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
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I did notice that we have been having a strong ice year relative to recent years. I thought that I would wait a couple more years before deciding if it was meaningful.
@ferd berple –
You ask, is there anywhere on the planet that global warming has made inhospitable?
Of course! Antarctica! It’s all due to global warming!! /sarc
The correct term is “hiatus” = a period of time when something stops. “Pause” is emotive and suggests that we know that things will get started again. In this case, because we only have “medium confidence” in regards to cause of the hiatus, we can only have medium confidence that warming will start again, unless you stick to the underlying meme that temperatures must eventually rise due to the forcing from carbon dioxide. Which is a whole other argument.
It seems to me that the IPCC report has decided to take a “bob each way” approach when you get to the detail, whilst the headlines continue to state emphatically that human induced climate change is clear, they seem to have chosen to be more equivocal in their detailed reporting.
Unfortunately this has made the details of the report more opaque than it would otherwise be.
Hi Goldie,
My on-line dictionary definition of hiatus is a ‘pause’. It implies something temporary.
In fact, global warming has stopped. It may resume, in which case we can look back and say that it paused from 1997 – 2016 [or whenever]. But since the late ’90’s, the rising global warming trend has stopped.
Not trying to nitpick here, but any term that implies that the current non-rising global temperature [‘pause’, ‘hiatus’, etc.] is not permanent, is akin to predicting the future.
Thanks, Dr. Lindzen. Very good article. I’m quoting two paragraphs from it in my climate and weather pages.
dbstealey says:
October 9, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Hi Goldie,
My on-line dictionary definition of hiatus is a ‘pause’. It implies something temporary.
In fact, global warming has stopped. It may resume, in which case we can look back and say that it paused from 1997 – 2016 [or whenever]. But since the late ’90′s, the rising global warming trend has stopped.
Not trying to nitpick here, but any term that implies that the current non-rising global temperature [‘pause’, ‘hiatus’, etc.] is not permanent, is akin to predicting the future.
+++++++++++
dbstealey:
I understand the political ramifications of the use of the word Pause. And I agree with how you look at this. But time scales matter. It’s not an “if” the temperature trend goes up in the future – but “when” the temperature goes up. We may not be alive – but someday the temperature trend will increase, maybe not for 120K years. Maybe it will go down for 20 or 50 more years and then stay there… but eventually, climate temperature will continue to change up and down.
Yeash… arctic sea ice suddenly showing surprising growth??? Looks like you took that soundbite from the Daily Telegraph. Generally weak arguments based on limited evidence, but surely entertaining. Huzzah!
Mario Lento,
Yes, of course I agree with what you wrote. I was objecting to the ‘spin’ terms used in the context of this discussion. Both “pause” and “hiatus” mean the same thing: that the current cessation of global warming is only temporary. In essence, they are predicting the future, no?
As you say, temperatures will go up again, but we are not discussing geological time scales, we are discussing the IPCC’s AR-5 conclusions.
The discussion concerns the next few decades, during which time global temperatures could rise, or stay the same, or fall. The implication with “pause” is the assumption that global warming will resume. That is not science, that is fortune telling. So please, let’s not let them get away with terms like a “pause” in global warming. Because right now, global warming has stopped.
========================
Bob Loblaugh,
In case you haven’t noticed, Arctic ice cover has indeed risen over the past year, and by quite a lot. Antarctic ice cover also remains on its long term rising trend. How is that a “weak” argument?
Instead of “The Pause”, how about using the term “Hiatus Hernia”?
Allan MacRae:
That’s actually funny. I think you are making a pun in referrance to Hiatal Hernia! This made me think of what it really should be called – Menopause.
Nah.
Mannopause. 8<)
Mario Lento says:
October 9, 2013 at 10:10 pm (replying to)
dbstealey
October 9, 2013 at 6:24 pm
What are you basing that assumption on?
True, we are now at a short-term peak of a long-term cycle warming up from the Little Ice Age. What evidence fo YOU have to support your assumption that the 1910-1915 slump -> 1940 peak -> 1970 slump -> 2000-2010 peak -> (probable) 2020 slump is going to continue into future increases?
Why do you believe that the next bump in the 55 year cycle is going ever-and-ever higher than today’s 2000-2010 peak?
Past global temperatures tend to be much colder:
click1
click2
click3
Sooner or later the planet will become much colder. Glaciation will return. And since CO2 had no perceptible effect on temperature in past glaciations, it will have no effect when the planet inevitably cools again.
Global cooling is the real problem. Humans do not have the energy necessary to prevent the planet from cooling. That is why the AGW scare is so ridiculous: they are worrying about the wrong thing.
dbstealey says: October 14, 2013 at 3:03 am
db: Sooner or later the planet will become much colder. Glaciation will return. And since CO2 had no perceptible effect on temperature in past glaciations, it will have no effect when the planet inevitably cools again.
Allan says: Correct.
db: Global cooling is the real problem.
Allan says: Correct.
db: Humans do not have the energy necessary to prevent the planet from cooling.
Allan says: I hope we CAN mitigate the next major continental glaciation – perhaps change albedo, etc. We have some time to sort this out before the next major continental glaciation, but almost no time before the next (lesser) natural cooling cycle, which may have already begun.
If this imminent (lesser) cooling proves comparatively severe like the Dalton or Maunder Minimums, then we have little time to adapt. During these lesser global cooling cycles of the Little Ice Age, witches were blamed and thousands were burned at the stake. This time the public will blame warmists…
db: That is why the AGW scare is so ridiculous: they are worrying about the wrong thing.
Allan says: CORRECT.
___
Allan says: Very nice graphs and valid comments, thank you db.
My frustration is that this global warming debacle was all predictable AND predicted.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/25/lindzen-at-sandia-national-labs-climate-models-are-flawed/#comment-1046529
Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and I published an article in the PEGG in 2002:
Here is what we predicted more than a decade ago:
Our eight-point Summary* includes a number of predictions that have all materialized in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then wise enough to ignore it.
Summary*
Full article at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Kyoto has many fatal flaws, any one of which should cause this treaty to be scrapped.
1. Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.
2. Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.
3. Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.
4. Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.
5. Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.
6. Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.
7. Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.
8. The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.
[end of excerpt]
______
P.S.:
In a separate article in the Calgary Herald, also published in 2002, I (we) predicted imminent global cooling, starting by 2020 to 2030. This prediction is still looking good, since there has been no net global warming for about a decade, and solar activity has crashed. If this cooling proves to be severe, humanity will be woefully unprepared and starvation could result. This possibility (probability) concerns me.
P.P.S.
If I’m wrong about my global cooling prediction, I’ll just call it a projection, and get a job with the IPCC.
It has been over 18 months now since I attended a presentation Professor Lindzen gave to a packed room of the already-sceptical at the Palace of Westminster in London on 22 February 2012. Professor Linden’s position is – and always has been – that climate sensitivity is very low. However, if that is the case:
1. Why has every glacial to interglacial change in the last million years been accompanied by a 55% increase in atmospheric CO2?
2. Why should a post-Industrial increase of the same magnitude (i.e. up to 434 ppm) not result in an equivalent rise in temperature (i.e. at least 4 Celsius)?
Unfortunately for all, just about every other legitimate climate scientist on the planet (apart from the likes of Judith Curry, Pat Michaels and Roy Spencer) thinks Professor Lindzen is indeed almost certainly wrong about this.
Martin Lack:
Your appeal to authority at October 17, 2013 at 8:09 am is mistaken. The ultimate authority is nature.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of
Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satellite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and, therefore, any effect on global temperature of increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has observable effects.
What climate sensitivity would be in a different (e.g. interglacial climate system) is not relevant to what climate sensitivity is.
Richard
Richard S Courtney: I agree that the ultimate authority is Nature; and I also agree with you that the only time that matters is now. I am glad therefore glad you decided to eschew the ‘Plants grew really big in the Carboniferous era when CO2 concentrations were much higher’ meme (i.e. which would have clearly been permissible given your ‘any-port-in-a-storm’ style of argumentation).
However, leaving all of the above – and any uncertainty in model emissions scenarios – aside, there is one thing of which we can be certain; and it is this: If we continue to argue about residual uncertainty in climate science – and delay collective action to decarbonise the World’s economies as fast as possible – whatever change is going to happen will happen sooner; and it will happen faster. This will mean that humanity will have to adapt to any change sooner and faster (making it harder and, on a annualised basis, more costly). Seen in this light, further delay is a false economy and therefore irrational.
Martin Lack says:
October 17, 2013 at 11:06 am
“However, leaving all of the above – and any uncertainty in model emissions scenarios – aside, there is one thing of which we can be certain; and it is this: If we continue to argue about residual uncertainty in climate science – and delay collective action to decarbonise the World’s economies as fast as possible – whatever change is going to happen will happen sooner; and it will happen faster. This will mean that humanity will have to adapt to any change sooner and faster (making it harder and, on a annualised basis, more costly). Seen in this light, further delay is a false economy and therefore irrational.”
++++++++
Martin: You are referring to the precautionary principle, I believe. Your missive was written respectfully and I respectfully respond that it is irrational to assume that we should take costly measures (to decarbonise the World’s economies as fast as possible) in an attempt to effect change that cannot be measured –knowing that there is no way to know whether the un-measurable change will be beneficial or detrimental. There is no solid evidence that the climate is not changing almost 100% naturally – there is only hypothesis. However there is solid evidence that:
1) if unabated actions were to quell cooling ,that in and of itself would be beneficial than a minor heating of average temperatures.
2) added CO2 in the air can only be measured as beneficial based on known science. There is no scenario I know of where CO2 levels below 280ppm is optimal. There is solid evidence that CO2 levels above 400ppm is beneficial.
I strongly believe that you would not give up 30% or more of your wealth to invest in high cost measures that will do almost nothing. I suggest you stop asking for someone else’s money which makes poor peoples’ poverty worse so that the world can do what you irrationally want to do based on a false pretense.
Hi Mario. Thank you for responding in kind. I would very much like to see you justify any of your claims by reference to peer-reviewed science. The vast majority of active researchers have concluded that – given the conditions to which all life on Earth has become habituated since the last Ice Age – we are already seeing adverse consequences from a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2. A diverse range of organisations – including the US Dept of Defense, the International Energy Agency and the International Monetary Fund – have all concluded that, given the changes we are already seeing (such as a sixfold increase in terrestrial icecap melting and a tenfold increase in glacier retreat rates over the last 20 years), further delay in substituting the use of fossil fuels (in every possible process) will be uneconomic because it will cost more in future to achieve the same result.
Martin Lack:
Those organizations, though, reached their conclusions through applications of the equivocation fallacy ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ).
Even if not actually conspiracy theory, this is not a reference to peer-reviewed science. N.B. Dismissal of peer reviewed science definitely is conspiracy theory.
Martin Lack:
Your claim that “this is not a reference to peer-reviewed science” is false. The reviewer was William M. Briggs. Briggs holds an MS in atmospheric science and a PhD degree in mathematical statistics. He is a practicing statistician and an adjunct professor of statistics at Cornell University. Formerly, Briggs sat on a committee of the American Meteorological Society dealing with statistical issues.
Martin Lack says:
October 18, 2013 at 2:19 am
Hi Mario. Thank you for responding in kind… have all concluded that, given the changes we are already seeing (such as a sixfold increase in terrestrial icecap melting and a tenfold increase in glacier retreat rates over the last 20 years), further delay in substituting the use of fossil fuels (in every possible process) will be uneconomic because it will cost more in future to achieve the same result.
+++++++++++
Martin: Please do not conflate ice cap melting as proof that CO2 is responsible. You need to provide evidence, which you have not. Your interpretation of what “he said, she said”, is not proof.
You also wrote:
“1. Why has every glacial to interglacial change in the last million years been accompanied by a 55% increase in atmospheric CO2?
2. Why should a post-Industrial increase of the same magnitude (i.e. up to 434 ppm) not result in an equivalent rise in temperature (i.e. at least 4 Celsius)?”
++++++++++++
You need to understand that all long term CO2 changes (based on all historical measures) followed temperatures. It does not lead temperatures. If you do not know this, you can know it by looking at data related in time. It’s available, if you care to seek the truth rather than “he said, she said”
With the greatest of respect, Mario, I conflated nothing. The exponential increase in rates of melting ice and glacier retreat in the vast majority of locations – despite a hiatus in surface warming caused by a range of natural cooling forces – can only be explained by there being a much greater anthropogenic warming force. This is not “he said, she said” – this is the logical conclusion of the vast majority of genuine experts; and your rejection of this consensus can only be justified by asserting that the vast majority of experts are either dunderheads, delusional, and/or deceitful. Given the widespread evidence of ongoing change to which I just alluded, such an assertion is irrational, improbable and/or implausible.
Martin Lack:
Your “vast majority of genuine experts” draw their conclusion from an equivocation thus being guilty of the equivocation fallacy. Proof of this assertion is available in the peer-reviewed article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 .
Martin Lack:
Your post at October 19, 2013 at 10:40 am says in total
Mario Lento was right when he pointed out to you that atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature at all time scales. Hence, your assertion of causation was dubious at best. You seem to have abandoned that assertion and have posted the comment which I have here quoted in full.
There is not “exponential increase in rates of melting ice and glacier retreat in the vast majority of locations”. And if there were then so what? The formation and retreat of glaciers is predominantly a function of precipitation. It is NOT a result of “a much greater anthropogenic warming force” whatever you mean by that.
As you admit, global warming has stopped. How does that happen if atmospheric CO2 concentrations dominate the climate system and the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration has continued unabated?
If you want to call the minority of scientists who accept the assertions of the IPCC are “dunderheads, delusional, and/or deceitful” then that is your choice. Some of them certainly are some or all of those things, but not all.
“Ongoing change” is normal. The world always has changed and always will change. There is no evidence – none, zilch, nada – that emissions from human activities are causing global changes.
The global warming scare is so last century. I suggest you move on to the next one.
Richard
Martin Lack says:
October 19, 2013 at 10:40 am
With the greatest of respect, Mario, I conflated nothing. The exponential increase in rates of melting ice and glacier retreat in the vast majority of locations – despite a hiatus in surface warming caused by a range of natural cooling forces – can only be explained by there being a much greater anthropogenic warming force. This is not “he said, she said” – this is the logical conclusion of the vast majority of genuine experts; and your rejection of this consensus can only be justified by asserting that the vast majority of experts are either dunderheads, delusional, and/or deceitful. Given the widespread evidence of ongoing change to which I just alluded, such an assertion is irrational, improbable and/or implausible.
+++++++++++++
Martin. Telling me “He or she, or they” believe something is not proof that CO2 must be the cause of some ice melting somewhere. If you can tell me where the evidence is that show CO2 must be melting the ice, you’d be headed in the right direction. Thus far, you again are basing your “opinion” on he said she said. As far as I know, no one in the world has been able to show that CO2 has caused the temperature increase that stopped 17 years ago.
richardscourtney: Thank you for helping to keep me on track here! Same with others who respond to what I write including dbstealey.
Martin Lack says:
…your rejection of this consensus can only be justified by asserting that the vast majority of experts are either dunderheads, delusional, and/or deceitful.
If it were not for logical fallacies, Martin Lack wouldn’t have anything to write. His comments are full of fallacies like that.
The strawman fallacy quoted above assumes only three possibilities, when in fact there are as many possibilities as there are scientists. For example, a 50-year old professional who wants an upcoming promotion may well sing in tune with the cAGW choir, rather than publicly admitting what he really thinks. As we know, people have been fired for expressing skepticism about runaway global warming.
Martin Lack keeps digging with this comment:
Why has every glacial to interglacial change in the last million years been accompanied by a 55% increase in atmospheric CO2?
As Mario Lento observes, past rises in CO2 have always followed rises in temperature, on all time scales. This decisively falsifies Martin Lack’s argument, in which he appears to believe that ∆CO2 causes ∆T. It does not, as real world observations show.
Martin Lack continues:
Why should a post-Industrial increase of the same magnitude (i.e. up to 434 ppm) not result in an equivalent rise in temperature (i.e. at least 4 Celsius)?
However, the rise in CO2 to ≈400 ppmv has not resulted in the predicted global warming. Thus, the CO2=cAGW conjecture fails. But Martin Lack will never acknowledge that his conjecture has failed, because, as Leo Tolstoy wrote:
Martin Lack also says:
Unfortunately for all, just about every other legitimate climate scientist on the planet (apart from the likes of Judith Curry, Pat Michaels and Roy Spencer) thinks Professor Lindzen is indeed almost certainly wrong about this.
That is yet another false statement, as the OISM Petition makes clear. In fact, Dr Roy Spencer gives a climate sensitivity estimate for 2xCO2 of 0.46ºC. Drs Idso [3 of them] estimate 2xCO2 at ≈0.37ºC. And Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi gives an estimate of 0.00ºC per doubling of CO2. The reason there is such a wide disparity in sensitivity estimates is because the effect of CO2 on temperature is simply too small to measure. The rise in CO2, from both natural and manmade sources, has not caused any measurable global warming. The divergence over the past seventeen years has made Martin Lack’s doomsday predictions laughable.
Because Martin Lack’s facts are incorrect, he arrives at an incorrect conclusion. His fixation on an incorrect mechanism results in the fallacy of argumentum ignarus res, or argument in defiance of facts.
Martin Lack presumes that Prof Richard Lindzen is wrong, too, because of Lack’s evidence-free belief in an approaching “carbon” catastrophe. Richard Lindzen writes about people like Martin Lack:
Martin Lack is the quintessential Chicken Little. He believes the sky is falling, when it was only an acorn that bonked him on the head. Even if he comes to his senses, he cannot admit it at this point, because of his hysterical doom and gloom predictions that he constantly trumpets.
[Rather, was not the acorn thrown right at his head? Mod]
dbstealey:
If it can be shown that Mr. Lack has made any predictions I’ll be quite surprised. That there are predictions from Mr. Lack or anyone else implies the existence of events underlying a climate model of some kind but in a search lasting more than four years, I’ve been unable to find any such events. Rather than finding events, I find applications of the equivocation fallacy that make it sound to dupes as though there are events when there are none.