Burt Rutan writes in via email about an exchange he had with the proprietor of the website Scholars and Rogues, Brian Angliss. Burt writes:
I recently read a treatise showing that CAGW theory is a fraud. I thought it was a good summary and agreed to have my name used as a supporter of the facts when it was published by the Wall Street Journal. You can find it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html
Then, shortly after publication, an alarmist engineer wrote and “open letter to Burt”.
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/27/open-letter-to-burt-rutan/
I usually ignore these diatribes, but found a few moments to respond:
Scroll down to comment #4 for my answer.
I’ve reproduced Burt’s answer here for all to see:
Brian,
In my background of 46 years in aerospace flight testing and design I have seen many examples of data presentation fraud. That is what prompted my interest in seeing how the scientists have processed the climate data, presented it and promoted their theories to policy makers and the media.
What I found shocked me and prompted me to do further research. I researched data presentation fraud in climate science from 1999 to 2010.
I do not have time here to define the details; if interested in my research, a PPT or PDF can be downloaded at:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
In general, if you as an engineer with normal ethics, study the subject you will conclude that the theory that man’s addition of CO2 to the atmosphere (a trace amount to an already trace gas content) cannot cause the observed warming unless you assume a large positive feedback from water vapor. You will also find that the real feedback is negative, not positive!
Specifically, the theory of CAGW is not supported by any of the climate data and none of the predictions of IPCC since their first report in 1991 have been supported by measured data. The scare is merely a computer modeled theory that has been flawed from the beginning, and in spite of its failure to predict, many of the climate scientists cling to it. They applauded the correlation of surface temperatures with CO2 content from 1960 to 1998 as proof, but fail to admit that the planet has cooled after 1998 in spite of the CO2 content increasing.
The failure of the IPCC machine is especially evident in the use of “models” to justify claims, so it might be worthwhile to just look at modeling and science.
Modeling is more correctly a branch of Engineering and there are some basic rules that have been flouted by CAGW _ CO2 modelers.
Firstly there has to be a problem analysis which identifies relevant factors and the physical, chemical and thermodynamic behaviors of those factors within the system.
Any claim that this has been done in the CO2 warming problem is PREPOSTEROUS.
There are perhaps a thousand PhD topics there waiting to be taken up by researchers.
We could start with work on understanding heat transfer between the main interfaces; eg Core to surface / surface to ocean depths/ ocean depths to ocean surface / ocean surface to atmosphere and so on, not having yet reached the depth of space at just slightly above absolute zero.
To claim that the entire system of atmospheric temperature moderation has been described by the fluctuations of atmospheric CO2 content while excluding the other obvious factors such as atmospheric water vapour content, solar flux and orbital mechanics is just nonsense.
The whole point of modelling when done correctly is that it links accurately measured input of the main factors and accurately measure target output. Where you have major input factors that are not considered and poor and uncertain measurement of all factors then all you have is a joke or more seriously Public Fraud based on science.
You do not have science.
CO2 is not a pollutant. When the Dinosaurs roamed, the CO2 content was 6 to 9 times current and the planet was green from pole to pole; almost no deserts. If we doubled the atmospheric content of CO2, young pine trees would grow at twice the rate and nearly every crop yield would go up 30 to 40%. We, the animals and all land plant life would be healthier if CO2 content were to increase.
Do the study yourself. Look at how and why the data are manipulated, cherry-picked and promoted. I will bet if you did, you too would be shocked.
The mark of a good theory is its ability to be falsified by new data. The mark of a good scientist is the ability to accept that.
Burt
The Difference between an Environmentalist and a Denier.
You can easily tell if someone is a true environmentalist, i.e. an advocate for a healthy planet – he is one who is happy to hear the news that the arctic ice content has stabilized. He is one who celebrates when the recent climate data show the alarmist’s predictions of catastrophic warming might be wrong. The denier, if he is an eco/political activist, always denies new data that show the planet may be healthy after all. The Media usually defines deniers as those who deny the scientist’s computer model predictions. However, denying the measured climate data meets a better definition in the world of science.
R Gates: ‘If the debate has moved on, it has moved on only for the willfully ignorant. Only the most ignorant would doubt as to whether CO2 causes warming’
CO2 climate sensitivity has been vastly over-estimated. The proof is here: http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-101.png
You can’t explain this from a one way warming process. CO2-AGW << present natural cooling. It has to be the increase of cloud albedo, Once you accept that, much recent warming was the reduction of cloud albedo. Net CO2-AGW may even be slightly negative.
So, let’s have some openness. The assumptions have been wrong. This goes back to Tyndall and Arrhenius. Anyone can prove for themselves by looking at rain clouds that the Sagan aerosol optical physics which claims high albedo is always from smaller droplets is plain wrong. There is no substantial cooling by polluted clouds. The CAGW scare was created to order.
Oops – can’t deep link at Lucia’s – if you look at http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/surface-temperatures-cooler-than-multi-model-mean/ and scroll down to Update May 26 you’ll see the graph I am talking about
Erinome, you didn’t answer my question. It was a simple question and it deserves a simple answer. You fall into the same trap as the like of Gavin Schmidt. The modelers are too close to their beloved models. When asked a simple question as to what it would take to falsify their model they can’t answer because they don’t want to. They don’t want to believe and they don’t want to let go of their current carreer, publishing papers and especially, “the cause”. I think not correctly simulating the “hot spot” or lack of one, is one of the biggest nails in their coffin. I would also say if the temps are flat lined like they are now until like 2015, I think they have lost ALL credibility and can be considered falsified.
Erinome, I consider Hansens’ 1988 modeling forecasts A,B&C to be quite falsified. I would say when the observed GMST are outside the 95% confidence interval for 3-5yrs (Not using GISS TEMP because it is pure steaming crap) and it continues to not correctly model the “hot spot’, then it can be considered falsified—there I put up my metric. Can any warmists modeler put up their own metric???? crickets?
Erinome, I have seen no other field where video game type modeling is going on without a solid metric, no stric testable metric has to be met. Like Ball stated when the testable timeframes are not spelled out are are past our lifetime they become unusable and fall into the realm of philosophy!
Erinome says:
January 29, 2012 at 7:46 pm
“Sorry, but science depends on analyzing and understanding the details. People like Bob and you have your neat, tidy answers — climate models are always wrong; CO2 is always caused by warming — that fail to address, or even acknowledge, the complexities of reality. Then, when challenged on them, you resort to responses like this (7:24 pm.) instead of addressing the questions. I see it time and again from you, and from Bob.”
Cold sea water holds more CO2 than does warm sea water. When cold sea water warms up, the CO2 comes out of solution. Don’t believe me? Do the chemistry and report to us your findings. You know, the details.
mkelly says:
January 16, 2012 at 9:02 am
R. Gates says:
January 16, 2012 at 8:23 am
You (Mr. Gates) also said: “…But what you especially can’t do, is put either transient or equilibrium sensitiity on a log chart.”
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mkelly says:
January 29, 2012 at 9:34 am
Mr. Connely says: CO2 increases affect the radiative balance logarithmically, this is well known. Since CO2 is increasing nearly exponentially, the radiative effect is nearly linear.
Sir, you are wrong R.Gates has said numbers of times CO2 effects can not be expressed logarithmically.
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R. Gates says:
January 29, 2012 at 9:59 am
mkelly says:
January 29, 2012 at 9:34 am
Sir, you are wrong R.Gates has said numbers of times CO2 effects can not be expressed logarithmically.
________
That is not what I said at all, but you knack for misquoting can probably be expressed exponentially.
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Mr. Gates above is from the Moncton sensitivity thread and this thread. You said ““…But what you especially can’t do, is put either transient or equilibrium sensitiity on a log chart.” Mr. Connelly said “affect the radiative balance logarithmically”.
I was defending you but now you say I was incorrect in quoting your our words.
By the way who is correct you or Mr. Connelly?
I would ask you with draw your snide comment as you can see you are quoted correctly.
This has been an interesting thread… mostly because of the AGW defenders.
The fact is, AGW is a non-issue, something that we (humanity) really need not concern ourselves with. And yet there are people who truly believe that the miniscule temperature variations documented over the last few decades (or, maybe documented, or maybe not) are something to be worried about. Not just worried, but highly stressed and aggravated.
Rutan has looked at the data and claims that are currently getting attention and found them sorely lacking in credibility. Same with me, and same with an increasing percentage of the population. Hopefully the people who have been led along by these “projections” (ie. political types) will also see that there is little or no credibility to the hype and move on to actually important things. That seems to be the case here in Canada.
I, for one, am getting tired of the same discredited, ridiculous, inane arguments being spread around by the same dishonest and/or deluded individuals. Where I live, it’s been cooler than usual for quite a few years now. And although we’re being told the “average” temperature is rising, it’s really a hard sell when practically every part of the world I hear from is saying the same thing: cooling. The ridiculous “ocean acidification” crap isn’t helping the cause.
It has been pathetic watching previously credible and highly respected Science and generally Knowledge based publications shred their credibility with AGW hype and alarmism… yeah, I’m talking about you, National Geographic, Scientific American, Science, Nature… The tiniest natural change happens and there it is: “look at how evil humanity is”. Bah.
William M. Connolley
How is it you have time to be here? Are you banned from Wikipedia again?
David Ball says:
>>The debate has moved on from “how much warming does Co2 cause?” to “whether or not Co2 causes warming”. The purveyors of “the cause” have not realized this.
Great observation! I’ve been questioning whether Co2 makes any significant contribution to warming in the atmosphere since the beginning of this whole charade.
For AGW proponents it must be a tough transition from Al Gore’s pronouncement that the “debate is over” to a realization that not only is the debate NOT over, but that the most basic premises of AGW are now being debated. It will just get worse for them.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Interesting that Bernard J was incapable of explaining it.
Co2 is not the driver. Those who cling to this woeful conjecture are incapable of accepting that. Their income depends on it.
I am glad that not all skeptics agree on Co2. Everyone needs to be kept honest. But the debate has moved on as I stated.
Regarding posting on alarmist sites. I have tried and tried and am continually deleted (censorship is a slippery slope, is it not?). The excuse is that we are time wasters. Funny that.
The only thing “unprecedented” is the hijacking of a field of science based on such little evidence.
> that the most basic premises of AGW are now being debated…
Well, I know this is hopeless, but I’ll try. Yes, you are debating the most basic premises. You think this is really kewl. But what you are doing is something like, erm, when Newton is describing his theory of gravity, butting in and saying “hey! I’ve got a great new idea for re-arranging the epicycles!”.
You’re still debating stuff like, is the rise in CO2 caused by people. The answer is Yes. When BR says no, human CO2 is only 3.4%, none of you say “hold on, that is obvious nonsense”. Because you don’t know it. And even when people in this thread point out that it is obvious nonsense, and explain why, you still aren’t capable of putting in the basic skeptical thought and thinking about the issue. The Beck graph you love so much is obviously wrong, if you do a bit of clear thinking about it, but none of you do.
You’re lost, and wandering in the wilderness. You are representative of some share of popular opinion, and matter for that reason, but not for any scientific reason. Don’t delude yourselves.
Mr. Connolley:
We aren’t lost, you joined us in the wilderness.
The basic finding of the IPCC is that early 20th Century warming was solar. I gave you the link to read that shows it isn’t.
At least you admit we are in a rebound warming from the LIA, of which CO2 is not the driver off, so there is hope that you are learning
.Wecome to the wilderness of being skeptical of non-validated claims.
connolley – in circles where being outstandingly disgraceful is considered virtuous, you still fail for lack of talent.
The earth’s precession to an increased inclination can easily account for a changing climate with colder winters and hotter summers. The net change in annual temperature average from the precession should be zero. The wobble seems to be quite erratic. Google precession animation.
Stop picking on CO2, we need more.
I remain a skeptic for many reasons, and I think Rutan did a good job of summarizing portions of how I feel.
My primary reason for skepticism is simple – where’s the link between ‘warming’ and CO2? I know you can show correlation, but correlation and causation are two very different things. As someone who builds financial models, I’m well aware of how models can be used to mislead and deceive. I’m also aware of how people frequently mistake correlation and causation – even experts fall victim to this when, lacking all else, they opt for what they perceive to be the obvious and (usually) easiest answer. But even if a neighbor perceives the lack of acorns to be directly related to the fact that squirrels are missing from my backyard, it’s hard for them to realize I’ve been shooting and trapping them, unless they happen to see me doing it. In the meantime, they are happy to continue discussing the lack of acorns.
My second reason is related to cycles. We know climates change, and in not so regular fashion. Sure, we can map out rises and falls in temperature, but this is not particularly precise. Over hundreds of thousands of years, being off a little bit early on becomes much more meaningful later. So I’m not going to feel like any slight deviations from the ‘norm’ today are carrying significant meaning. I’m sure over the course of years, each cycle had deviations which may not have been tracked precisely, let alone accurately. 100 years in a 10,000 year cycle is probably going to get washed out in the long run (I’ve seen similar things happen in financial modeling for stock market performance, over shorter time frames).
Finally, I need to know why exactly I have to fear changes of any kind. If life as we know it is always about change, then why is this particular change so awful or fearsome? I’ve been taught (often by teachers who are not skeptics, which I find intriguing) that change is something to be embraced. As a result, I am willing to accept change as a natural course of events – even if that change is potentially something caused by me (and you). A great example is something I have gone through several times – unemployment. At this point, I’ve learned, you can do everything in your power to keep your job, but in the end it’s sometimes something you simply can’t control. Rather than spending my time fearing unemployment and all the upheaval it brings, I have learned to focus on just doing my job. Interestingly, just doing my job has cost me my job on at least one (possibly two) occasions. The upshot of this is to say that regardless of what we do, it’s possible (actually probable) that climate change is going to take place with or without me. In the end, I have very little say in the direction this all takes. So why be scared? From what I can tell, I’ve actually BENEFITTED from unemployment – it’s allowed me to get my head on straight about what’s important in life. So I’ve stopped fearing it.
I think the same could be true of climate change. I have no idea if warming will lead to famine and disease as the AGW crowd seem to believe. They know very little about what a warm world would look like. Certainly they don’t know more than me in this regard, because neither of us has lived in that world. All they can say is “it will be a different world.” Indeed it will. But the world I live in is very different from that of my father, and my grandfather. In many and most ways, my world is better. I have to believe this AGW modeled world will be better, too. I don’t believe it will come to that, but if it does, I don’t fear it. Not a bit.
Perhaps the most basic premise of AGW theory is that the presence of additional CO2 results in additional heat being trapped in the atmosphere; which then allows additional water vapor to reside in the atmosphere, which then results in additional heat being trapped in the atmosphere.
It would seem logical that any process or mechanism which can raise the temperature of the atmosphere might also allow additional water vapor to reside in the atmosphere, which would then result in additional heat being trapped in the atmosphere.
Among all the possible processes and mechanisms which might initially raise the temperature of the atmosphere above some critical equilibrium value, why is CO2 uniquely capable of enabling an enhanced water vapor feedback cycle, as opposed to some other kind of mechanism which might also raise the temperature of the atmosphere above that same equilibrium value?
> why is CO2 uniquely capable of enabling an enhanced water vapor feedback cycle
It isn’t. What makes you think it is? It differs from many other forcings (like sulphate aerosols) in being long-lived, but I suspect that isn’t what you meant. Increased solar radiation would have the same/similar WV feedbacks, of course. The difference is that we know CO2 is going up; we know solar isn’t.
Bob B says:
Erinome, you didn’t answer my question. It was a simple question and it deserves a simple answer.
The question was so simple it can’t be answered until you begin to define its parameters. I’m waiting for you to do so — at least begin by choosing an economic scenario.
Have you ever heard the expression, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
RMM says:
My primary reason for skepticism is simple – where’s the link between ‘warming’ and CO2?
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Babsy says:
Cold sea water holds more CO2 than does warm sea water. When cold sea water warms up, the CO2 comes out of solution. Don’t believe me? Do the chemistry and report to us your findings. You know, the details.
Why is the cold sea water warming up?
Smokey says:
Like a slippery eel, Erinome never gives a straight answer.
Would you for just once answer a question about your claims? Just once??
You said that CO2 always follows warming. Why has 1 C of recent warming caused an atmospheric CO2 increase of 100 ppm, when 10 C of warming after the ice ages caused a 100 ppm aCO2 increase (that always peaked at about 275 ppm)?
mkelly says:
January 30, 2012 at 7:09 am
You (Mr. Gates) also said: “…But what you especially can’t do, is put either transient or equilibrium sensitiity on a log chart.”
______
Indeed you can’t, as we don’t know what all the feedbacks are. The fast feedbacks will relate to the transient sensitivity and the slower (or earth system) feedbacks will determine the final equilibrium sensitivity, but the kicker is, that even if you knew some scaling factor that could be simply plugged into the logarithmic radiational response of CO2 at different concentrations to accomodate the feedbacks, the response is nonlinear, meaning that the scaling factor will change with different concentrations of CO2, and the system will jump to different scaling factors in unpredictable ways. Moreover, it is likely that the scaling factor will also change with the rate of change of CO2. Meaning, that the transient and equalibrium response are likely to be different if you take CO2 concentration from 280 to 390 ppm over 10,000 years versus 200 years. Rates of change matter greatly in natural systems! But the final result of all of these considerations is that you can’t put the transient or equilibrium sensitivity on a logarithimic chart and have it represent anything in the real world.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
Erinome
It would be a good exercise for you to look up that data for yourself.
You can’t answer the question, can you?
You said it was “much warmer” 1000 years ago than now. I simply asked for your data. Where is it?
I’m out on the desert on a clear star filled night.
The rocks around me are radiating heat from the summer sun.
The heat waves travel out from the rocks at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second.
According to some of the “experts”, on the way out, one heat wave hits a CO2 molecule, and is “forced” back to earth, also at the speed of light. The this “forcing” supposedly heats earth again but is also reflected back out again, also at the speed of light, eventually making it straight out into space.
Allowing 50 miles for the thickness of the atmosphere, and 100 miles for a round trip, that heat wave can make 1,860 trips per second, or 111,600 trips per minute, or 6,696,000 trips per hour, or 80, 352, 000 chances to escape the atmosphere during the entire summer equinox night (12 hours).
For a clear summer night, I would guess that one or two bounces (if they happen at all) would be more than adequate to allow most of the heat waves escape. In any event, 80,352,000 round trips during the night for one heat wave to attempt to escape the planet would be a “rare, if not impossible event”.
I think “Forcing” by CO2 is BS.