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.
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Bob B says:
Erinome, I consider Hansens’ 1988 modeling forecasts A,B&C to be quite falsified.
I assume the Hansen “predictions” you refer to are JGR v93 nD8 (Aug 20, 1988) pp 9341-9364, Figure 3a & 3b.
There, Hansen et al considered Scenario B the “most plausible,” and it projected a 1986 to 2011 average surface temperature increase of 0.8 C for the 5-yr running mean.
The actual 1986-2011 change of the 5-yr running mean was (from GISS data) from an anomaly of 0.15 C to 0.55 C, for a change of 0.40 C. Half of scenario B’s projection, and (by coincidence) exactly to their projection for scenario C.
Now, how realistic was scenario B? It assumed one El Chicon-sized volcano in 1995 (scenario A had none; C had one). Their CO2 level started at 315 ppm in 1958, and (from page 9345) doubled in 2030 in scenario A, and in 2060 in scenario B.
So I calculate (check me on this) that their assumed growth rates were 0.95%/yr for scenario A and 0.68%/yr for scenario B.
That means (check me again) their assumed levels for 2011’s CO2 abundance were 525 ppm for A, and 452 ppm for B.
Those CO2 levels are clearly not what happened. The CO2 average abundance in 2011 was (from Mauna Loa monthly data) about 391.6 ppm.
So their CO2 was much too high. So it’s no surprise their projection, even for scenario B, was too high.
Furthermore methane emissions mysteriously leveled off in the first decade of this century (but now may be increasing again). So that forcing was also too high in their models.
So you see where this is going – none of their scenarios came to pass. Thus reality was not a fair test of their model. That’s how it almost always is with models, which is exactly why model results are called “projections” and not “predictions.”
Add in the fact that their projections were done 24 years ago – a huge span of time in this era of vast changes in computer technology – and you have to wonder. Models cited in the first IPCC report had a grid size of about 500 km; by the AR4 they were down to 110 km. (See Figure 1.4 in the IPCC 4AR WG1 Ch1 p113, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf ). Models also now include much more relevant physics, chemistry, and biology (see Figure 1.2 p99 in the same chapter).
Given all this, then, what significance do you find in the Hansen et al 1988 projections?
Erinome, your link is broken.
Regardless, I know what it links to. It is not proof of anything. It is a theory which proposes the link between the two. It has not been proven, nor does it prove there is a link between CO2 and warming.
Theories are comforting, but unless they are proven to be irrefutable, and this is not, it is much ado about nothing.
William M. Connolley says:
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.
=========================================
Would it then be accurate to say that regardless of the source of the initial forcing — CO2, the sun, or whatever is actually the trigger of the cycle — it is the water vapor facet of the feedback response mechanism which does the heavy lifting, in a manner of speaking. Is that correct?
Like a slippery eel, Erinome once again answers a straightforward question with… another question!
*Sheesh!* Well, OK, even though Erinome dodges other folks’ questions, here’s the answer to his question: Erinome cannot prove that the 1°C warming since the mid-1800’s “caused” an atmospheric CO2 increase of 100 ppm. It is just as plausible – if not more so – that most of the rise in CO2 is the result of the MWP. There has been an ongoing discussion regarding this question for the past couple of years here. As we know, atmospheric CO2 rises ≈800 ±200 years following warm episodes. The Vostok and Greenland ice core records clearly show that cause and effect, going back at least 400,000 years.
And Connolley says:
“…we know CO2 is going up…”
Yes, we know that. And we know that global temperature is not going up any more or less than the long term trend since the 1600’s, thus falsifying the repeatedly debunked CO2=CAGW conjecture; CO2 only began rising after 1800. No wonder Connolley censors the truth out of Wikipedia; it’s the only way he can promote his alarmist “carbon” narrative.
Connolley is lost, wandering in the wilderness, because he’s so far behind the 8-ball. He is not up to speed on the debate, which explains his confusion. The question isn’t whether, if, or how much CO2 may be attributable to human emissions. THE question is: where is any global harm from the increase in that tiny trace gas? Because there is no testable, verifiable evidence of any global harm from rising CO2. Thus, CO2 is “harmless”. QED
And the rise in CO2 is verifiably greening the planet. Agricultural productivity is increasing in lockstep with rising CO2, thus more CO2 is a great benefit to the biosphere. In a world in which one-third of the population subsists on $2 a day or less, cutting back on CO2 emissions would mean certain death by starvation for a large swath of the population. That does seem to be the unspoken agenda of Connolley’s elitist ilk. And of course Connolley would be exempt from the cull, which would affect mostly the world’s darker complected folks.
SB> regardless of the source of the initial forcing… it is the water vapor facet of the feedback response mechanism which does the heavy lifting
You could put it like that if you liked, but I’m not sure it is helpful. It is like saying that your car goes forward not because you put your foot down on the accelerator, but because of the engine. It can be regarded as true, but it won’t help you work out whether a car is going to move or not; for that, you need to ask the driver (don’t push this analogy too far; if it doesn’t help you understand what I’m trying to say, discard it). WV is a feedback, not a forcing (in case that was the question you were asking).
Burt wrote: …”man’s addition of CO2 to the atmosphere… cannot cause the observed warming unless you assume a large positive feedback from water vapor…”
It is pretty simple to put an upper-bound on the magnitude of the feedback from water vapor. You simply use MODTRAN to calculate the warming effect of CO2 absent any feedbacks (i.e., with constant H2O partial pressure), and also with the water vapor feedback (i.e., with constant relative humidity), and compare the two. The answer is that, in the absence of other feedbacks, water vapor would amplify the warming effect from CO2 by about 65%.
I’ve run the numbers through MODTRAN for various CO2 levels, and entered the results into an Excel spreadsheet, here:
http://www.burtonsys.com/climate/MODTRAN_etc.html
These calculations do not take into account other feedbacks, which, in net effect, are almost certainly negative: especially increased evaporation causing increased water-cycle cooling, and probably increased cloudiness. So that 65% amplification figure is really an upper-bound. The net amplification including water vapor might be positive, or it might be negative, but we can say with good confidence that it is not greater than 65%.
Here’s an excerpt from the spreadsheet (let’s see if I can get it to format reasonably well):
MODTRAN tropical atmosphere, clear sky Temp offset from 299.7K @ur momisugly Iout=287.655 CO2 (ppm) description const H2O pressure const rel hum 0 no CO2 -7.47 -12.40 19.6 half of current warming -3.74 -6.12 285 est. pre-industrial -0.40 -0.66 300 est. 1900 -0.34 -0.56 305 est. 1930 -0.32 -0.53 310 est. 1950 -0.30 -0.49 315 1958, first Mauna Loa meas. -0.28 -0.46 392 current (Mauna Loa) 0 0 570 est. doubling vs. pre-indust. 0.48 0.79Note the 2nd line in the table, for just 19.6 ppm CO2. MODTRAN calculates that that’s all the CO2 that would be needed to generate fully half of the warming which our current 392 ppm gives us. The diminishing effect of additional CO2 is because there’s already more than enough CO2 in the atmosphere to make it almost completely opaque in CO2’s main absorption bands.
Mr. Connolley;
It has been my experience that (in general) there are two kinds of successful students. Type A students have excellent memories. Type B students have excellent minds.
Students of Type A accept everything they are told without question. They ask the first day of class what they need to do to get an A. “What is going to be on the test?” they say. They will only be happy if you give them a list of the facts that they need to commit to memory. Once the final exam is complete, they forget everything they have learned, if they ever learned anything in the first place. If they get an A in the course, they consider themselves successful. An “A” grade is their badge of social approval, more important to them than some small bit of knowledge they might keep.
Students of Type B are different. Such students don’t care as much about their grade. They want to learn and to know something. They want to be able to question the accepted dogma and evaluate everything they are being told. “Tell me more about why these facts are so,” they say. “Explain the proofs that have led to this conclusion,” they say. As you might guess, students of Type B are much more fun to teach than those of Type A. They don’t always do as well on their exams as the Type A students (unless the exam requires critical thought). They do, however, tend to learn more in the long run, and to go further in school, because their needs are served, not by getting an A, but by the quest for truth.
What you have on this blog, in general, are people who were students of Type B. They are successful people who have never blindly accepted what they have been told. Many are ruthlessly objective and rational. I come here because these people and their ideas are interesting. I’m beginning to wonder if you come here for the same reason, Mr. Connolley.
Could it be that the people here are simply more interesting than the people that attend your own blog?
Respectfully,
Mr. “Wandering in the Wilderness.”
Erinome says:
January 30, 2012 at 11:46 am
I didn’t say it was warming. I said when it does warm the CO2 comes out of solution. That means the warming precedes the increase in CO2. Not the other way around. My guess as to what causes the warming is that big yellow ball in the sky.
Erinome, it’s still a simple question you still have not answered and now you are trying to hide the pea under the thimble by confusing things. For simplicity please just use the IPCC AR4 assumptions and initial conditons. As far as Hansens simulation goes I told you not to use the steaming pile of crap which is GISS temp. Please use UAH as has been done for you already:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/13/is-jim-hansens-global-temperature-skillful/
RMM says:
Erinome, your link is broken.
Regardless, I know what it links to. It is not proof of anything. It is a theory which proposes the link between the two.
The link is not broken, and the paper is not a theory, but measurements based on observed data. Did you even read the paper? (And, are you capable of understanding it?)
Smokey says:
It is just as plausible – if not more so – that most of the rise in CO2 is the result of the MWP.
What is the delta(T) of the MWP?
What is the current delta(CO2)?
What is the delta(T) of an ice age?
What is the delta(CO2) of an ice age?
Explain.
Bob B says:
For simplicity please just use the IPCC AR4 assumptions and initial conditons.
For which economic scenario, Bob? There are about 3 dozen of them in the IPCC 4AR.
By the way, Bob, the 1986-to-2011 change of the 5-yr running average of UAH LT temperatures is… 0.42 C.
Compare to GISS.
It looks like the last ditch diggings in of the climate clueless are being morphed into statements that they hope can’t be simply pointed at and mocked openly like so MANY of their sad, S.A.D. failures:
The entire warmer group’s inability to recognize that even as they furiously cyphered doomsday using Dr. Mann’s ‘math’, it wasn’t even mathematics at all.
None can explain why THEY DON’T KNOW MIKE MANN’S STATISTICS MAKE HOCKEY STICKS.
That ALONE is INSTANT nullification from further remark by one believing in the voodoo of the
magical ‘TREEMOMETERS’ which could tell the temperature hundreds of years ago.
They CAN’T EXPLAIN WHY: they DIDN’T UNDERSTAND INSTRUMENTATION FUNDAMENTALS and GRASP that the
‘light, water, root health, canopy health, relative humidity, winds, temperature, CO2@canopy/OXYGEN@roots, S.I.X.T.E.E.N. D.I.F.F.E.R.E.N.T. MINERALS, in R.A.T.I.O. no less: none of these posting here for mannmade warming can explain why they NEVER detected these FUNDAMENTAL FAILURES of MannMade warming.
They can’t explain why Phil Jones was REPEATEDLY REFERRING to the world as having NOT WARMED: and why his 2005 email referring PRECISELY to the online published RAW DATA as his own value for true global temp:
they simply mumble the zombie-mutterings of ‘yew ain’t uh climatologist!’ not realizing, that: to be referred to as a CLIMATOLOGIST nowadays:
is a remark of SCORN.
Bob, you might have a look at this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/plot/uah/from:1979
Also the 3rd plot here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes
Can you imagine having on your ‘scientific’ team, Steven Schneider who actually published a paper saying that since all the world’s thermometers are broken he wrote a program on his laptop that MAKES ALL THERMAL SENSING OBSOLETE, by DERIVING TEMPERATURE
from WIND SPEED?
Can you IMAGINE telling someone in your engineering firm you did that, and not being told to either cut out the joke or clean out your desk?
Can you IMAGINE having to have the e.n.t.i.r.e. world find out the man you thought was a big time electronic data interpreter, saw for T.W.E.L.V.E. YEARS, an EVER ACCELERATING APOCALYPSE of HEAT,
as the actual temps lazily floated along refusing to change, as Kevin Trenberth did?
Can you imagine being wrong about graphs that would put a forensic accountant to sleep for TWELVE YEARS, then having to FIND PEOPLE on the INTERNET who will take up for it as ‘sintz’ to them?
There are always going to be people claiming Jesse James wasn’t a criminal but a Robin Hood.
There always will be those who have profited from the current funding scam who don’t get indicted; but there will always also be history grinding the identities of the liars and scammers of an age to dirt.
==================================================
That raises a useful point. In an automobile, we have a system which is composed of other subsystems, major and minor, each of which is affected by one or more facets of well-understood first-order physics, plus the various mathematics which describe those first-order physics.
However, in describing the operation of an automobile, there is more to the operation of the automobile than just its inherently wide array of first-order physics. There are a variety of complicated interactions among the automobile’s subsystems, all of which are likewise affected in one way or another by some flavor of first-order physics.
If we decided to build a truly accurate and robust simulation model of an automobile, we would have to go well beyond the first-order physics and we would have to model the interactions of the automobile’s various subsystems using a dynamic simulation process which follows the various low-level interactions as they occur, and which acts within the rules and proscriptions set by the applicable first-order physics.
Sitting out there in my driveway is very good working model for how an automobile operates, although it isn’t truly a simulation type of model. But if I did choose to create a software-based simulation model of my four-door sedan, there would be no problem in studying a real-world example for comparison purposes, because one of those examples is sitting right out there in front of my house.
Moreover, there exists a vast wealth of independent knowledge and practical experience concerning the first order physics which my automobile employs in all of its subsystems, and also concerning the various interactions which occur among those subsystems.
I push the gas pedal down and I expect the car to move forward, assuming I know the engine is running and the transmission is in Drive. If the software simulation model for my car doesn’t do that when I push on the simulated gas pedal, I suspect something is wrong with the model. When I push the simulated pedal to the metal, if the simulated car accelerates faster than my real car, I also suspect something is wrong with the model.
Which brings me to the point of this post: If we were to compare the state of today’s climate science with the state of today’s mechanical engineering science, using the automobile as the standard of comparison for assessing the depth, the quality, and the reliability of the existing knowledge base concerning both the first-order physics and their dynamic interactions with (and among) the various operative subsystems — how would we rate today’s climate science in terms of having a sufficiently robust and reliable knowledge base available for our simulation purposes, a knowledge base which would allow us to justify a belief that the climate simulation models are themselves reliable and trustworthy enough to be useful in supporting public policy decisions?
A physicist says:
“Smokey says: Skeptics are never certain about anything … the net result of the current ≈40% increase in CO2 has been the greening of the planet, nothing more.
“Smokey, those two beliefs don’t seem all that skeptical to me…”
‘a physicist’ calls the unequivocal, verified greening of the planet due specifically to the rise in CO2 a “belief”. I know this will never convince ‘a physicist’ to alter his religious eco-faith, or turn William Connolley into an honest man, but for those interested in seeing how the planet is greening due to increased CO2:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
[More evidence available for the asking.]
Increased CO2, an airborne fertilizer, has resulted in a 40%+ increase in global vegetation. Prof Freeman Dyson writes that corn in a field will stop growing within five minutes in completely still air, due to absorbing all of the available CO2.
Clearly, the increase in CO2 is beneficial. The demonizing of “carbon” is a mendacious canard being done for ulterior, self-serving motives by propagandists with an anti-human, totalitarian agenda, and who are leading scientifically illiterate lemmings. The fact is that CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better. There is no downside to the increase in harmless, beneficial CO2. It’s all good, as an expanding biosphere and increasing agricultural productivity is proving.
Erinome,
GISS temp is the only data set showing 2010 warmer then 1998, Hansen et al have constantly modified the past and still does:
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/giss-make-the-past-colder-in-reykjavik/
http://www.real-science.com/corruption-temperature-record
I am skeptical of someone who is SO certain that they are correct. Especially since I am aware of the uncertainties in their claims. A lot of tap dancing to disguise the fact they know no more than anyone else.
Erinome
I’ve provided data time and again to global warming believers. They don’t respect data. I suspect you will not either. You will, I suspect, instead, come up with some way to spin away data— a way which I will probably have already seen before, ad nauseum— and then go on and on about some global warming creed that says the Medieval Warm Period was not really warmer than now. You don’t want to believe the data from all five Continents of the world that shows it was warmer on earth 1000 years ago than now then don’t—I really don’t care.
Erinome forgot to mention that scenario C is based on ZERO EMISSIONS. 8^D
Scott Brim makes some useful points regarding computer models.
But doesn’t mention that car makers build (sometimes) hundreds of prototypes so that they can test their new models in the real world and uncover all those things that the simulations can’t.
Engineers give themselves a lot of “wiggle room” in their designs. As much room as they can get without compromising the function of the device. That wiggle room allows not only for non-ideal materials and non-ideal loads but also for non-ideal methods of analysis. Sometimes that room needed to modify part of the machine to cope with unexpected thorwn at the device by the real world.
kbray in california
earth’s precession animation……..
Something like this?
Ironically enough, the FLAW in the GHE HYPOTHESIS is actually more of an accounting error than a science error. When the energy returns to the surface from the “GHG” you cannot ADD it to the original energy arriving from the Sun and produce a CORRECT alleged “energy budget”. The energy returning from the “GHG” has already travelled once through the system leaving cooling (at the previous location it departed from) in its wake. So we have sequential warming / cooling / warming / cooling events occurring from ONE bundle of energy that came from the Sun. So, one bundle of energy from the Sun simply warms the surface multiple sequential times, since these warming events are followed by equivalent cooling events and are separated by finite time delays YOU CANNOT ADD THEM TOGETHER and get a correct result. Doing so is the equivalent of creating energy, which you must admit violates the First Law.
One of the clues to this accounting error is the use of the terms; “Net Energy Gain” and “Extra Energy” as used in the climate science community.
In the engineering community we use the prediction of “extra energy” as a RED FLAG to tell us our analysis is wrong.
Engineers that routinely calculate “Net Energy Gains” either get fired or promoted into management.
Regarding why the Earth is at the average temperature it is, I have yet to hear any one explanation that makes total sense. But knowledge always expands and we will likely know why sometime. Although from a practical sense it seems to make very little difference.
But it most definitely is not the result of the GHE.
The GHE appears to cause some energy to travel through the system (bouncing as it where) between the gases and the surface all the while dissipating energy to Space via radiation. The end result is a slight delay to the energy as it travels from the Sun to the Earth through the Atmosphere to the Universe.
The “missing heat” is currently travelling as a spherical IR wavefront that is “X+d” light years away from the surface. In this equation X represents the elapsed time since the sunlight arrived (i.e. 100 years for sunlight from 1912) and d represents the slight delay from the GHE and averages about 5 milliseconds. “d” is actually a statistical distribution which will of course have a different specific value for each photon travelling through the system. Some will bounce many times and take longer to exit, while others may not bounce at all and exit directly to space. For reference, there are about 86 million milliseconds in each day. So, the argument that the GHE delays the flow of heat enough so that some is leftover at the end of each day and a higher equilibrium temperature results is specious.
Lest you think engineers are not qualified to calculate proper energy budgets you should consider the case of satellites orbiting the Earth. These technological marvels get all of their operating energy from the Sun. Yes, chemical energy (i.e. rocket fuel) gets them up there and some onboard chemical energy (i.e. fuel) is used to maneuver them into the correct orbit. But all of the energy to operate them day to day comes from the Sun and is converted by solar panels. Engineers take great pains to ensure there will always be enough energy onboard to ensure the proper operation of these expensive assets. As an engineer who has worked with these energy budgets I am respectfully pointing out that the climate science community has TOTALLY BOLLIXED their “Energy Budget” calculations. It starts with using the wrong units (i.e. mW/m^2 are units of POWER, not units of ENERGY). And it all goes downhill from there.
So continue to defend the calculation of “net energy gains” and you will reap the wrath of folks with common sense who have figured out your mistake. As a US taxpayer I AM FURIOUS that the climate science community has WASTED TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS and we have NOTHING to show for it. Oh, BTW, I vote every time I am legally allowed to do so.
Cheers, Kevin.