)?
– Refused to release their Raw Data?
– Refused to release their Adjusted Data (and explain why it was adjusted)?
– Refused to release the Model that produced the end results (Graphs)?
– Have admitted that no one would likely be able to replicate their results (including them)?
– Black-balled scientists who questioned their results?
– Deleted emails?
– Deleted data?
And on and on…
Who would you trust? Seriously.
How can anyone in their right mind ever believe anything a climate scientist has to say?
_____________________________________________________________________
Reg – to clarify and answer to your questions:
To my knowledge, NONE of the signatories committed these unethical acts.
These unethical acts were fully exposed in leaked emails now called Climategate 1 and Climategate 2, and we all know who participated – a small but powerful cabal of scientists who actively conspired to manipulate science and incite public opinion to implement extremely costly and unnecessary measures to “fight catastrophic humanmade global warming”.
A trillion dollars of scarce global resources has been squandered on global warming hysteria.
I know that some of the signatories, including Shaviv and Lindzen, have spoken out for more than a decade to try to bring some sanity to this toxic global warming debate.
Sanity is now starting to prevail. There has been no global warming in more than a decade.
My Predictions:
A natural global cooling cycle will soon become obvious*, and the last vestiges of global warming hysteria will just fade away. I wrote this in 2003.
Probability: 99% within 10 years or less.
The “mainstream debate” will agree that global temperature is relatively insensitive to increases in atmospheric CO2 and that “climate feedbacks” are negative. We wrote this in 2002.
Probability: 99% within 10 years or less
Later, the mainstream debate will be derailed by the realization that atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, and increasing atmospheric CO2 is primarily a natural rather than a humanmade phenomenon. I wrote this in 2008.
Probability 80% within 20 years or less.
Alcheson says:
but to claim the subsidy is saving people money in real time is not true.
Henry @ur momisugly Alcheson:
I am not sure how you can say that.
If you use electricity to heat water, and you put up a solar geyser (of which the government utility pays, say, 25% of the total cost in subsidy)
and you subsequently save 40% on your total electricity bill, on consumption, every month,
how can this not be saving energy and money for us all?
mind you, be sure to buy a closed (indirect) system if there is frost during winters in the area where you live
this
phycisist
keeps saying the same things, over and over,
as though we are all idiots here,
and he is not answering you when you respond.
I think he is hoping that all people looking in here will read what he has to say?
We had a very smart Dutch sea farer by the name of Willem Barentz and he knew from his history lessons that the northen passage did exist at some time in the past/.. Otherwise he would not have risked his life for it. Also, how otherwise, did Vikings got at all the places where we know they went?
Enfin, you can read how I responded the first time to this phycisist here; I will repeat the whole post again because that is what he is doing and apparentlty it is allowed here.
A phycisist says:
Thirty years later, Hansen’s 1981 prediction looks pretty solid. In particular, there’s no doubt among hard-nosed shipping company CEO’s that Hansen’s “fabled Northwest Passage” is now a reality.
Henry says to a great phycisist:
you are right about that being a fable,
because as we now know, it must have been OPEN ca, 1000 years ago, during the Medeviel Warm Period….So that fable was not a myth.
That is why one of my countryman, Willem Barentz, in the 16th century, was convinced it (must have) existed. He lost his life trying to find it. Hence, it is now called the Willem Barentz sea.
So there is nothing new under the sun, and without any figures from you from any actual physical testing showing to me the exact warming and cooling properties of the CO2, (both radiative) and the cooling it produces by taking part in the photosynthesis, how do you know for sure that the warming is due to the CO2? Was the warming of the MWP also due to an increase in CO2?
What about if the warming is simply caused by the increase in greenery on earth?
Is that not much more probable?We know that vegetation traps heat. In fact, a lot. That is why you donot find trees where it is cold on earth.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
[SNIP: if you can reword this without the insult and ad hominem we’ll approve it. -REP]
Henry@phycisist
Maybe you did not get it again.
I will repeat my question:
I am looking for the actual figures from you from any actual physical testing showing to me the exact warming and cooling properties of the CO2, (both radiative) and the cooling it produces by taking part in the photosynthesis.
You are a physicist, are you not, so you have them?
I spent 2 years trying to find and had to conclude that they don’t exist.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Trenberth wrote about the energy discrepancy between incomming and outgoing energy and was not refering to global surface temperature as wrongly claimed in the article. And regarding the global temperature it rises quite as expected, the worst case IPCC scenario is not to be compared with as Nox and Metane levels has not risen as fast as predicted in that scenario. We are as well leaving solar minimum and Laninas also contributions to the “lack of warming” The temperature signal has noise, that filtered away warming is correlating to a 3C° climate sensivety. Comparing climate science with lysenkoism is dirty rhetorics, but that will not change the science.
Jaymam says:
People who claim to believe in Creation or “Intelligent Design” shall be excluded from the lists, to save arguments.
I am off the list? I seemed to have been the only one here supporting your idea…
[REPLY: This is NOT permission to discuss thevalidity or relative merits of ID versus anything else. -REP]
fredrik says:
as Nox and Metane levels has not risen as fast as predicted in that scenario.
dear Fredric,
Like I said to our great physicist here, I am looking for the actual figures from you from any actual physical testing showing to me the exact radiative warming and radiative cooling properties of the CO2, Nitrousoxide and CH4
Please do tell me where they are and how the tests were performed.
HenryP;
re saving with subsidies: whose pocket(s) pay(s) for the subsidies? What’s the net? How much is lost to admin (government) overhead? Bribing people with their own money doesn’t work forever.
There’s a benefit ONLY if the subsidized activity/technology pays off (big) before the costs of the subsidies overwhelms the system. Politicians are notoriously egregiously incompetent at picking such winners. Various EU countries have had to face the near certainty that they’re never going to reach that Promised Land, and are frantically slashing FITs, etc. The UK’s insane 80% wind/renewables power sourcing targets are going to detonate with massive casualties. Fools and their money …
Richard M: “No, all you did is spew useless generalizations based on nothing but what you WANT to believe…This is typical for religious beliefs.”
I offered several explanations for why I think the signers are groping in the dark. You have opted for a personal attack rather than a reasoned response to my arguments.
PVE: “The letter in IMHO is written to investors, bankers, business people.”
What does the text say?
“A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming. Candidates should understand…”
“…we have a message to any candidate for public office…”
“If elected officials feel compelled to “do something” about climate…”
“Every candidate should support rational measures…”
My guess is that the letter is addressed to candidates for public office.
Dear Henry, your request is very reasonable, and the information you seek is available (free-as-in-freedom) from the US Air Force’s high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database (HITRAN) … a Google Search for “HITRAN” will find it.
GHE 
AGW link.
For a broad overview on how to use this data, a good starting point is the American Institute of Physics web site “Basic Radiation Calculations.
If you want to measure these numbers for yourself, you want to get yourself a fourier transform infrared spectrometer (a google search for “FTIR spectrometer” will find plenty of vendors).
You should be aware, however, (as I said above in particular with reference to arch-skeptic and WSJ-16 author Richard Lindzen’s 1989 review “Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming”) there is a nowadays no professional climatologist (even among the skeptics) who doubts the mathematical and physical foundations of the GHG
With particular regard to various non-GHE “gravito-thermal” theories that recently have received much attention here on WUWT; these “gravito-thermal” theories are (as even most AGW skeptics agree) just plain wrong.
A physicist says: January 28, 2012 at 6:58 am
Folks who respect equally solid science and solid skepticism, always like to go back to the original documents of science and skepticism.
—————————————————————-
That’s not going back far enough. Folks who respect science (which includes skepticism) go back to the original *data*, then try to duplicate the original documents. This cannot be done with climate science because the data have been “adjusted” and the original computer models are not available. FOIA requests to see them are being stonewalled.
The ‘a priori’ premise of those IPCC centric advocates of the CAGW ’cause’ is that CO2 production by man must be severely curtailed. They are committing an argument fallacy. They have a circular reasoning process that uses any means to support their ‘a priori’ premise. Their conclusion wrt CO2 is stated in their premise.
A useful strategy for independent thinkers (a.k.a. skeptics) to show the root errors of the arguments by the CAGW ’cause’ supporters is to merely identify where the CAGW ’cause’ supporter arguments are circular on a most fundamental level.
Without their ‘a priori’ premise the CAGW ’cause’ supporters are forced to look at climate observations. In the struggle between the climate observations versus a false ‘a priori’ premise, the premise loses every single time.
And yes, the circular argument fallacy of the CAGW ’cause’ supporters includes the CGMs of IPCC centric assessment.
I think the 16 independent thinkers who authored the WSJ letter to the editor do a good job of removing the false ‘a priori’ premise of the CAGW ’cause’ supporters.
John
Dan in California, please let me say that I agree with you 100%! Both climate data and the models based upon that data should be wholly open.
Fortunately, there are several open-source climate models available, and they are listed in an excellent on-line talk by Ian Foster titled “Open Source Modeling as an Enabler of Transparent Decision Making.” All I can say is … more please! 🙂
This is one area where skeptic and nonskeptic alike are solidly in agreement. Good!
In coming years, as more-and-more climate-change models become open source, and more-and-more climate-change data becomes freely and publicly accessible, the most likely outcome by far (AFAICT) is that the 1981 (nonskeptic) climate-change predictions by James Hansen and colleagues are going to continue looking stronger-and-stronger, relative to the 1989 (skeptical) climate-change criticisms of Richard Lindzen and his WSJ-16 colleagues.
The point is that skeptics and nonskeptics alike can spin and dance, but neither side can change what they published back in the 1980s. And by that measure of scientific merit — which is public, open, unchangeable, and traditional — Hansen and his colleague are doing pretty darn well. Whereas the
The point is that skeptics and nonskeptics alike can spin and dance, but neither side can change what they published back in the 1980s. And by that measure of scientific merit — which is public, open, unchangeable, and traditional — the research of Hansen and his nonskeptical colleagues has shown outstanding quality and foresight.
The research of the WSJ-16, not so much.