Guest essay by Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT
A recent exchange in the Boston Globe clearly illustrated the sophistic nature of the defense of global warming alarm.
In the December 3, 2015 edition of the Boston Globe, the distinguished physicist, Freeman Dyson, had on op-ed, “Misunderstandings, questionable beliefs mar Paris climate talks.” His main point, stated immediately, is that any agreement reached in these talks would “likely do more harm than good.” In an otherwise, thoughtful commentary, however, Dyson begins with a common error. He attributes the basis for climate alarm to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For reasons that I will address shortly, this is an entirely understandable error. Dyson’s description of the IPCC position is
“The IPCC believes climate change is harmful; that the science of climate change is settled and understood; that climate change is largely due to human activities, particularly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by industrial societies; and that there is an urgent need to fight climate change by reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide.”
To be sure, it would be hard to identify the ‘beliefs’ of the IPCC, but I take it that he means their position. Obviously, the IPCC does not claim that the ‘science is settled;’ that would destroy the raison raison d’être for the existence of the IPCC.
Also, insofar as the IPCC is not supposed to make policy recommendations, it does not claim “that there is an urgent need to fight climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide.” That climate change is harmful is, of course, the basis for the existence of the IPCC, and is an intrinsic source of regrettable bias. The IPCC does not claim that climate change is mostly due to human activities generally; it restricts itself to the period since about 1970, which was the end of the most recent cooling period (a period which gave rise to global cooling concerns). Even the IPCC recognizes that climate change has always occurred – including a warming episode from about 1919 to 1940 that was almost identical to the warming episode from about 1978 to 1998 that the IPCC does identify with human activities. However, all the claims cited by Dyson are frequently made by politicians and environmental activists (including Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the UN), and the IPCC scientists never really object. Why should they? Support for climate science (a rather small backwater field) has increased from about $500 million per year to about $9 billion.
Dyson, further notes that the ice ages were major examples of climate change that we don’t fully understand, and that lacking this understanding suggests that we don’t really understand climate change. As another example of something that we don’t understand, he cites the potential role of the sun. Dyson then goes on to praise environmentalism in general, to approve of the increasing wealth of China and India, and their understandable unwillingness to forego this, and finally notes the well-known fact that CO2 is plant food whose increase has been associated with extraordinarily valuable increases in agricultural productivity.
In the December 13, 2015 Boston Globe, 8 members of the MIT faculty (three physicists, two hydrologists, one meteorologist, and two atmospheric chemists) attacked both Dyson and his claims. Their letter was entitled “So much more is understood about climate change than skeptic admits.”
They proceed to express their dismay with Dyson’s “limited understanding and short-sighted interpretation of basic elements of climate science.” There follow 3 disingenuous objections to Dyson’s scientific examples. As concerns ice ages, the MIT professors argue that they took thousands of years, allowing humans to adapt. They ignore the Dansgard-Oeschger events (episodes of dramatic change within glacial periods) which involved major changes in decades as well as the onset of the Younger Dryas (where glaciation suddenly reoccurred after the initial deglaciation of the last major glaciation) that also involved major changes setting on in decades. With respect to the sun, they argue that solar activity changes have been minor, ignoring the potential amplification due to solar impacts on cloud formation, most recently explored by Svensmark and Shaviv, but already suggested by Dickinson in the 1970’s. With respect to the role of CO2 as plant food, the letter writers appeal, without justification, to other limiting factors, ignoring that the greatest limiting factor, water, is alleviated with elevated levels of CO2. They also ignore literally hundreds of observational studies.
The letter writers then propose that ‘prospects’ in renewable energy, energy efficiency and safe and secure nuclear energy should presumably justify the abandonment of cheap, safe and available fossil fuels by developing nations. Yes, safe. Control of real pollutants is well developed already.
The letter writers go on to their only unambiguously correct claim: namely, that the IPCC does not declare that the science is settled. They then present the iconic statement if the IPCC’s Working Group 1 (the one dealing with the scientific assessment – as opposed to the remaining 2 working groups that generally begin with worst case scenarios in order to claim impacts and design mitigation strategies): “The IPCC report presents strong evidence that more than half of the climate change seen in recent decades is human-driven.” One may readily disagree with the claim of ‘strong evidence’ since the claim (based on model results) depends on the assumption that models correctly display natural internal variability which very clearly they don’t.
That said, the claim that most of the climate change since 1960 is due to human activities, refers to more than half of a change on the order of only 0.5C, and is entirely consistent with the possibility that the sensitivity is low and far from dangerous – especially since model projections for warming since 1978 have almost all exceeded what has been observed (regardless of ‘adjustments to the data). Indeed, the warming since the end of the little ice age (around 1800) of about 1C has been accompanied by improvements in virtually all measures of human welfare. Why another 1C should be considered planet threatening is rarely explained. The letter writers’ conclusion that the observed warming implies “a great risk that increasing greenhouse gases will result in future climate change with destructive consequences for humanity and the natural environment” does not follow from the iconic statement; nor is it made by the IPCC. Rather, it is, as has already been noted, the conclusion that is added by environmental activists and politicians.
A careful reading of the letter of the 8 professors leaves one wondering whether the dismay they express over Dyson’s “limited understanding and short-sighted interpretation of basic elements of climate science” is not merely a projection of their own limitations and biases.
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I figured Kerry Emanuel would be one of the signers, I guess this means he was one of the authors.
From the Globe’s letter https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2015/12/13/much-more-understood-about-climate-change-than-skeptic-admits/1IwwWJ94z2e77e3bkpHhaI/story.html :
Who are these people?
What are their areas of expertise?
It is interesting to look at that. Jaffe is a theoretical particle physicist, and you’d think from his experience working with statistical physics he’d have built up some appreciation of the limitations and need for verification of models of complex systems.
There is even less excuse for Emanuel who works in the field of the impact of tropical cyclone activity and global climate and should understand the lack of certainty in this general area of climate behaviour. Particularly when most of his work seems to rely on downscaling GCMs a practice that most in the industry understand the limitations of. Having said that id GCMs go for a Burton as increasingly looks likely, much of his recent output will end up on the srcap heap as a footnote in history, and that prospect can put people into denial (as it were).
Most of them are related to some meteorology or atmosphere etc. Kerry Emanuel is the well-known hurricane opportunists who have changed his claims about the relationships between CO2 and hurricanes and future a few times.
Jaffe is a veteran guy doing quark theory. And Wati Taylor whom I know in person is a theoretical physicist and string theorist. It’s terrible when a string theorist adds his signature under something so embarrassing.
Had a college professor once who couldn’t row a canoe, another couldn’t drive. The problem with the term “professor” is that all they do is profess what they’ve been taught. They rarely step outside the bounds of the binding and when they do they’re limited by another binding. They almost never do actual research, just make-work research that keeps their job.
The main legitimate concern about warming is sea level rise due to the melting of the polar ice caps. But even in the most favored conclusion of glacier melt rates for recent decades taken from highly cited Shepherd et al., 2012, we see that the polar ice sheets are only contributing to sea level rise at a rate of a little over 2 inches per century:
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183
Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year−1, respectively. Since 1992, the polar ice sheets have contributed, on average, 0.59 ± 0.20 millimeter year−1 to the rate of global sea-level rise.
How are we going to get feet and meters of sea level rise by 2100 (the latest Hansen et al., 2015 paper suggests 10 feet in 50 years) if the polar ice sheets are only contributing to sea level rise at a rate of a few inches every 100 years?
But it COULD be worser, scientists SUGGEST.
KR, your question is rhetorical. You cannot get there by melting.
That is why Hansen et. al. introduced the concept of tipping points. (Ice ‘slides off’ fast.) Except there are’t any for Greenland and EAIS because of basic geology. For WAIS, Ronne and Ross (ANDRILL program) were studied in detail. Stable. What was left was mainly PIG in Amundsen Embayment. Which Rignot of NASA managed to misrepresent as the entire Embayment catchment basin rather than a glacier draining at most 15% of it. Essay Tipping Points.
And OLeary’s effort to show a tipping point happened during the Eemian constitutes academic misconduct. Essay By Land or by Sea. Both essays in ebook Blowing Smoke.
Kenneth,
“The main legitimate concern about warming is sea level rise due to the melting of the polar ice caps.”
You have likely seen the chart of sea level rise since the Last Glacial Maximum. At about 21,000 years ago the level was roughly 130 m. (430 feet) below what it is today. From there, sea level rose sharply until about 7,000 years ago.
The rise continues very slowly – so slowly that the reasons (plural) for the change cannot now can separated.
Nearly all of the ice that can be easily melted has already been melted. Mountain glacial ice is much decreased and seems to come and go with not much ado in the sea. The Arctic Ocean ice doesn’t mean much for sea level rise – it is floating. The ice on Antarctica is mostly at high elevation and cold. Not much of an issue unless one has a reasonable mechanism for melting all that ice in 50, 100, or even 1,000 years. I don’t.
“….illustrates the sophistic nature of the defense of global warming alarm” is too polite a way of describing street-corner bullying tactics in which thugs try to beat into silence anyone who isn’t part of the Global Warming Alarm Gang. Their motivation is greed. Their strength is numbers. Their bludgeons are lies. They know no virtue. They are disgusting.
We need to learn how to speak their language.
We shouldn’t emulate their tactics. We have the huge advantage of truth on our side, even if they have money and numbers. The lies and the fake science will in the end bring them down.
I agree. It is their language that identifies them to us. A human being “rolling in the mud with pigs” is just as repugnant as the pigs are.
The level of any tyranny is directly proportional to the level capriciousness inflicted by those in power.
CAGW alarmists capriciously pick and choose what “evidence” they present to political authorities and suppress or “adjust” data that doesn’t support their pro-CAGW agenda, and their deafening silence when politicians purposefully make unsubstantiated alarmist claims based on the skewed data they receive from alarmists is, in fact, a form of advocacy.
In the words of the executed anti-Nazi activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Not to speak IS to speak.”
Thanks, Dr. Lindzen. You bring common sense to the forum.
Naturally, the climate changes, what little effect human-produced additional CO2 in the atmosphere can have, we do not know. If it can rise global temperature, why can’t we see the rise (except in homogenized and adjusted data sets)?
Never mind that a couple degrees of warming would mostly be beneficial, not harmful.
Never mind either that the plants we eat, and our animals eat, need more CO2, not less.
CO2 is not a pollutant, it is the gas of life for us carbon-based creatures.
Just a thought. 15°C to 17°C = an increase of 13.33℅ but from 287K to 289K it is 0.7℅. Surely when we talk about the temperature of the earth we should use the scientific notation? Once we do we can see we are currently concerned with normal and trivial fluctuations.
Also an increase in the modelled temperature of the Arctic regions of 2°C above an average of, say -15°C would = a much larger increase in % terms than an increase from 25° to 27°C in more equatorial regions.
I propose that (1) Kelvin is used in these discussions and (2) that
anomalies would be better expressed as ℅s of the 30 year average for a reporting region. It is, after all, how fluctuations in stock markets are generally discussed.
Even if K were not adopted tracking °C changes as percentages would be an interesting exercise.
I have 270K outside and 295K inside, thanks to modern power generation. If the 270 K will change to 272K by 2100 I’m not unhappy.
Pure ad hominem. No proof.
These “scientists” are so blinded they will hand you the rope to hang them with. Their blind ideology and group think shelters them from ever realizing how nonsensical their belief is.
No data set that I am aware of demonstrates that the heat trapped by CO2 in the past 150 years is statistically abnormal for the climate (note I said the heat trapped by CO2, not the PPM), also there is absolutely nothing abnormal about the temperature variation of the past 150 years, just check the ice core data for the Holocene.
This has plenty of rope. 1) It isn’t the sun that matters, it is the amount of radiation that reaches the earth to warm the oceans and surface that matters. Global cloud cover can’t be modeled in real time, let along historical data. There is no global measure of earth’s albedo, and certainly no historical record. They really drop the ball with the “long-lived” greenhouse gas. Volcanoes have been producing significant CO2 for million and millions of years. If CO2 does stay in the atmosphere long, volcanoes would have filled it up with CO2 a long long long time ago..
Talk about out of touch, China doesn’t care about what these liberal want, and the IPCC doesn’t have a military to force them…yet.
I simply can’t believe they put that is writing. Exxon should have that published in every newspaper in the Nation, put in every Commercial they run, and restated in a National debate. Exxon should present that as evidence in every lawsuit they are part of. Once again, I simply can’t believe that put that in writing.
Oil companies are truly helping to save the earth, or at least society, by ensuring that we have a realistic, inexpensive and effective energy sources. Wind and Solar won’t work in an ice age.
This is pure ratings gold if there is ever a Nationally Televised Debate:
Where does the IPCC say that only “climate change” since 1970 is primarily man-made?
CO2 levels took off after WWII, and have risen monotonously since then. Why did man-made global warming only start over 30 years later? The reason is that that is when the PDO flipped, entirely naturally. It had little or nothing to do with more plant food in the air.
The world cooled so dramatically from c. 1945 to 1977 that scientists then feared a return of the ice sheets. Then, after the PDO flip, the world warmed slightly for 20 years or so (less in some data sets), just accidentally happening to coincide with continuing CO2 concentration rising. Since the late ’90s, however, even more rapid CO2 increases have produced flat to once again cooling temperature, although not yet to the same degree as during 1945-77, about half of the postwar period. But the oceanic oscillations have only just flipped again or are about to do so.
The correct response to “the sky is falling” is “no it’s not”. If this were a scientific question, we should all be skeptics. But it’s not, it’s a political mass hysteria. The skeptic tactic of arguing scientific details won’t change the opinions of those who do not understand them.
The Chicken Little motif goes back about 25 centuries and even has a folktale designation (20C and 2033).
Richard Lindzen,
I concur with your above quoted logic and assessment statements about the situation, with one exception as note below about the cause of IPCC contributing scientists not objecting to climate alarmism by environmental activists and politicians. Your communication of the science focused on climate and the associated non-scientific factors impacting it is an example of the kind of communication that will restore trust in science focused on climate.
Behavior of scientists who are contributors to the IPCC assessment process isn’t sufficiently or necessarily explained by your position “IPCC scientists never really object[to environmental activists’ and politicians’ alarmist statements]. Why should they? Support for climate science (a rather small backwater field) has increased from about $500 million per year to about $9 billion.”.
I think the question that would lead to the fundamental understanding of their behavior is: Does their ‘fundamental conceptions of what is science’ require it be used as it is being used for creating climate alarm? Is it socially subjectively purposed science?
If the answer is yes, as I think it is, then that is the sufficient and necessary explanation of their behavior. The antidote to it is re-establishing objective ‘fundamental conceptions of what is science’ that in principle seeks to destroy alarmist misuse.
John
Lest we forget the main proof of AGW was a warming of the Tropical Troposphere with trapped hot spots…epic fail. Aqua satellite and 30 million plus weather balloons have drawn a blank.
Sea Ice stabilised and we have no historical record as satellite coverage only goes back as far as 1978 but as the North West passage was open in 1940 we clearly have more ice than back then.
Every melting season 80% of the ice is lost yet we do not even notice it but are led to believe that if the remaining 20% goes New York and James Hansen will be under 30ft of water….really?
Polar Bears at a recorded high 26,500 but not reported in msm.. They cope with diminished Summer Ice…it is thick Spring Ice that is an issue as it deters seal pups from coming out of their dens…thus polar bar cubs are denied their main food leading to high mortality rates. Watch this space next Spring.
Severe natural climate change?….refer the Younger Dryas Period.
Computer Models….try factoring in Internally generated natural variations…that’s clouds , rain and volcanic ash for starters.
Historic CO2….circa 13 times current levels….was solar irradiance down at the time?…yes but not enough to overcome a 1,300% increase in CO2.
Were the oceans turned acidic?….no.
In the early 1950’s industrial output increased and so did CO2 emissions….but the temperature went DOWN!
Min level of CO2 required for all life forms on plant earth?…..150ppm. At end of last Ice Age it was a very precarious 180ppm!!!!
At 400ppm we are near historically low levels of CO2…..”starvation” and if we double it will only get a degree or so of warming. Double again?…..about a tenth of one degree as Carbon Dioxide’s ability to create heat is logarithmic. What is more it is doubtful that we could double it again as apparently there are not enough fossil fuel reserves left. Panic over?…should be.
Is it any wonder we are sceptics?….Meanwhile over at AGW HQ…..please write your name clearly at the top of the page and under the heading TITLE write “Carbon Dioxide is leading to dangerous Global Warming”.
Really?…wait around 20 years and the onset of GLOBAL COOLING……now that is a problem.
.
Dr. Lindzen,
There are number of correlations between various natural events and temperature data (of course ‘correlation doesn’t always mean a causation’). Illustrated correlation (it fails during WWII) again may be just another coincidence, but if it is not we sceptics do have a problem.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Lod-CrT4.gif
p.s. I do think that rise of 1-2 degrees would be beneficial, e.g. this winter’s temperatures have been far more than 1-2 degrees above the usual,, enabling inhabitants of Europe to save significant sums on the heating bills.
vukcevic,
I have only very recently become aware of the correlation between LOD anomaly and surface temps. It’s quite compelling, but robust demonstration of plausible physical mechanisms isn’t on my radar as of yet. I rate what I have read quite a bit higher than, oh, cosmic wave/cloud nucleation though.
I note that you use a detrended NH temperature time-series though, which doesn’t explain the secular trend over the interval. Shame. It’s really not too difficult to do a multiple regression that does both at the same time (with NINO, AMO, volcanic aerosols and solar thrown in to boot) …
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oxFP6mUKqIY/VTWEdb3gJzI/AAAAAAAAAbU/YiRjFJ8Zb8M/s1600/HADCRUT4%2B12%2Bmo%2BMA%2BForcings.png
… surely you could manage it. If I pull LOD out of the mix, the regression still works as AMO then picks up a bit more of the ~80 year variability leading me to wonder if AMO timing based on LOD is not coincidental.
When I pull CO2 out of regression, the whole thing goes to hell of course. And of course, there is a very robust description of the physical mechanism behind that correlation.
Not robust. Inflated. Temperature explains the variation of CO2. Of course, when you remove the temperature proxy it goes to hell.
Surely you could manage to learn about the CO2 transitions and their saturation.
Mr. Gates, you could start here
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110309.html
and then consider this
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GT-GMF1.gif
vukcevic,
Interesting, thanks.
gymnosperm,
December 26, 2015 at 9:20 pm
Yes, CO2’s solubility in water is one of its known physical properties.
Explain please?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law
–Dyson begins with a common error. He attributes the basis for climate alarm to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For reasons that I will address shortly, this is an entirely understandable error. —
A problem with “the error” of Dyson is that IPCC is comprised of largely global warming activists- most of which lack any significant scientific understanding [about anything and specifically about weather and climate]. And that includes the railroad engineer who use run IPCC and will probably include anyone runs the place in the future.
And in terms of entire body of the IPCC reports they filled the pseudo of political activism of such trashing organization as Greenpeace and it’s due this type of influence of this pseudo science that the railroad engineer made the mistake of saying glacier of the Himalayas would melt by 2035 and is reason many politicians are badly informed.
And/or the clergyman of IPCC are incompetent and evil, though they might enlist some actual scientists [which usually mistreated by the IPCC],
.
Wow, 8 professors from a premier American school of engineering and science taking the time to articulate and document disingenuous arguments as outlined by Dr. L.
They just made a mistake. They opened the public dialogue and created an opportunity for public back and forth. If skeptics can seize the opportunity they can elevate awareness of their line of argument.
It’s unfortunate that he chose that argument, since so many he has made before are far more compelling. However, the response by the climatist boobs is interesting, in that they use nonsense and red herring arguments;
“Much is understood” is completely meaningless, and in no way responds to what Dyson said about them being not fully understood, and they then bring up the meme about how present-day “climate change” is “too fast”, which is not only a total lie, but is a red herring argument.
ROFL….so…”the planet descends into ice ages slowly allowing time for ecosystems and humans to adapt.” Really? That’s not what the EVIDENCE says. Maybe these “scientists” need to brush up on the past 20+ years of research! How embarrassing for MIT!
https://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm
Huge opportunity for some of you smart eggs to write a counter letter to MIT. They made a mistake by replying thru the Globe and thus made it fair game for the public to respond to them.
By making the Globe the place where letters are exchanged, it makes the other outlets jealous and could spark a competition of sorts if it increases readership.
Pssst, Globe is in Ivy country and is a bigger paper of influence than one might think.
It’s really great to see Dr. Lindzen engage publicly. I wish he would do so more often, though I think I understand why he doesn’t.
“…………the claim that most of the climate change since 1960 is due to human activities, refers to more than half of a change on the order of only 0.5C…………..”
Bottom line is that more than half of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Mark,
Prof Bob Carter as part of a presentation puts the 0.6C warming that is claimed into wonderful perspective,
The lapse rate as you climb through altitude is 0.6C for every 100 metres vertical.
Bob suggests you take the dog for a walk up hill 100 metres and then return and you will have experienced the total climate change of the late twentieth century walking the dog….ha.
Dangerous?…err no.
Idiot. He refers to the ice ages and anthropomorphic change as the same entity. He losses all credibility at that point.
“Idiot. He refers to the ice ages and anthropomorphic change as the same entity. He losses all credibility at that point.”
ROFL! You referred to anthropomorphic change as if it’s the same entity as anthropogenic! But you had no credibility here that I know of prior to that anyway, so no loss.
P.S. Anthropogenic=originating in human activity.
Anthropomorphic= having human characteristics.
Such an alert one.
God I happy now.
anthropophobic= the desire to anxiously believe that any change is human-caused and feel it is bad.
I think it is clear that almost all the global warming is indeed man made through the unjustified adjustments by AGW influenced activists who are employed in institutions who are responsible for providing that data. I suspect that if raw data only was used there would’ve been little or no AGW to be seen.
David,
They have spent around $100b over twenty years but still cannot identify the human signal…..however by calling it Climate Change they infer any weather event is caused by CO2.
And when inconvenient information comes to hand that knocks the stupidity on the head it is not reported……the recent good news about Polar Bears but one example.
Not only do the MSM refuse to comment…even Sir David Attenborough has said zilch…sad…and pathetic.
Artificial Global Warming (AGW) 🙂 Now THAT is the AGW I believe is occurring!
“I think it is clear that almost all the global warming is indeed man made through the unjustified adjustments by AGW influenced activists who are employed in institutions who are responsible for providing that data. I suspect that if raw data only was used there would’ve been little or no AGW to be seen.”
I disagree.
I think the Little Ice Age was centuries of a cooler average global temperature and there has been warming from about 1850 [end of LIA] to the present.
And that there was warming in first half of 20th century, followed by a pause [or slight cooling], followed by some warming and then for almost last 20 years [up to 2015] there hasn’t been any significant or measurable increase in global average temperature.
Said differently we are without doubt warmer than compared to the LIA. We have been recovering from a cooler period for about 200 years and we have clearly left the Little Ice Age period.
And I don’t think we going have any definite signs of returning to LIA type cooling within next 50 years, nor that we will leave The Pause within the next 5 year [though at end of 5 years we might possibly begin to have a vague clue of having measurable slight increase or decrease in the long term trend or there may be actually temperature measurement indicating The Pause might be ending.
Perhaps Dr Lindzen would like to comment in this exchange with Professor Lindzen ?
E-mail 4/7/15
Dr Norman Page
Houston
Professor Dyson
Saw your Vancouver Sun interview.I agree that CO2 is beneficial. This will be even more so in future because it is more likely than not that the earth has already entered a long term cooling trend following the recent temperature peak in the quasi-millennial solar driven periodicity .
The climate models on which the entire Catastrophic Global Warming delusion rests are built without regard to the natural 60 and more importantly 1000 year periodicities so obvious in the temperature record. The modelers approach is simply a scientific disaster and lacks even average commonsense .It is exactly like taking the temperature trend from say Feb – July and projecting it ahead linearly for 20 years or so. They back tune their models for less than 100 years when the relevant time scale is millennial. This is scientific malfeasance on a grand scale. The temperature projections of the IPCC – UK Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless. A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted. For forecasts of the timing and extent of the coming cooling based on the natural solar activity cycles – most importantly the millennial cycle – and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful proxy for solar activity check my blog-post at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
The most important factor in climate forecasting is where earth is in regard to the quasi- millennial natural solar activity cycle which has a period in the 960 – 1020 year range. For evidence of this cycle see Figs 5-9. From Fig 9 it is obvious that the earth is just approaching ,just at or just past a peak in the millennial cycle. I suggest that more likely than not the general trends from 1000- 2000 seen in Fig 9 will likely generally repeat from 2000-3000 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2650. The best proxy for solar activity is the neutron monitor count and 10 Be data. My view ,based on the Oulu neutron count – Fig 14 is that the solar activity millennial maximum peaked in Cycle 22 in about 1991. There is a varying lag between the change in the in solar activity and the change in the different temperature metrics. There is a 12 year delay between the activity peak and the probable millennial cyclic temperature peak seen in the RSS data in 2003. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
There has been a cooling temperature trend since then (Usually interpreted as a “pause”) There is likely to be a steepening of the cooling trend in 2017- 2018 corresponding to the very important Ap index break below all recent base values in 2005-6. Fig 13.
The Polar excursions of the last few winters in North America are harbingers of even more extreme winters to come more frequently in the near future.
I would be very happy to discuss this with you by E-mail or phone .It is important that you use your position and visibility to influence United States government policy and also change the perceptions of the MSM and U.S public in this matter. If my forecast cooling actually occurs the policy of CO2 emission reduction will add to the increasing stress on global food production caused by a cooling and generally more arid climate.
Best Regards
Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Dear Norman Page,
Thank you for your message and for the blog. That all makes sense.
I wish I knew how to get important people to listen to you. But there is
not much that I can do. I have zero credibility as an expert on climate.
I am just a theoretical physicist, 91 years old and obviously out of touch
with the real world. I do what I can, writing reviews and giving talks,
but important people are not listening to me. They will listen when the
glaciers start growing in Kentucky, but I will not be around then. With
all good wishes, yours ever, Freeman Dyson.
Email 4/9/15
Professor Dyson Would you have any objection to my posting our email exchange on my blog?
> Best Regards Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Yes, you are welcome to post this exchange any way you like. Thank you
for asking. Yours, Freeman Dyson.
Obviously first line should read …….exchange with Professor Dyson.
A probably accurate summation of what is being done and the consequences that arise. 91 years old and still sharp as a scalpel.
I’d really like to see one of the 3 MIT physicists point us to the basic equations which explain how a series of spectral filters , ie , layers of atmosphere , “trap” heat in excess of the equilibrium temperature calculated for their spectrum and the spectrum of their source . Better yet — the supreme authority — an experimental demonstration .
Once again: “the incompetence of ‘experts'”!
Brandon, you have a gross conceptual error. The earth’s climate is not a steady state system. It is a deterministically choatic dissipative system never in equilibrium.
And he never responded to your comment either. How odd. 🙂 I wonder why?
Ummm … because it wasn’t posted inline with any of my replies to the tens of other responses to me upthread?
Well there you go! See what happens when you assume stuff about people! 🙂 So, answer him now.
dougbadgero,
Again, I did not say that the planet is a steady state system. What I said was: Typically I assume that a steady-state system will not depart from that state unless perturbed.
Here, let’s look at what Wikipedia has to say: The concept of steady state has relevance in many fields, in particular thermodynamics, economics, and engineering. Steady state is a more general situation than dynamic equilibrium. If a system is in steady state, then the recently observed behavior of the system will continue into the future. In stochastic systems, the probabilities that various states will be repeated will remain constant.
In many systems, steady state is not achieved until some time after the system is started or initiated. This initial situation is often identified as a transient state, start-up or warm-up period.
While a dynamic equilibrium occurs when two or more reversible processes occur at the same rate, and such a system can be said to be in steady state, a system that is in steady state may not necessarily be in a state of dynamic equilibrium, because some of the processes involved are not reversible.
I don’t see any reason why the bolded statement could not also apply to a deterministic system which exhibits chaotic behavior.
Now I’ll repeat the same question to you as I had for Aphan: surely you’re not going to argue that the planet isn’t trying to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium with itself and its surroundings?
Thanks for the reply. You seem to have heard of the concept of deterministic chaos but don’t really understand the implications. The thermodynamic equilibrium points are not on the chaotic attractor. The concept of thermodynamic equilibrium has no relevant application to the earth’s climate.
The real questions are the shape of the attractor and what the addition of a small amount of CO2 will do to the trajectory through the attractor or if it can change the shape/destroy the existing attractor IMO. It is possible/likely that prediction of future climate states is an impossibility in principle and no amount of computing power can change that.
Dr Robert Brown and Tomas Milanovic have written about this issue here and at Climate Etc.
As another point of discussion, you could posit that the climate will remain on the existing attractor. This could be considered a general “steady state”. IMO the best estimate of future climate would be bounded by the conditions of the existing interglacial…with or without anthropogenic CO2. However, we don’t really know how much of the existing phase space we have “explored” during the existing interglacial.
Gates
Now, I will agree with the general trend, overall thermodynamic process may be “trying to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium with itself and its surroundings”. But the only thermodynamic equilibrium the earth will achieve will happen after the sun passes its red burning stage and the earth becomes a ever-cooling simple burned out shell in a vacuum of steadily lowering thermal and gamma ray radiation.
But, you seem to feel, to believe as a necessary requirement for your CAGW premise of equilibrium, that the earth’s “climate” will reach some thermodynamic equilibrium, and so only an external perturbation could explain changes to that equilibrium. Thus, it is necessary for Mann (for example) to eliminate the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age because he could explain them within his belief system of man-made-CO2 warmth in the late 20th century. They did not fit his theory because there was no evident man-made perturbation, therefore they must be removed so his belief system could work.
Rather, you need to understand that the earth’s thermodynamic systems and their measures (temperature, pressure, humidity, winds, and heat imbalances and differences) will NEVER reach even a “dynamic equilibrium”.
Like a weight suspended by a series of 5 different springs, the top of the spring attached to a flexible bar held in mid-air by 4 other springs. What is the motion of the mass when you fly a series of NASA’s “zero-g” parabolic flight paths? There is “only” a single constant “forcing” on the mass (gravity) but its motion is never in dynamic or static equilibrium. Its movement (vertical, horizontal, and forward or backward) is NOT ever in equilibrium because every mass in every spring and every flexible rod keeps changing the net force on the mass. As it moves, each spring is further compressed (each at a different rate) and is expanded – again each at a different rate.
“You” have put your faith and the lives of billions of innocents to force the early death of millions in the simple “flat-line” projections of simple trends of simplified flat plate models of averaged dynamic systems that are actually constantly ebbing and flowing irregularly at different rates in systems of greatly differently amounts.
“… surely you’re not going to argue that the planet isn’t trying to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium with itself and its surroundings? …”.
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The planet (Earth) is a rock, it’s not “trying” to do anything.
Anthropomorphism:
‘In this illustration by Milo Winter of Aesop’s fable, “The North Wind and the Sun”, an anthropomorphic North Wind tries to strip the cloak off of a traveler’ (Wiki).
RACookPE1978
“Will never reach even dynamic equilibrium”
Spot on.
Imagining climate is anywhere close to equilibrium, on a timescale where human history is even resolvable, is one of the core error of CAGW.
The ocean’s heat capacity and long term circulation keep earth’s climate far from equilibrium.
Far from equilibrium
+ dissipative and thermodynamically open system
= nonlinear emergent pattern at the edge of chaos
= climate system which continually changes fractally without need of external “forcing” to cause change
= sound of CAGW being flushed down the toilet
RACookPE1978,
No, internal pertubations will suffice. El Nino is a good, topical example.
I already get that, and have said so previously.
The question relevant to my argument is whether or not the sum of the entropies of springs and the bar is always increasing.
““You” have put your faith and the lives of billions of innocents to force the early death of millions in the simple “flat-line” projections of simple trends of simplified flat plate models of averaged dynamic systems that are actually constantly ebbing and flowing irregularly at different rates in systems of greatly differently amounts.”
Not only that, somehow they believe that Nyquist Sampling theorem does not inform the accuracy with which they can model/estimate the very 3D Temperature Field they are attempting to re-create.
And fail to realise that the width of any given data sample window limits the recoverable low frequency/long period effects in the system.
In the same way a rock tumbling down a hill will achieve local stability as it bounces. Down is easy but left and right are not so certain.