Foreword: Dr Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, authors of a new controversial skeptic book now hitting German bookstores, have asked me to post their response to comments made by climate scientist Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in an interview by NTV television. Feulner insists that CO2 plays the major role in climate change and that the sun has little impact.
You can read about the new book just published in Germany that is causing an uproar in the German green establishment here. The response is so vitriolic that one is newspaper (TAZ) is headlining “Skeptics are like viruses“. Greenpeace Germany has now gotten into the act, denoucing Lüning and Varrenholt (formerly a champion of the global warming cause) as an Ice Cold Denier.
The website (in German) for the new book (that has become a bestseller on three outlets) from Lüning and Vahrenholt is here. An English version is also planned which I will announce at WUWT. Sincere thanks to Pierre Gosselin of notrickszone.com for translation. -Anthony
Georg Feulner of the PIK runs in circles
Guest post by Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt
On the Germany television website Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research comments on our recently published book “Die kalte Sonne”. As we have criticized his work in our book, we are not at all surprised by his rejection of our position.
First he disputes global warming has stopped for the time being. To do this he uses a special chart from a blog depicting a stepwise temperature development, which makes no sense for the particular topic at hand. The temperature plateau that we’ve had since the year 2000 is disputed by Feulner. However, the missing warming of the last 12 years is no fabrication made up by the authors of “Die kalte Sonne“. Anybody can plot it by going over to Woodfortrees.org. Or you can read up about it up in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, e.g. Kaufmann et al (2011). Even Prof. Ottmar Edenhofer of Feulner’s own Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research seems to see it the same way. Climate researcher Prof. Jochem Marotzke of Hamburg just confirmed it once again in a recent interview with the German TAZ daily (9 February 2012).
Next, Feulner tries to score points by using the 30-year climate rule. In some official definitions, climate is defined as the 30-year mean of weather. While this makes sense for some considerations, this rigid rule obstructs the discussion on the mechanisms that are involved in climate. It’s becoming increasingly clear that natural decadal cycles have been greatly under-estimated in the past. For example the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is characterized by a warm and a cold phase, each lasting 20 to 30 years. They have a significant impact on global temperature. Should that 30-year-climate window unfortunately get placed between both phases, then the trends get mixed up and we end up comparing apples and oranges. The corresponding “climate“ results end up depending more on the choice of the start point of the 30-year window and less on the real, shorter-scale temperature trends. Consequently, looking at 10-year temperature trends is not only legitimate, but it also makes sense.
In discussing the sun, Feulner attempts to show that in the event of an impending significant drop in solar activity to Dalton or Maunder Minimum-levels, which he foresees as well, no considerable cooling is to be expected. Here he fails to mention that he forgot to include any solar amplification in his climate models. This is essential because it is only with such solar amplifiers that one is able to explain the synchronicity between the sun and the temperature, with at least a 1°C pulsating climate development, over the last 10,000 years. The climate model used by Feulner cannot explain the past, and therefore naturally is not suitable for projecting the future. To explain the Maunder-Minimum 300 years ago, Feulner resorts to the dubious volcano joker. But this still does not explain the overlying fundamental problem that there is a good sun-climate coupling over the other well-documented millennial cycles of the last 10,000 years.
When it comes to the Svensmark solar amplification effect, whose existence is supported by much evidence in peer-reviewed literature (see Chapter 6 and Svensmark guest contribution on page 209 in “Die kalte Sonne”), Feulner simply pushes it off the table without providing a good argument. Not a word on the independent confirmations of the important sub-processes of the effect (e.g. Usoskin et al. 2004, Laken et al. 2010, Kirkby et al. 2011).
The NTV interview illustrates just how much Georg Feulner runs in circles with his arguments. The arguments he presents are weak. When will the Potsdam Institute get around to addressing the millennium cycles of the last 10,000 years? On page 68-75 of our book (“The sun’s impact over the last 10,000 years”) we find one of the most important keys to the climate discussion. Strangely not a single media report following publication of our book has looked into this. Day eight and counting.
Example for millennial climate cycles: Studies of dripstones in Oman for the period 7500-4500 BC show a high degree of synchronicity between solar activity and temperature development. Figure modified after Neff et al. (2001)
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To the book authors: I regret, you did not include variations/the osculation and libration
of the Earth’s orbit in your book……
because orbit osculations clearly explain centennial temperature cycles of the Holocene
from the first Oman dripstone cycle until the present (cycles of about 800 years)…. of which
half a cycle from the cold bottom ( 17 Cty Little Ice Age) to the present warm top plateau
(21 Cty top plateau) last 395 years….-the top plateau is the top plateau from where temps cannot increase ANY further………transparently calculated for everyone in my booklet
ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4…..
…….solar amplification effects can stem from 1. increased solar output, 2. osculation
and libration of the Earth’s orbit, 3. Svensmark’s cloud effects + ENSO…..
The grand problem is that effects of 1 and 3 do not explain the whole story…..number 2:
the orbit has to be added ……
The CAWG-proponents at PIK, Feulner, Rahmstorf etc. know my booklet (I sent them a copy)
but keep hiding it as long as they can in the “Poison cabinet” because it would shatter
their CO2-lies….and they know it all….. therefore, no respect for the climate villains…..
JS
I was in Bavaria this spring and did the touristy things, including taking the train out to Fussen to see the Neuschwanstein Castle. Along the way were fields and fields of solar panels, which our tour guide proudly explained as Germany’s way of reducing CO2 output and saving the planet from global warming.
This brought only an eye roll from me, as I hadn’t the slightest inclination of becoming the lone American sceptic in a car full of European believers.(Though with my degree in geology and what I’ve read on the subject, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do so if challenged.)
It’s very interesting now to see the change in Germany regarding their solar investment and CAGW in general. $100B Eu altogether; whew!
It would be nice if the warmists would just let it go but as the climategate emails clearly demonstrate, warmists don’t play….well….nice.
And it would be nice if this just involved ego-driven ‘climate’ scientists. But that isn’t the case either.
Simply put, a certain former politician turns a deranged theory into a pop-culture phenomena, dreamy eyed scientists, media and politicians jump on board, taxpayer money is given to the right ‘friends’……all in the name of saving the planet of course, the ‘friends’ then donate a portion of this taxpayer money back to the politicians reelection campaigns — Rinse and repeat. For a variety of reasons, this whole cabal is not going to go awary quietly.
As I’ve stated time and again, the AGW scam won’t end until someone goes to jail for fraud. But as an example, when you have the US Department of Justice defending NASA in court against The Competitive Enterprise Institute for simply requesting emails under FOIA, I don’t see any warmist fraud going to jail in the near future. The most transparent Administration, blah, blah….
And besides the taxpayers, the environment suffers – we do remember that is what the AGW scam is supposedly based on – the environment….don’t we? Think of all the recycling plants (and accompanying jobs) that could have been built using the money thrown away on Solyndra, First Solar, etc, etc…..i.e. – the ‘friends’.
As soon as the book came out, the rapid response team was acting like crazy. My favorite stupids have been the ZEIT, which started a series of counter articles, lead by a Greenpeace propagandist Thomas Staud and the environmental contributors. Agressive, ad hominem, super-weak in facts. Unimaginable for a German newspaper nowadays, I’d thought:
“In Germany, the ‘climate skeptics’ as they call themselves, now almost meaningless pettifoggers the right of the political establishment – the place where Islam haters, German and other neocons despise liberal ‘Gutmenschentums’ romp.”
Missing pedophiles still …
So their book must be good. Having read, it really is.
First he disputes global warming has stopped for the time being. To do this he uses a special chart from a blog depicting a stepwise temperature development, which makes no sense for the particular topic at hand.
That chart doesn’t make any sense, for any topic. It is the same drivel that is being put up on the “SkepticalScience” blog. It is nothing more or less than a graphical strawman. It presents an argument that actual sceptics do not make, and pretends it is the same as the argument that sceptics do make.
Per HadCRUT3: There has been a global cooling trend for the last 10 years. There has been no significant warming for at least the last 15 years. Warming has not exceeded half the 0.2C/decade IPCC prediction for the last 18 years. These are substantial time periods for each of those conditions. They are running into the realm of statistical significance and model falsification. If they continue for much longer, there are important negative implications for the scientific underpinnings of CAGW arguments.
This fact is recognized not just by sceptics, but by the climate establishment. They are currently flailing about, trying to explain the divergence between their observations and their predictions. They are attempting to escape the travesty by looking for the missing heat, and they are “finding” it everywhere from the depths of the unmeasured ocean to the heights of Chinese aerosols to the vast expanse of their grossly underestimated error bands. But they are looking, because they acknowledge the problem they have.
Only a few die-hard warmists deny the current status of the temperature trend, and take refuge in nonsense like this “stepwise” graph. It makes use of short time periods with cherry picked endpoints, and pretends that this invalidates longer trends that all reference the present. Sorry, but no.
I think the point of the chart was to show the sun’s activity relates to temperatures on Earth (something that is in dispute) and isn’t provided to zoom in on the current 50 year span, which is quite small.
@Robertvdl says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:52 am
I have a BIG problem with that. In the book there is nothing we don’t know. It’s all old stuff.
Robert, in Germany they did not have a lot of well-written books about climate and definitely none of the sceptic flavour. It was about time to give the doubters there some facts.
Good for you, if you know everything already. Others don’t.
Do you suppose that Herr Fuelner actually believes that out of every 100,000 molecules of air that there are 39 rogue molecules fo carbon dioxide that are overheating the other 99,961 molecules? Amazing that some body with that much education would swallow such a proposition.
@Brent Hargreaves says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:13 am
Good point… and further, the CAGW legislative overhang will bedevil us for some time to come.
“The response is so vitriolic”
Lots of money at risk. No crisis, no money.
There is also a religious-cult like element. For many the adoption of the Arrhenius equation as an explain-all truth is not unlike the pseudo-scientific Marxist embrace of the Ricardo’s labor theory of value as the explain everything. It is their form of monotheism.
These German dissenters are extremely threatening to the cultists and profiteers because they cannot be dismissed as American-style right wing cranks, you know, the type that mess up any discussions of the AGW scams with talk about eliminating the EPA and banning unions and similar.
Anthony,
OT. For some reason, I have been unable to post this on your TIPs page. You might consider a post on, “After vowing to take on radical environmentalists determined to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline, the Harper government released a new anti-terrorism strategy on 02/10/2012 that targets eco-extremists as threats.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawas-new-anti-terrorism-strategy-lists-eco-extremists-as-threats/article2334975/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2334975
@nomnom –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
“The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred around 9,000 years ago (during the warm Boreal period)..[27][28]”
That quote is not my saying so, it’s in peer reviewed papers.
And if you cannot make the sceptics stop asking questions and trying to get your data through Freedom of Information, them cut them by fiat.
THIS little gem has heretofore raised no waves. h/t to comp.risks for carrying the link, from an AUSTRALIAN sources.:
> http://theconversation.edu.au/a-small-bill-in-the-us-a-giant-impact-for-research-worldwide-4996
This is, to be blunt, outrageous.
nomnom says: “Surely the point of the chart is to show that globe warms in steps, not in a perfect line, so therefore a step or plateau is not evidence that the warming has stopped.”
Last I checked, radiation occurs at the speed of light. There is no “pipeline” in which atmospheric heat gets inventoried and then suddenly released into the climate. Trying to store solar heat via natural processes is like trying to smuggle candles in a bucket of ice cubes. Putative CO²-related warming would follow the atmospheric CO² concentration, which is continuously rising. Global warming in steps actually proves that the warming is very likely NOT greenhouse-gas related. Thanks for all the fish, nomnom. Sorry about the hole in the bottom of your barrel.
This is true….. if it were the CO2-increase as cause, such as 20 ppmv per decade, there should
be an immediate response in global temps and it takes only 7 min for the solar energy to reach Earth and CO2 should immediately act [if it were capable] and why should there be a step+plateau-wise temp hold-back?
After all, I remember a work of Dr. Coss et al [UEA] on carbon cycle feedbacks, claiming
that the 20 ppmv increase leads to EXCEEDING warming, such as interest on interest
compounded…..
Who can point to a single work of the Milleniums edition TAR of 2001, forecasting an ensuing
temp plateau about to materialize? …… I remember only temp rising forecasts….
(cut out the word plays prognosis, prediction, projection and use FORECAST as anybody
else) …..
Help please….
JS
JJ says:
February 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Per HadCRUT3: There has been a global cooling trend for the last 10 years. There has been no significant warming for at least the last 15 years. Warming has not exceeded half the 0.2C/decade IPCC prediction for the last 18 years. These are substantial time periods for each of those conditions.
===============================================
JJ, wouldn’t that mean if and when CO2 forced warming resumes…
….temps would have to jump up 1 whole degree to catch up
If it was “normal”, then temps would just assume the normal incline like nothing had happened
JamesS, the “Green/B90Party” here in Germany is basicly the political wing of Greenpeace, with a strong input from Fiends of the Earth and other tree huggers. There is a strong “gegener” movement kicking off now against the building of more “Wind Farms” mainly composed of those whose lives, homes, vistas and so on are blighted by the infernal things.
Hopefully as the AGW scam unravels more and more the Greenpeace frauds will be exposed and they will lose both support and influence.
Joachim Seifert
…you did not include variations/the osculation and libration
of the Earth’s orbit in your book……
Joachim, English is a perverse language and English spelling extremely so. I think you mean ‘oscillation’ and ‘vibration.’ Osculation is what true believers do to the IPCC. Google ‘kiss up to.”
: > )
Juan:
there is oscillation…we know, but different is OSCULATION, which the Earth’s orbit does….
Problem for the public is that Warmist alterated/”cleaned” the ORBITAL pages on Wikipedia
last August, in order to hide the effect of the orbit and they eliminated all previous details of
the true trajectory and all perturbations….. this obviously was done by someone
connected to the Belgian VSOP program Warmist team, since you can see how they praise
the high quality of VSOP and not mention NASA JPL Horizons or Russian programs…very
suspicious this self-gratulation in Wikipedia….If there is nothing in the orbit….”only CO2
remains” – is the message…….too bad now for the public…I wonder how one gets the previous non-Warmist view back again in Wikipedia……Sorry…
JS
Sorry for being off topic, but I have posted up why I think the current energy balance models are more fiction than reality. I have a lot of problems with the black/grey body based models, as I have commented on many times here on posts discussing the topic.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/18073
Using brand new images from NPP-Soumi, it is clearly shown taht the energy balance equation for the earth is much more complicated than the current IPCC model, therefore making the IPCC claims indefensible.
We need to step up our collective game here and dig into this puzzle with eyes open to the true complexity in the natural world. Only then will we be able to claim precisions in understanding that equate to fractions of a degree over decades.
There, ordered Die kalte Sonne in its original! My all but faded grade school-level German will certainly not be up to the task, and perhaps as some say, there isn’t anything in the book we haven’t already read about here, in the skeptics’ Agloshpere, but…but what counts right now is the support we can give in this high-stakes battle.
With governmental and private funding overwhelmingly skewed on the side of the alarmists, versus the harsh and disproportionate financial and social penalties for skeptics, let’s remember that we as private individuals are the sole source of support, comfort and even safety for our side’s advocates anywhere in the world and in all languages. Besides, given the impact this book will have on Germany and the rest of Europe, I predict that an original edition of Die kalte Sonne will be quite the collector’s item in time!
http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/resource.html
Not enough oil in the world? According to the Province of Alberta, the recoverable oil in this one province “….. has proven oil reserves of 171.3 billion barrels, consisting of bitumen (169.9 billion barrels) and conventional oil (1.4 billion barrels). These reserves make up the third-largest proven crude oil reserve in the world, next to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This is enough oil to meet Canada’s current oil demand for almost 400 years.” This one province in Canada and not the whole country. This does not include Sasketchewan, where they still do not know how much bitumen lies waiting for plunder/developement. This does not include Alaska, etc. Wait: then there is coal. Not enough coal in the world? This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#World_coal_reserves
says that there are 930 billion tons of recoverable coal. I would bet that in both cases the amounts are vastly underestimated because of undiscovered fields and because some oil and coal is deemed too expensive right now to be rated as recoverable. That will change with technological improvements.
To consider the sun as a non-event in global warming is insane. What then caused all of the pre-human long cycles (I mean very long) of ice ages, if not for the sun combined with volcanism? Starve the world of CO2 and we’ll likely see small scale die-offs in the Amazon jungle.
We are on the verge of recognizing another monumental science research scam in Michael Mann and NASA’s Hansen that is distinguished for being the basis of the greatest science-based policy debacle in the history of humankind! The methods of enforcement of this science scam have been every bit as ruthless as in previous scams and we can only hope it blows away as quickly and thoroughly as the ether theory that came before it.
Nick Stokes says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:22 am
“I doubt that anyone makes a rigid rule about 30 years. What is more important is statistical significance. Because without it, you are basing your argument on something that could have arisen by chance. It is something that you could expect based simply on past observed random fluctuations.”
The problem as I see it Nick, is that statistical significance can only be measured with respect to the 130 years worth of data held within the Global Surface Temperature record. If we were able to extend that record back in time to encompass the entire 11,000 years of the Holocene, or even 90,000 years back to encompass the previous Glaciation, would any of the recent data retain its statistical significance?
nomnom says: “Surely the point of the chart is to show that globe warms in steps, not in a perfect line, so therefore a step or plateau is not evidence that the warming has stopped.”
————–
I don’t think that was the point of the chart at all. The point the chart (at least for Dr Feulner) and the ‘step trends’ in it was to try to falsify the proposition that there has been no warming over the last 15 years or so. As I said earlier it is an invalid statistical method. I could construct a similar chart showing stepwise decreases in temperature from the same base data. For instance you could draw lines showing decreasing (rather rapid ones too) temperatures in steps from 1982 – 1985, 1991 -1993, 1995 -1997, etc.
The fact of the matter is that there has been no statistically significant warming (any increase in temperature falling with the error bars) since 1995 and there is no way to avoid that, as even Dr Jones admits.
JJ says: February 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm
“Per HadCRUT3: There has been a global cooling trend for the last 10 years. There has been no significant warming for at least the last 15 years.”
So warming has to be significant, but cooling not? The cooling trend is not significant either.
nomnom says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:27 am
“Why don’t Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt show cosmic rays and temperature during the past 50 years?
Cosmic rays have been flat and temperatures have risen. Why wouldn’t they show that? Disturbing.”
I would argue with an energy imbalance – highly active sun, strong solar magnetic field, suppression of cloud formation by cosmic rays – resulting in decades of warming oceans and rising temperatures.
In other words, the thermal capacity of the oceans operators as an energy storage, much like the capacitor in an RC low pass.