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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KevinK says:
Ah yes, the old GHE works like a mirror argument….
No, I didn’t say that. I’m doing a thought experiment.
BUT it does not exist in reality. If you create a “half silvered”mirror (i.e. it reflects 50% of the energy arriving at its surface) in the atmosphere it ALSO reflects half of the arriving energy away from the surface BEFORE it causes any warming………
No, that’s not my assumption. (Half mirrors do exist, by the way — laser scientists use them all the time.)
The connection of my example to the real world is that the spectrum of wavelengths of the incoming radiation is different from the spectrum of the outgoing radiation — the latter is more infrared. Since the scattering cross section of GHG molecules depends on the wavelength, being stronger at larger wavelength, my mirror model has some relevance. If you want we can jack things up and consider everything as a function of frequency, but this suffices to demonstrate the principle.
So, then, answer my question: what happens beneath the mirror?
David Ball says:
“It’s a complicated picture that is not yet at all clear.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. So , no need to ruin economies, spend billions on mitigation, tax people up the whazoo, ……
Why are you assuming that “not clear” means “no problem?”
Erinome says:
“…instead of your silly pictures…”
You couldn’t sound more ignorant if you made a carreer of it. Those “silly pictures” are all legitimate citations, and all from different sources. Is a long term study by the University of Illinois of the beneficial effects of CO2 just a “silly picture”? Are verifiable, real world demonstrations of the increasingly rapid plant growth due to increasing CO2 just “silly pictures”? Is the posted proof that both C3 and C4 plants benefit from increased CO2 just “silly pictures”? And as I said, I have more such evidence. Just ask, and I’ll post it.
It is obvious that you have lost the debate when your only response is to denigrate irrefutable empirical evidence as “silly pictures”. The rest of your response is similar misinformation. Every comment you made in that post can be decisively refuted, so obviously you’re just winging it. Further, many of your unequivocal statements are flat wrong, such as: “A small minority of plants (the so-called “C4″ plants) do not grow more with higher CO2.” A “small minority”? And check out one of the “silly pictures” I posted [“click4”, IIRC]. That study clearly states under “Key Findings” that both C3 and C4 plants grow faster with more CO2. Arguing with everyone else on this thread makes you look like Monty Python’s Black Knight, when he was armless and legless: “‘Tis but a flesh wound.”
You need to get up to speed on the subject, instead of posting as a noob. Flat-wrong statements do nothing to help your negligible credibility. Read the WUWT archives for a few months, then you might be qualified to issue a knowledgeable comment. Because right now you’re embarassing yourself by displaying your ignorance. No doubt you still mistakenly believe that CO2 causes verifiable global harm, and all the rest of the climate alarmist nonsense.
Time to wise up. At least you’re on the right track by being here, where you can learn accurate facts instead of being spoon-fed bogus crap from dope blogs like Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science and RealClimatePropaganda. WUWT didn’t win the title of “Best Science” site by posting misinformation. Mann’s pathetic RealClimate embarassed itself with only a tenth of the vote that WUWT got, and SkS couldn’t even make it to the finals. So stick around here. After a few months you might not sound like such a misinformed chump.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
January 30, 2012 at 6:08 pm
kbray in california earth’s precession animation……..
Something like this?
Very good Amino !! Thank you.
As one can see from the video, the natural variation in solar exposure to the earth over time is astounding. Let congress try to legislate against those upcoming climate changes…
Pardon the terminology, but blaming CO2 for our climate variability is sinful… but as we know, Warmista is a religion, and something must be brought to the altar to be sacrificed.
CO2 is a red herring.
As a side note, it is amazing that a Swiss watch has a more precise movement than our Solar System. Wamistas need to cut the climate some slack… it’s always going to be variable.
Cap and Trade is a useless and pointless endeavor.
Watch the video everybody, well done !!
David Ball, I suggest you read Hansen’s actual paper instead of relying on secondary sources. In particular, read the penultimate sentence in the first full paragraph on page 9345.
Then get back to us.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/ has been discussed many times on this site. Take some time and do a search on Gisstemp on WUWT? The issues should give you pause, but I’m not holding my breath.
Erinome wrote;
“(I’ll assume you know a little mathematics)”
WOW, you will ASSUME that I know a little mathematics, thank you so much for that………..
It might surprise you to learn that most of the commercial imaging satellites that are currently orbiting the Earth have had their radiometric calibrations performed (in part) with software that I created. That’s right, every pixel you download from DigitalGlobe (et. al.) went through “mathematics” that I knew a little bit about.
Cheers, Kevin.
Erinome
You’re so predictable. How boring you are.
Gneiss
Where do NCDC and GISS get their data? Just wondering if you know.
Amino writes,
“Where do NCDC and GISS get their data? Just wondering if you know.”
Why yes, I do know. For other reasons I work with weather station records fairly often.
Where do you get your data?
E !! I’m shocked !! I thought we were doing good ’til you got all condescending there. I was gonna ask you what your vision of the future of mankind was, but all that is gone. Now I don’t care.
Hansen preaches like his Scenario A is right on track. That is a problem as no data set comes even close. Not even his Scenario B is close. Rhetoric like death trains, arrests at protest rallies and coal plants. All political, and in contradiction with his position at NASA as a “scientist” . That makes his “science” tainted and in doubt. My god, warming the room to present to congress? Those are “sales” tactics. His actions bely the underpinnings of rigid unbiased science. How can someone make apologies for this?
Now let’s examine the data collection and what is done with that. Satellite data (from ’79 on ) has been spliced to land based weather station data. This historic data is adjusted cooler for various reasons. Then the recent data is adjusted upwards for various reason. Always down for the past, and always up for the modern record. Smoothing is done to fill in the “holes” in the data. What this means is that where there is no data they just stretch one station to the next to fill in the missing areas. Particularly problematic in the polar regions with few collection station. It is almost as if they are trying to match the data to the increase of a particular gas.
My thanks go out to Anemone for helping me to confirm exactly what was going on. I wouldn’t want to assume.
Erinome says:
January 30, 2012 at 7:01 pm
“You’re wrong. In any case, provide your data.”
Erinome, are you smarter than a 6’th grader?
I see some who should know better are still peddling the ‘consensus’ climate science nonsense of ‘back radiation’. This is why ‘climate science’ is a pseudo-science akin to homoeopathy.
1. It’s fundamentally wrong to assume 100% direct thermalisation of the IR absorbed by GHG molecules. There is no mechanism for this because you can’t abstract bit by bit vibrational energy by collision, adding to average kinetic energy of the symmetrical N2 and O2 molecules.
Vibrational energy is quantised so you can only transfer it to another asymmetrical molecule or re-emit it as an IR photon. The local IR excited density of states is determined by the Equipartition of Energy, modified by dilution of the GHG. The absorption and conversion to heat will be at second phase such as cloud droplets which have gettered CO2, and bare aerosols. So, we don’t have the presumed heating in the clear atmosphere.
2. Although half the IR emitted by the atmosphere will go downwards there is no mechanism by which that energy can be converted to heat when it is absorbed by the Earth’s surface. This is a fundamental part of heat transfer theory missed by Arrhenius which has apparently been misapplied by every ‘climate scientist’ since. It’s apparently taught to students but it’s unique to climate science. Every process engineer who sees what they do says something like ‘How could these jerks be so dumb? It’s the most basic mistake you can make in radiant heat transfer.
You prove it by a thought experiment. Suddenly reduce air temperature and its total radiant energy according to S-B falls. That means less IR energy [in the GHG emission energy bands] is absorbed by the IR density of states of the molecules at the Earth’s surface. More unfilled states means that according to the Principle of Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, the rate of transfer of kinetic energy in the molecules in the solid to its IR density of states increases. This extra energy is then emitted as IR or re-converted to kinetic energy at the rate for the local temperature of the solid. Thus the net effect of reducing ‘back radiation’ is to increase heat transfer from the hotter body to the colder.
Dumb followers of the ‘consensus’, have you got it yet? ‘Back radiation’ you measure by shielding the detector from upward IR is ‘Prevost Exchange Energy’, a real energy flow but it’s the way the IR density of states in the air communicates in real time with that of the Earth’s surface.
All it does is to modulate internal heat transfer at the Earth’s surface. It cannot be transferred to kinetic energy in the solid. Thus the Trenberth-Kiehl energy diagram of 1997 is nonsensical physics. Any professional scientist who decides to study anything associated with radiant energy transfer should realise this. It appears a few climate scientists are realising the subject has been fundamentally misled but it’s taking too long for the discipline to react.
The text books and the education courses must be altered to stop teaching students any more of this pseudo-science. The likes of Connolley who are pursuing this nonsense from an assumption of authority should stop. His DPhil is in numerical analysis. Thus he was not taught this basic physics. He and others who should know better are voluntarily or involuntarily part of a major scientific misrepresentation which may be deliberate fraud. It must stop.
Well explained Mydog…the other major error they make is applying Stefan-Boltzmann Law to the Earth’s surface which is not insulated and thus acts nothing like a true blackbody.
This is how I see it …
Natural variability needs to be considered over about 2,000 years as the main contribution comes from a cycle of about 1,000 years currently still rising by about 0.045 to 0.52 degree C per decade. The rate of rising is falling and a maximum should occur within 150 to 250 years.
Superimposed is a 59.6 year cycle with maxima 1998-99 and next in 2058.
That’s all there is to it.
Why? Because the Earth’s surface is not insulated and thus loses thermal energy by diffusion, conduction, convection, evaporation and chemical processes – which means there’s not much left for radiation – which means the IPCC calculations based on that -18 deg.C figure are totally wrong because they are based on incorrect application of Stefan-Boltzmann Law..
And, furthermore, they also used incorrect physics when they assumed that radiation from a cooler atmosphere is capable of warming, or slowing the cooling of a surface which is significantly warmer already.
Two major errors in the use of physics have led to all this.
I see some who should know better are still peddling the ‘consensus’ climate science nonsense of ‘back radiation’. This is why ‘climate science’ is a pseudo-science akin to homoeopathy.
1. It’s fundamentally wrong to assume 100% direct thermalisation of the IR absorbed by GHG molecules. There is no mechanism for this because you can’t abstract bit by bit vibrational energy by collision, adding to average kinetic energy of the symmetrical N2 and O2 molecules.
It’s because vibrational energy is quantised so you can only transfer it to another asymmetrical molecule or re-emit it as an IR photon. The local IR excited density of states is determined by the Law of Equipartition of Energy, modified by dilution of the GHG. The absorption and conversion to heat will be at second phase such as cloud droplets which have gettered CO2, and bare aerosols. So, we don’t have the presumed heating in the clear atmosphere.
2. Although half the IR emitted by the atmosphere will go downwards there is no mechanism by which that energy can be converted to heat when absorbed by the Earth’s surface. This is a fundamental part of heat transfer theory missed by Arrhenius which has been misapplied by every ‘climate scientist’ since. It is apparently taught to students but it’s unique to climate science. Every process engineer who sees what they do says something like ‘How could these jerks be so dumb? It’s the most basic mistake you can make.’.
You prove it by a thought experiment. Suddenly reduce air temperature and its total radiant energy according to S-B falls. That means less IR energy in the GHG emission energy bands is absorbed by the IR density of states of the molecules at the Earth’s surface. More unfilled states means that according to the Principle of Local Thermodynamic equilibrium, the rate of transfer of kinetic energy in the molecules in the solid to its IR density of states increases. This extra energy is then emitted as IR or re-converted to kinetic energy at the rate for the local temperature of the solid. Thus the net effect of reducing ‘back radiation’ is to increase heat transfer from the hotter body to the colder.
Dumb followers of the ‘consensus’, have you got it yet? ‘Back radiation’ you measure by shielding the detector from upward IR is ‘Prevost Exchange Energy’ , a real energy flow but it’s the way the IR density of states in the air communicates in real time with that of the Earth’s surface.
All it does is to modulate internal heat transfer. It is not and cannot be transferred to vibrational energy of the solid. Thus the Trenberth-Kiehl energy diagram of 1997 is nonsensical physics. Any professional scientist who decides to study anything associated with radiant energy transfer should realise this. It appears that a few climate scientists are realising the subject has been fundamentally misled but it’s taking too long for the discipline to react.
The text books and the courses must be altered to stop teaching students any more of this pseudo-science. Those like Connolley apparently pursuing this nonsense from an assumption of authority should stop. His DPhil is in numerical analysis. Thus he was not taught this basic physics. He and others are voluntarily or involuntarily part of a major scientific misrepresentation.
re posts by R. Gates says: January 29, 2012 at 1:48 pm and January 29, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I’d suggest you do a bit more research yourself. Grasses (e.g., grains) apparently existed as far back as 60 to 70 million years ago http://tinyurl.com/7hh4zmn and some dinosaurs were grazers. Lately it appears grasses has already diversified (e.g., been in existance for a long time already) as far back as 125 million years ago.
I’ve seen nothing to indicate that mammals filled a nitch created by the end of ‘steamy jungles,’ nor that the end of dinosaurs was in any way tied to the end of ‘steamy jungles.’ Most jungle animals are small – you’re not going to get animals the size of Tyrannosaurs and Titanosaurs tip toeing thru the jungle trees. http://tinyurl.com/6vgeqc3
As to the supposedly low and steady CO2 level as-if-fact myth, I’ve posted on several different threads regarding the significantly higher CO2 levels according to plant stomata proxies, and various issues with CO2 ice core proxies, as have others. For example:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/23/nasa-research-leads-to-first-complete-map-of-antarctic-ice-flow/#comment-727801
by Richard Courtney: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/07/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-my-initial-comments-on-the-new-dessler-2011-study/#comment-740989
and: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/07/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-my-initial-comments-on-the-new-dessler-2011-study/#comment-741631
On this thread, where the article itself includes a graph comparing ice core CO2 levels to stomata CO2 levels: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/30/new-peer-reviewed-paper-says-there-appear-to-have-been-periods-of-ice-free-summers-in-the-central-arctic-ocean/
by David Middleton: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/15/paleo-tagging-past-climate-sensitivity/#comment-321768
and so on.
A copy of one of my previous posts relevant to R. Gates’ and others claims of historically low CO2 levels:
Rational Debate says:
August 15, 2011 at 7:58 pm
@Robert Murphy, Siloch, and anyone else carrying on about “ice core evidence” or “ice cores don’t lie” and so on, while trying to claim that CO2 has never been higher or never risen as fast, etc…
We don’t have any ice core evidence. We have ice core data and ice core proxy estimations. Until you have reasonably reliable and robust instrumental data for CO2 levels, all taken fairly close to the actual ice core site, and going back far enough such that the instrumental data can be directly compared to the ice core results at a significant number of corresponding depths, there is no way to accurately calibrate the proxy. Obviously we’ve nowhere near the required instrumental data history to accomplish that.
So we have a fair amount of what is probably good science investigating ice cores and the associated quite complex chemistry and physical processes, etc., and a lot of continuing work along those lines. However, there is quite simply no way to be able to tell how accurate or inaccurate estimates of CO2 levels in the ice were compared to actual levels in the atmosphere at various historical time periods. We can say with far more confidence that typically temperatures rose first and CO2 lagged by roughly 800 years plus/minus varying amounts, because here the comparision is between values from roughly the same depth ice, incorporated during roughly the same time periods, which are then compared to each other (e.g., not nearly the need for calibration that comparison to present day values requires).
So the simple fact is that ice core data cannot provide any scientific proof or evidence that CO2 levels never got higher than xyz during previous historical warm periods such as the MWP, Holocene Optimum, etc., let alone going back to previous interglacials. Sure, the ice core proxy estimates are worth noting and keeping in mind – and even using as indicators in your arguments provided you portray them accurately – but they simply don’t prove your point, not even close.
Anthony posted an excellent detailed article by David Middleton 12/26/2010, investigating the various atmospheric CO2 proxies and related issues: CO2: Ice Cores vs. Plant Stomata
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/26/co2-ice-cores-vs-plant-stomata/
Gneiss
NCDC and GISS use the same source for data. That is why both of them are different than the rest of the world. You make it sound like they are independent of each other, that somehow GISS is being independently confirmed by a second source. You global warmers pull all kinds of trick like this.
No year since 1998 has been warmer than 1998. Even ClimateGate scientists at Hadley will tell you that.
> We don’t have any ice core evidence. We have ice core data and ice core proxy estimations.
I disagree; the ice core atmospheric composition data is good, accurate, and repeatable across multiple measurements in a single core and across multiple ice cores. It is physically based and well understood.
However: given what you believe, I trust you are strongly “skeptical” (as I believe you chaps like to say) about Ratan’s use of the ice core CO2 data, as I pointed out much earlier? Presumably you dismiss the idea that T leads CO2 in the ice cores as unproven?
Temperature always leads CO2. That’s why CO2 cannot be a cause of rising temperature. Run along now.
Erinome, if you include Ocean heat content then :
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/brief-comment-on-the-nature-geoscience-paper-observed-changes-in-top-of-the-atmosphere-radiation-and-upper-ocean-heating-consistent-within-uncertainty-by-loeb-et-al-2012/
“That the IPCC models are close to being refuted with respect to the magnitude of global warming even with the large Loeb et al values is an unspoken result of their findings. They missed a major implication from their results.”
KevinK says:
It might surprise you to learn that most of the commercial imaging satellites that are currently orbiting the Earth have had their radiometric calibrations performed (in part) with software that I created. That’s right, every pixel you download from DigitalGlobe (et. al.) went through “mathematics” that I knew a little bit about.
Great — then you should be able to follow my argument.
So, again: is it warmer beneath the mirror?
And, if so, what does this say about your argument that the energy of all incoming radiation must necessarily leave as energy of outgoing radiation?
David Ball, did you read the sentence in Hansen’s paper that I suggested?
If so, did you see that scenario C is NOT zero emissions? It’s zero annual growth rate: sources = sinks. That’s very, very different.
For the last four years, I’ve been asking both the pro-AGW climate scientists and the climate science skeptics the following question …. What specific kinds of empirical research, experimentation, and data analysis should we be performing within the operational climate system itself to assess the validity of the climate models?
Specifically, I am interested in the assessing the validity of the theorized CO2-Water Vapor atmospheric warming amplification process. What should we be doing in the realm of empirical research, experimentation, and data analysis in order to validate that the climate models are in fact capable of reliably predicting that 2 x C02 will produce 2.5C to 4.0C of global atmospheric warming?
The only answer I’ve gotten so far comes from Dr. Demetris Koutsoyannis, who has said that it is not yet possible to determine with any accuracy what the relative contributions of CO2 and water vapor actually are in driving GHG-enabled atmospheric warming mechanisms.
The implication here is that if we can’t make an accurate assessment concerning the relative contributions of CO2 and water vapor, then we can’t trust the climate models to be accurately mirroring what actually happens in the climate system with the addition of more CO2.
You will note here that I’ve said nothing about clouds and their theorized effects on the dynamic operation of the earth’s climate system.
In the realm of clouds and their theorized effects, I ask the same question — what should we be doing in the realm of empirical research, experimentation, and data analysis in order to validate how the models currently deal with clouds?
Scott Brim Well, you could start with a simple experiment to try to prove the absurd IPCC assumption that there is backradiation which is capable of warming the surface. I haven’t seen it melting a bit of frost, but maybe you’ll make some breakthrough that proves basic physics wrong.
Then you need another experiment to prove that the Earth’s surface is well insulated and never loses thermal energy by any means other than radiation (as with a blackbody) so that you can confirm the other absurd IPCC assumption that it is a blackbody that would have been -18 degrees C in the absence of carbon dioxide and its colleagues.