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)
Related articles
- ‘Germany’s George Monbiot’ turns climate sceptic (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
- Two more scientists change sides in the AGW debate (hotair.com)
- Spiegel: ‘I Feel Duped on Climate Change’ (junkscience.com)
- Germany’s Top Environmentalist Turns Climate Sceptic (junkscience.com)
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Latitude the 97% turns out to be 75 people are you claiming that there only 77 scientists in the world?
Actual no one even knows how many scientists there are in the world, so until this is known, logically and mathematical its simply not possible to claim any number of scientists represent the majority in any way that has scientific meaning. Not that stop proponents of ‘the cause ‘ from making grand claims , but then nothing stops that especially not the facts.
“The majority of scientists have concluded that Global warming is real.”
============
Even if accurate (and it isn’t), it doesn’t mean it is correct.
In the 1950’s the ‘majority of scientists’ concluded that space was empty, they tried to run Dr Parker, who proposed the idea of the solar wind) out of the scientific community.
Consensus is not science.
Oh, the rule is very rigid when you talk in terms of time less than 30 years. You should see the responses I got by showing the decadal trend in the last Monckton ruckus. Which makes this all the sweeter for me! Validation! 🙂
And, as the authors point out, there’s a huge difference between statistical significance and significant. Confining ourselves to the 30 year quasi-rule, we will miss the nuances of events which are occurring now and in the more recent past. I posit something happened around 1998 which changed things.
But, concerning the most recent plateau, 15 years is more than 10% of the 130 years. But, we had much longer periods of time which temps did not respond to rising CO2 levels.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/30-years-is-needed-to-confirm-the-null-hypothesis/
Another commenter was asking about the speed of light and the nature of CO2. And he’s right. CO2 can’t be driving our temps because of the length of time the temps don’t respond to increases of atmospheric CO2. The very nature of CO2 eliminates this possibility. Unless someone posits that CO2 takes a timeout and doesn’t excite for several years……
And towards the volcano rationalization, from what I can glean, the effects of a volcano are very transient at most.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/volcanoes/
“”””” nomnom says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:42 am
Re Bill Marsh:
“That ‘step wise’ chart is an invalid statistical technique and could be modified to show a step wise decrease depending on the end points selected. If that’s the best Dr Feulner can do, he’s really off the mark.”
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. The chart for example shows global temperature plateaued for a few years in the 80s but that didn’t herald the end of warming. “””””
So nomnom, a rising Temperature is certainly NOT evidence that warming has stopped; so if a constant Temperature is NOT evidence that warming has stopped, and a falling Temperature is NOT evidence that warming has stopped; what in your expert opinion WOULD constitute evidence that warming has stopped ?
How else would one designate WARMING other than by Temperature information ?
I can tell you that my sister who lives on the shore of Lake Geneva; or whatever they call that lake at Geneva, where last week all the boats and sidewalks and fencing at the marinas around the lake were solid ice, truly believes that warming has stopped, and evidently she like most of the residents of geneva can’t wait for warming to continue. Of course those people typically characterize warming as consisting of rising Temperatures; unlike what they now are seeing.
My remarks should have of course be aimed at Stevie.
KnR says:
February 13, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Latitude the 97% turns out to be 75 people are you claiming that there only 77 scientists in the world?
===========================================
lol, KnR, Latitude was responding to Steven….. While I can’t speak for most, I’m pretty comfortable about saying that Lat definitely doesn’t put any stock in any 97% consensus stuff.
By the end of the interview you realize Vahrenholt is a ‘lukewarmer’, still very much interested in CO2 reduction and alternative energy to mitigate “peak oil”.
I have presented some much less ambiguous view points in my page “Climate Change (“Global Warming”?) – The cyclic nature of Earth’s climate”, at http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChangeBW.htm
“The majority of scientists have concluded that Global warming is real. (its 97% to 3% but it varies 1 to 2% based on what poll your using)
=============================================
A very carefully selected sample of scientists were in 97% agreement, which is true… But I should point out that it is not difficult to create such agreement if you (1) opt to study a small group, (2) decide in advance who will be in that group, and (3) ask a vague question that even most sceptics would agree to.
It would be unsurprising that 97% of those published in the psychoanalytic literature feel strongly that their field is credible. Although it would be remiss to fail to note that the vast majority of scientists outside that field, including psychologists, think those researchers are writing nonsense.
Steven says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Let’s see if this passes the “space aliens” test…
The majority of scientists have concluded that space aliens are real. (its 97% to 3% but it varies 1 to 2% based on what poll your using) Deniers are betting millions of lives, destruction and devastation, and damages that could bankrupt the world. And even if there are no space aliens, which I highly doubt, going “green” is still a smart choice.
Yep. Just as believable as the global warming version! And I bet 97% of all scientists DO believe in space aliens…
Frank K.
Remember “Green Greed is Good…”
The very uninformed Stevens opines….
1. “The majority of scientists have concluded that Global warming is real.” -FALSE
2. Deniers are betting millions of lives, destruction and devastation, and damages that could bankrupt the world. – FALSE
3. And even if there is no global warming, which I highly doubt, – FALSE, very flawed thinking
4. going “green” is still a smart choice. – FALSE, It’s not always a smart choice.
Thanks for playing.
“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.”
No shocker there. One only need to look at the european newspapers from the 1920’s to see the advent of the same garbage spewed by Greenpeace’s likeminded, the nazis, the fascists, and the communists.
It’s been going on a couple of weeks now, the lefty media and the former conservative media in EU have been letting out steam against the skeptics and other politically incorrect people in general it seems.
Apparently, lefty extremism is now supposed to be viewed as “normal” or so themselves and their propaganda outlets in the formerly known conservative and lefty media claim, because they are the ones that are the essence of what is politically correct. IPCC’s AGW scare is politically correct, hence skeptics are haters and what ever. Feminism, Environmentalism, EU version of state controlled segregated enforced by law non-educated multi-culture-ism, financial trading taxes in absurdum, … you name it but if you criticize it you’re a “virus” and a “parasite” something that “hates” our fragile politically correct society.
I think it’s hogwash. Socialism made europe into a horror zone for a hundred years and still the socialists fail to learn they are the root cause of the problem. The problem really is that they always take everything to the extreme, like TAZ.
Maybe the biggest problem is that honest people never seem to want to make a fuzz of things, so a big cudos to Mr Lüning and Mr Vahrenholt for making a fuzz.
“”””” DirkH says:
February 13, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Robertvdl says:
February 13, 2012 at 2:07 pm
“How many well-written books about climate of the sceptic flavour you think there are in Dutch? Germans are unable to read or understand English?. Or if it’s not in German it doesn’t it exist.Germans do not go to school to learn something? There is no internet in Germany?Have they ever heard of Tim Ball and Richard Lindzen or Willie Soon (and many others)? But now that energy prices soar, thanks to their ……….. representatives, now they wake up.”
Robertvdl, we Germans routinely use English as the language of choice for contracts or technical documentation. “””””
DirkH, on my one and only trip to Germany (Bavaria) circa 1982, I visited with scientists and engineers at the Siemens research labs, in Munich, Erlangen, and Regensburg, and they told me that if they attended a technical conference in Germany, even with all German attendees, that they preferred that the presentations be conducted in English. Clarity of meaning, was their reason; not any disenchantment with the German language. Would that my German was 1% as good as their English was.
Well to hell with it, I still refuse to listen to Wagner’s “Ring” in anything but German, even though I can hardly understand the words. Well I don’t need to; I know all 18 hours of the music by heart anyway; so I know exactly what is going on, without understanding any of the words.
PS French was simply “unacceptible” ;or however you say that in German.
jorgekafkazar says:
February 13, 2012 at 12:36 pm
//////////////////
The basic physics behind the theory does not allow for step changes.
Every time there is an increase in CO2 concentration, this must as a matter of the basic physics lead to a corresponding increase in temperature simply because the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere the more molecular radiation there is in the atmosphere; more CO2 does not result in there being the same amount of molecular radiation, or less molecular radiation. It is a one way journey only and that is why the CGM did not project the termperature stall that has been seen these past 15 years (or so).
Of course, it is possible that some other forcing acting in the opposite direction either neutralises the CO2 forcing thereby leading to a flat temperature for that year, or even exceed the positive CO2 forcing keading to a drop in temperature for that year.
However, for the CO2 theory to be correct those supporting the theory need to explain on a yearly basis why when there has been an increase in CO2 no corresponding temperature increase has been observed. Of course, they could resort to the unexplained natural variation argument but in so doing, this acknowledges that CO2 is not the dominant driver of temperatures and natural variation(s) can overrule it.
That “stepwise temperature development” chart is an “escalator” from skepticalscioence.com. It was created by “dana1981”. (S)he took a BEST temperature record and a ruler, drew several blue lines trending down like \ \ \ and labeled them “How skeptics view global warming”. No references to anything. Asked where the graph came from, (s)he replied “from my computer”.
This is the result of goin green.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100232/Frozen-death-fuel-bills-soar-Hypothermia-cases-elderly-double-years.html
In fact it is just the tip of the iceberg. With changes of land use for biofuels leading to less edible crop production and increases in food costs causing an increase in starvation in the poorer countries the death toll of this green folly will be substantial.
It’s good to see more experts asking for a post on WUWT to reach a wider audience.
Bart van Deenen says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:27 am
Tim Ball;
I have met very few people recently who believe in man-made global warming (here in the Netherlands). I must have bought up the subject probably 5 times to new people I met in the last 2 months, and not one of them believed in it.
Bart
I have also noticed the more open reaction, and point out that thanks to our climate gate whistle blowing hero who leaked the contents of CRU emails, the revelation of climate “scientists” behaving badly was exposed for all to see and that took a lot of pressure off. But for those like Dr Tim Ball the academic push back still continues as they “have” to protect and deny even if it means smearing. Keep up the good work Dr Tim, time will vindicate you and truth reign.
Here is the link to the interview of Dr. Vahrenholt in Spiegel Online, the Internet incarnation of Der Spiegel.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,813814,00.html
George E. Smith; says:
February 13, 2012 at 4:33 pm
“DirkH, on my one and only trip to Germany (Bavaria) circa 1982, I visited with scientists and engineers at the Siemens research labs, in Munich, Erlangen, and Regensburg, and they told me that if they attended a technical conference in Germany, even with all German attendees, that they preferred that the presentations be conducted in English. Clarity of meaning, was their reason; not any disenchantment with the German language. Would that my German was 1% as good as their English was.”
It’s nothing compared to ordinary folks in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. They get all the movies and US TV series with subtitles and their own TV is as interesting as watching paint dry, mostly, so they all acquire a full English vocabulary.
As for the clarity of meaning of the English language; well, if these were Siemens people, they lied to you – they obviously had the order from their management to use English; Siemens is an international company so they need to force their German employees to use English. Same at Bosch – they constantly get offers of free English courses paid for by the company, on company time, to prevent them from writing their documentation in German, which at least the older ones would prefer.
Charles Bruce Richardson Jr. says: February 13, 2012 at 3:39 pm
The difference between the Ts+dSST and the Ts files isn’t “hansenization”. The first is land+ocean, the second land (met stations) only. In fact, Ts+dSST is dominated by SST (ocean>land), so they are very different.
I linked above to this plot. You can look up the trends you want by finding 11 years on the right axis, and then tracking the 45° line (some faint white lines are shown) to see what happens to the 11-year trend as you go back in time. If you go to the second link and tinker with the time series graph, you can use the purple arrows (top right) to move a fixed time period (eg 11 years) through the whole range. The trends are printed below the plot.
Latitude says:
JJ, wouldn’t that mean if and when CO2 forced warming resumes…
….temps would have to jump up 1 whole degree to catch up
I’m not sure exactly what you are asking. To catch up to what? The climate is the climate, whatever that is. Whether substantial CO2 forced warming is a component of the current climate or not, global average temperature doesn’t have to catch up to anything.
The only time it is appropriate to talk about “catching up” is WRT people’s opinions and predictions about what climate should be or will be. In that case yes, if certain predictions are to be held to be close enough to the truth to be useful, then any period of low, no, or negative warming will require similar periods of greatly accelerated warming to catch the average temp up with what some folks want it to be. The longer these periods of low, no, or negative warming last, the faster and longer any future warming periods will have to be to meet their expectation. Longer periods of faster change are less probable. How much less probable?
Interesting question. Here’s what I think is an interesting answer
IPCC models predict 0.2C/decade rise in global average surface temp for the period from the end of the last century to about the middle of this current one. As that is a fairly long time wrt the doom and gloom scenarios, one would expect that rate of temp increase, or something near it, would occur over half that period – about 25 years. Temps have been dead flat since 1997, 15 years. What is the liklihood that it will warm enough over the next 10 years to raise the trend for the preceeding 25 year period – currently 0.0C at year 15 – to 0.5C?
Well, that would require a trend of about 0.55C/Decade. How often has that kind of warming happened, in the “instrumental record”? Starting at the beginning of HadCRUT3 in January 1850, and advancing 1 month at a time there have been 1825 intervals of ten years.
Of those 1825 ten year periods, how many had a warming trend of 0.55C or higher?
Zero.
Well, what about 0.5C? How many times has that happened?
Zero.
How about 0.45C? How many times has that happened?
Zero.
In fact, the maximum ten year warming trend over that entire 162 year record – if you “cherry pick” your start and end points for maximum effect – was 0.42C/decade. Of the 1825 ten year periods of the “instrumental record”, only 4 (0.2%) show a warming trend of even 0.4C/Decade. Even during the “global warming era” – about 1970 to present in terms of the most rapid rise in temps – the number of ten year periods with a warming trend of 0.4C/Decade or higher is still less than 1%.
So, for global temps to “catch up” with IPCC projections for the current flat period extended to a length of 25 years, they are going to first have to jump up about 0.2C instantly (to start at the average temp of the last 15 years, which we are currently below), and then rise 30% faster than they ever have before, so far as we know, according to the best data Phil Jones managed to not lose while he fiddled with it. It seems very unlikely that CO2 could make this happen, given that CO2 concentration increase is approximately linear, but the radiative forcing effect of CO2 is logarithmic and thus incrementally decreasing.
Suppose the next ten years really rip, though. Lets say they rise at the 75th percentile rate for the “global warming era”. That will put us up 0.25C for the 25 year period, or about 0.1C/decade – half the IPCC rate.
If we get average “global warming” for the “global warming era”, we will be up 0.17C for the 25 year period, or about 0.06C/Decade – one third the IPCC rate.
Of course, for the last 11 years temps have been trending down. Taken in consecutive ten year increments as above, the rate of cooling is increasing, and is now the highest it has been during the “global warming era”.
If a fellah were a betting man – his own money, not someone elses – where should he put it?
“I have met very few people recently who believe in man-made global warming”
===============================
“Belief” in AGW is most likely related to the string of cold winters in Europe since 2008, and has much less to do with the activities of sceptics. This is not surprising as the string of warm winters prior to 2008 were attributed by some (unwisely) directly to CO2. So now having oversold the public, the public in turn will tend to be more cynical.
This comment “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.”
Well, better than going to a third party blog, why not go to a climate agency that processes the data? The data that really matters. The data that shows what is happening in the oceans which is the main game in the climate. Here: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ Look at graphs 1 & 2 in their animation. 0-700 metres and 0-2000 metres.
The oceans have kept right on heating through the 2000’s, its just that the heat is being drawn down deeper into the ocean so it doesn’t show up in the surface layer. And since the ocean surface layer has plateaued, the air temps have plateaued as well. But warming is continuing unabated. Its just the heat is going somewhere else at the moment.
@nomnom on February 13, 2012 at 10:38 am:
“One modification made is that the y-axis of the 2nd graph in Neff et al is not labeled “temperature” at all. In fact the paper itself says “The variation of the d18O signal is very unlikely to be directly related to temperature changes”. So how do Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt justify this modification?”
Yeah, really dumb of them not to have used those thermometers that were kicking around in 4500 BC.. For ten sceptic points, what do you think tree rings are supposed to represent?
Richard Verney
“However, for the CO2 theory to be correct those supporting the theory need to explain on a yearly basis why when there has been an increase in CO2 no corresponding temperature increase has been observed. Of course, they could resort to the unexplained natural variation argument but in so doing, this acknowledges that CO2 is not the dominant driver of temperatures and natural variation(s) can overrule it.”
Because you are misunderstanding the theory. The direct consequence of GH gas increases is that additional heat accumulates within the climate system. This additional heat can have multiple effects, depending where it goes – melts ice, warms the land, warms the atmosphere, warms the oceans. The observed distribution of how much of the extra heat has gone where is Ice 3%, Land 4%, Air 3%, Oceans 90%. You seem to expect that rising CO2 levels will translate into a direct correlation with the changes in Air Temperatures which is incorrect. What should approximately correlate is total heat content of the system and CO2 levels. But even that is still approximate since the CO2 change produces an immediate forcing change. But it takes time for this forcing change to cause the associated accumulation of heat.
However, read my previous post, go and look at the ocean heat contenet graphs at the NODC. Look at graph 2. Still going up, hasn’t stopped.
The ‘theory’ says that extra CO2 will make the Dog move. We can’t judge whether it is by just looking at its Tail.