Guest essay by Dr. Richard Lindzen
Each IPCC report seems to be required to conclude that the case for an international agreement to curb carbon dioxide has grown stronger. That is to say the IPCC report (and especially the press release accompanying the summary) is a political document, and as George Orwell noted, political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
With respect to climate, we have had 17 years without warming; all models show greater tropical warming than has been observed since 1978; and arctic sea ice is suddenly showing surprising growth. And yet, as the discrepancies between models and observations increase, the IPCC insists that its confidence in the model predictions is greater than ever.
Referring to the 17 year ‘pause,’ the IPCC allows for two possibilities: that the sensitivity of the climate to increasing greenhouse gases is less than models project and that the heat added by increasing CO2 is ‘hiding’ in the deep ocean. Both possibilities contradict alarming claims.
With low sensitivity, economic analyses suggest that warming under 2C would likely be beneficial to the earth. Heat ‘hiding’ in the deep ocean would mean that current IPCC models fail to describe heat exchange between surface waters and the deep ocean. Such exchanges are essential features of natural climate variability, and all IPCC claims of attribution of warming to mans activities depend on the assumption that the models accurately portray this natural variability.
In attempting to convince the public to accept the need to for the environmental movement’s agenda, continual reference is made to consensus. This is dishonest not because of the absence of a consensus, but because the consensus concerning such things as the existence of irregular (and small compared to normal regional variability) net warming since about 1850, the existence of climate change (which has occurred over the earths entire existence), the fact that added greenhouse gases should have some impact (though small unless the climate system acts so as to greatly amplify this effect)over the past 60 years with little impact before then, and the fact that greenhouse gases have increased over the past 200 years or so, and that their greenhouse impact is already about 80% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2 are all perfectly consistent with there being no serious problem. Even the text of the IPCC Scientific Assessment agrees that catastrophic consequences are highly unlikely, and that connections of warming to extreme weather have not been found. The IPCC iconic statement that there is a high degree of certainty that most of the warming of the past 50 years is due to man’s emissions is, whether true or not, completely consistent with there being no problem. To say that most of a small change is due to man is hardly an argument for the likelihood of large changes.
Carbon restriction policies, to have any effect on climate, would require that the most extreme projections of dangerous climate actually be correct, and would require massive reductions in the use of energy to be universally adopted. There is little question that such reductions would have negative impacts on income, development, the environment, and food availability and cost – especially for the poor. This would clearly be immoral.
By contrast, the reasonable and moral policy would be to foster economic growth, poverty reduction and well being in order that societies be better able to deal with climate change regardless of its origin. Mitigation policies appear to have the opposite effect without significantly reducing the hypothetical risk of any changes in climate. While reducing vulnerability to climate change is a worthy goal, blind support for mitigation measures – regardless of the invalidity of the claims – constitutes what might be called bankrupt morality.
It is not sufficient for actions to artificially fulfill people’s need for transcendent aspirations in order for the actions to be considered moral. Needless to add, support of global warming alarm hardly constitutes intelligent respect for science.
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Richard S. Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 5th, 2013
If the oceans are absorbing heat now, how much of the rise during the 80s and 90s was due to the oceans releasing heat?
Dr. Brown had a post a while back about the models. Part of that post was about how the IPCC should start throwing away those models that have overshot temperature and narrow the results down to the closest.
Can we do the same with the scientists in the IPCC? Those that have consistently been wrong, consistently claimed extreme events are still in the IPCC. Lindzen, or Spencer, or many others have consistently been right about climate sensitivity and extreme events and the non-event that “climate change” will be yet they are left as outsiders. It makes no sense to discount those that continue to be right in favor of others who have proven to be wrong.
“…all models show greater tropical warming than has been observed since 1978…”
First read this as “…all models show greater tropical warming than has been observed since BEFORE 1978…” Does Lindzen mean “…all models project greater tropical warming from 1978 on than what actually has been observed”?
MinB says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:08 pm
“Does Lindzen mean “…all models project greater tropical warming from 1978 on than what actually has been observed”?”
Yes. The GCMs show warming that has not been observed, in particular the phantom “Tropical Tropospheric Hot Spot”.
No, religions never die. They just beat you over the head more strenuously, and get offended when you point out how silly they are.
@Dingo – Mother Jones? LOL – what next? SkS? Please! Been a rough week at work, I need more laughs.
HenryP says:
October 8, 2013 at 11:44 am
I have never seen any proof that the net effect of more COtwo is that of warming rather than. What is your opinion abt that,
Prof. Lindzen?
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Here is a statement made that describes his feelings about doubling CO2.
“Stated briefly,” announced Professor Lindzen, atmospheric physicist from MIT, in his seminar at the House of Commons, “I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.”
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I’ve read Lindzen’s work. I do not want to put words in his mouth, and do not know if this is accurate: He has said that even the IPCC admits that a doubling could by itself cause 1C warming. But I do not think he believes there is proof of that, thought the upper limit of warming may be that amount.
Again, someone is claiming 17 years of no warming. All one has to do is look at a major global temperature index. It becomes easy to see that the brief spike of the 1997-1998 El Nino is an extreme El Nino spike, and the hiatus started about 12 years ago.
Kasuha says:
October 8, 2013 at 12:26 pm
“arctic sea ice is suddenly showing surprising growth”
I don’t see anything like that in the data.
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The JAXA is showing a sharp rise since the low. If it stays on course, it will cross the 2000 average in 6 to 7 days. If it doesn’t slow down it could also reach the 1990 average by the end of this month.
Brilliant! Thank you, Dr. Lindzen, this is an excellent contribution to the understanding of the AR5.
milodonharlani:
At October 8, 2013 at 11:56 am you accurately reply to the silly post from Dingo at October 8, 2013 at 11:17 am when you write
However, there is another answer which is hinted by your final paragraph.
Alarmists invented the “pause” as a method to avoid admitting that global warming has stopped.
Richard
Donald L. Klipstein:
Your post at October 8, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Again, someone – in this case, you – is trying to claim that discernible global warming did not stop at least 17 years ago. But, it did according to all the global temperature indices (i.e. HadCRUTn, GISS, RSS, and UAH).
You made the same spurious assertion on another WUWT thread and I refuted your nonsense there. This link is to that refutation
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/01/what-would-the-ipcc-have-written-if-there-had-been-12-years-of-rapid-warming/#comment-1433982
To save people needing to use the link, I copy that reply to here and add two clarifying sentences.
Now (i.e. the present) is the only valid start date when considering how long there has been no discernible change in global temperature. And one then considers back in time from now. Any other date is a cherry-pick.
Smoothing the data is processing it. We are interested in whether the data shows a discernible trend: we are not interested in whether processed data shows anything.
Any model of change could be used but ‘climate science’ uses linear trends, so that is the appropriate model.
The discernment has to be a trend different from zero at 95% confidence because that is the confidence level used by ‘climate science’.
So, to assess whether there has been discernible global warming recently one needs to take one of the data sets of global temperature time series (e.g. HadCRUTn, GISS, RSS, etc.) and assess past time periods from now to determine the shortest time period which differs from zero with 95% confidence.
All the available time series of global temperature show no discernible global warming or global cooling at 95% confidence for at least 17 years. RSS shows no discernible global warming or global cooling at 95% confidence for 22 years. But they each do show discernible global warming at 95% confidence for the previous 17 year period.
In other words, all available time series of global temperature show discernible global warming stopped at least 17 years ago.
Any other statement (except to query the validity of global temperature data compilations) is spin.
Richard
richardscourtney says: October 9, 2013 at 12:54 am
Alarmists invented the “pause” as a method to avoid admitting that global warming has stopped.
Richard
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Excellent point, thank you Richard.
I (we) stated in a Calgary Herald article published in 2002 that global cooling would commence by 2020-2030.
This prediction was made at a time when global warming hysteria was at its peak, and statements such as mine were met with disbelief, derision, and threats of death or dismemberment (OK – I only received one threat, but some of my friends received several – I do not recall feeling envious at the time). 🙂
My “climate heresy” of 2002 was based on the belief that the modest global warming observed since ~1975 was primarily natural and half-cyclical, not significantly humanmade, and would be followed by a half-cycle of natural cooling that would overwhelm any humanmade warming, real or imaginary.
The timing of this prediction was based on the Gleissberg Cycle of 80-90 years duration, and cooling would occur one full Gleissberg Cycle after the previous global cooling period began circa 1940.
I recall questioning my friend Dr. Tim Patterson at the time as to whether the shorter PDO cycle (of about 60 years) was a better estimator, and he thought not, based on his research. If indeed the PDO is a better estimator, then global cooling has probably already begun.
However, these issues are usually best analyzed after a few years more data – we’ll see.
The other input factor was that circa 2002, Solar Cycle 24 was predicted by NASA (Hathaway et al) to be robust, and in fact it has turned out to be a dud, similar to a Dalton Minimum. This reality could also support a return to global cooling sooner than 2020-2030.
In fairness to Tim, our conversation took place during a brief phone call – the total duration of that call was probably less than 20 minutes.
I am providing all this detail to show the dichotomy between the millions (or billions) spent on the computer climate models cited by the IPCC that produce nonsense, and an alternative free hypothesis that may indeed have some predictive value – again, we’ll see, but after 11 years we have a much better predictive track record than the IPCC.
Back to your statement “Alarmists invented the “pause” as a method to avoid admitting that global warming has stopped.”
Yes, the term “pause” suggests that global warming will soon resume, after a “brief” hiatus of ALMOST 20 YEARS. I don’t think so. I think global warming HAS stopped. I think we will see some global cooling.
I hope I am wrong, and if correct, I hope the cooling is not severe, because as a society, we do better in a warm climate and are ill-prepared for significant cooling.
Whether this global cooling is reflected accurately in the Surface Temperature (ST) record remains to be seen, since there is a clear warming bias in the ST record. I will rely on the satellite record in the Lower Troposphere (LT) for my analysis.
I suggest that the warmest decade in the last several hundred years in the USA was not 2001-2010, but rather the 1930’s. This may have also been the case on a global scale, since the global ST database is rather poor and spatial distribution is erratic. I also suggest that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer globally than today.
In other words, there is nothing unusual going on in Earth’s climate, notwithstanding the huge increase in the combustion of fossil fuels and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (which may or may not be due to fossil fuel combustion).
I suggest that the legacy of the global warming alarmist movement will be, at a minimum, the squandering of a trillion dollars of scarce global resources, and possibly a world unprepared for significant global cooling.
I close, repeating the eloquent 2001 WSJ statement from Richard Lindzen:
“Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens… …It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions.”
Enjoy your day Richard.
Best personal regards, Allan
Thank you Dr Lindzen. And as if on cue – we have the head of the OECD chiding governments over inaction…
http://progcontra.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/oecd-climate-bailout.html
“It is not sufficient for actions to artificially fulfill people’s need for transcendent aspirations in order for the actions to be considered moral.”
Unfortunately the transcendent aspirations usually include a raising of taxes for those not so aspired. I like to call this “altruism by proxy”,
Thanks for the post Dr. Lindzen. I always loving reading your stuff.
I propose that we refer to the period of the past 17 years (and counting) of no warming as “The Halt”. The word implies nothing about the future, the way the words “pause” or “hiatus” do. It is a simple statement of fact. The Halt has thrown a monkey wrench into the Climatists’ plans. Their esteemed GCMs lie in ruins, and now all they can do is pathetically grasp at straws like “hidden heat” in the deep oceans.
I think this diagram shows what has happened pretty well:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from/to/plot/rss/from/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.9/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:2005/trend
As we can see there was warming, it slowed in the late 1990s and turned to cooling around 2005. I would argue that the proper description of the 17 year “pause” is simply saying the trend is flat. Saying there was “no warming” is not really accurate. There was warming following by cooling.
Think of it this way, if the cooling continues to around 2035 and the trend from 1975 is perfectly flat would it be correct to say there had been no warming? Clearly, there was. I think we are in a similar situation now where we only have 8-9 years of cooling. If we want to discuss 17 years then the proper description is a flat trend or, one I personally like, global temperatures have flat-lined.
@richard M, in 5 years time, a cooling trend will probably be discernible, and that will be more the focus. By then, Climatists will be reduced to the equivalent of flat-earthers. Hopefully, some will even be cooling their heals behind bars.
Richard M:
re your post at October 9, 2013 at 5:31 am.
With respect, you are assuming the trends are correct and have 100% confidence. But that is not so.
If you apply 95% (i.e. ~2-sigma) confidence then your short trends are not discernibly different from zero (i.e. they do not indicate warming or cooling). And 95% confidence is the conventional confidence level adopted in ‘climate science’.
Hence, your observations of apparent warming and cooling over short periods are not valid.
The time series data sets of global temperature each indicate that discernible (at 95% confidence) global warming stopped at least 17 years ago. I explain this in my above post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/08/lindzen-understanding-the-ipcc-ar5-climate-assessment/#comment-1441447
Richard
Can anyone name a region of the earth that has become uninhabitable due to global warming?
There are thousands of HOT places on earth where it is hard for humans to survive. Simply adding water to the soil makes them habitable. No amount of CO2 reduction would make them habitable.
Consider Imperial Valley in California. Adding water to a hot, inhospitable climate has created one of the most productive growing regions on earth. Adding CO2 would simply make it more productive.
Consider the middle east. Vast regions that are uninhabitable due to lack of water, so the people fight over what little arable land there is, and have been doing so for thousands of years. Governments call out for peace, and throw money and lives at the problem, when the solution is more water, not less CO2.
Had the OPEC oil money been spent on irrigation rather than weapons, the peoples of the Middle East would now be facing a much different future.
KevinM says:
Sudden surprising growth can be claimed the next time the yearly low comes in higher than the 1990s average low.
Until Chinese coal-fired power plants are subject to the same particulate emissions standards as American power plants, I’m not holding my breath for a recovery in Arctic sea ice.
Mitigation policies appear to have the opposite effect without significantly reducing the hypothetical risk of any changes in climate.
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without a doubt. low cost energy makes modern life possible and with this has come a reduction in birth rates, stabilizing populations in the wealthy industrialized nations. In contrast, those nations with the lowest CO2 production generally have the highest poverty and the highest birth rates.
so, while it may be argued that reducing CO2 will reduce the increase in temperatures, it could also be argued that it will increase birth rates in the poorest countries over what they would have been otherwise. so, in trying to curb CO2, we will end up increasing over-population problems.
governments have nearly unlimited capacity to create big problems by trying to solve little ones. Attempted suicide is illegal. Governments solve the problem by executing anyone caught trying.
A stark contrast to the thousands of academic hacks who played along the politically correct meme of AGW.
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Lindzen’s terminology ‘without warming’ is the most objective way to refer to the GASTA time series in the most recent ~17 year period.
It is a reasonable strategy to use it and point out that it is unbiased as opposed to ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ or ‘temporary halt’ or etc etc.
I do not recommend swatting at the swarming gnats who use the biased terminology, but at least skeptics should clarify and use Lindzen’s better terminology.
John
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Richard Lindzen,
Your essay stimulates ideas in a broader view of the climate dialog, as I have come to expect from you. Thank you.
REQUEST => I would sincerely appreciate it if you or one of your direct associates at MIT or GWPF could point me explicitly to the ‘economic analyses’ to which you refer.
John