Guest essay by Lawrence Hamlin
The February 23, 2017 Petition sent to President Trump signed by Dr. Richard Lindzen and more than 300 eminent scientists, engineers and other qualified and knowledgeable experts requesting that the U.S. withdraw from the UNFCCC reflects yet another significant effort by hundreds of scientists and other experts to expose to our Government leadership and public the deeply flawed scientific foundation underlying the politics of global government driven climate alarmism.
The UNFCCC was adopted in May 1992 in New York and entered force in March 1994 with 189 UN member states having ratifying the agreement by December 2008.
Article 2 of the agreement states:
“The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adopt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
The language of Article 2 clearly demonstrates that the UNFCCC was built upon a monumentally and scientifically unsupported presumption that greenhouse gas emissions would create “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The basic concepts and principles of natural climate change variation and their role in driving climate change are unmentioned and unaddressed by the UNFCCC.
Dr. Lindzen is not new in addressing and challenging the flawed scientific foundations underlying the UNFCCC process.
A July 25, 2012 Watts Up With That essay (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/25/lindzen-at-sandia-national-labs-climate-models-are-flawed/) discussed Dr. Lindzen’s comments addressed at a Sandia National Labs conference concerning the inadequacy of climate models which evolved from and are the primary tool for trying to address climate issues driven by UNFCCC.
The WUWT article noted Dr. Lindzen’s comments at the Sandia Lab conference regarding the extraordinary inadequacy and failure of of climate models to address the full scope of complexities that drive global climate by observing:
Additionally Dr. Lindzen addressed in the WUWT article the failure of climate models to provide outcomes which match real world observations by noting:
Dr. Lindzen’s long held and articulated conclusions regarding the fundamental flaws and failures of climate models have now been joined by the conclusions of Dr. Judith Curry who most recently expressed her findings in a new study also addressed in a recent WUWT article.
The February 25 Petition to President Trump requesting U.S. withdrawal from the UNFCCC states:
Petition
We urge the United States government, and others, to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We support reasonable and cost-effective environmental protection. But carbon dioxide, the target of the UNFCCC is not a pollutant but a major benefit to agriculture and other life on Earth. Observations since the UNFCCC was written 25 years ago show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign — much less than initial model predictions.
In the letter supporting his withdrawal request Dr. Lindzen notes:
“We petition the American and other governments to change course on an outdated international agreement that targets minor greenhouse gases, primarily Carbon Dioxide, CO2 for harsh regulation. Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm—with no environmental benefits. While we support effective, affordable, reasonable and direct controls on conventional environmental pollutants, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. To the contrary, there is clear evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful to food crops and other plants that nourish all life. It is plant food, not poison.”
The inadequacy and failure of climate models to provide real world simulations of global climate has in fact been fully acknowledged by the UN IPCC for decades.
The UN IPCC has been issuing climate alarmism proclamations for over two decades starting with the IPCC First Assessment Report issued in 1990.
The latest UN climate alarmism report was the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report issued in 2013 which was presented in 4 volumes comprising over 6,000 pages of material and more than 5 million words.
The primary driver of the UN IPCC AR5 reports assessments and findings is derived through the use of the latest developed version of global climate model simulations which have been significantly updated from climate model simulations used in prior UN IPCC reports through the decades.
The overwhelming challenges presented in trying to develop viable computer global climate model simulations were addressed in the UN IPCC Third Assessment issued in 2001.
Specifically in Section 14.2.2.2 (Balancing the need for finer scales and the need for ensembles) of the AR3 report the bottom line concerning the unresolvable shortcomings of global climate model simulations was articulated and clearly presented as:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by generation of ensembles of modal solutions.”
Despite the latest global climate model updates reflected in the UN IPCC AR5 report the limitations clearly articulated in the UN IPCC AR3 report that “the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible” applies to the AR5 report assessments and findings.
This significant limitation in AR5 global climate model outputs is highlighted in UN IPCC AR5 Technical Summary in Box TS.6 where the climate model scenarios are specifically qualified as follows:
“The scenarios should be considered plausible and illustrative, and do not have probabilities attached to them. (12.3.1; Box 1.1)”
These 16 words out of more than 5 million words in the entire 4 volume report present an absolutely critical story about the huge and unresolvable uncertainties that underlie the AR5 report assessments and findings which are hidden from the public and unaddressed by climate alarmists, biased media and politicians.
The UN Paris 2015 agreement which attempts to create global regulatory mandates and commitments for nations to reduce future CO2 emissions is largely built upon the assessments and findings of the UN IPCC AR5 report. The commitments made thus far from that agreement will costs trillions of dollars to implement and produce little in actual global temperature reductions (http://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises).
It is absurd for global nations to commit trillions of dollars on government regulated climate actions based on uncertain climate model projections which are the products of nothing but conjecture and speculation.
The fact that those demanding such massive expenditures are so dishonest in hiding the extraordinary shortcomings of global climate model simulations demonstrates that a massive global government con game is being perpetrated by climate alarmists upon the public.
These climate models may serve useful purposes in academic and scientific studies but they are completely unsuited for purposes of regulatory driven commitments that require the expenditures of trillions of dollars of global capital which can be utilized for much greater benefit in dealing with known massive global problems including poverty, education, and health care.
The leadership and courage shown by Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Curry in their continuing efforts to bring into the light the unquestionable absurdity of basing trillion dollar climate action policy decisions on inadequate and failed climate models deserves full and serious consideration by the Trump Administration who hopefully will withdraw the U.S. from the massively obtrusive and costly UNFCCC process of climate conjecture and speculation.
Good recap of the basic issues.
The only place I would make climate projection for the future is along the equator. I Am 90% shure that I believe that not much is going to change there climate wise. Because not much has happened there in the past. For the rest of the planet 30-90 N/S it’s anybody’s guess?
1) Per IPCC AR5 Figure 6.1 prior to year 1750 CO2 represented about 1.26% of the total biosphere carbon balance (589/46,713). After mankind’s contributions, 67 % fossil fuel and cement – 33% land use changes, atmospheric CO2 increased to about 1.77% of the total biosphere carbon balance (829/46,713). This represents a shift of 0.51% from all the collected stores, ocean outgassing, carbonates, carbohydrates, etc. not just mankind, to the atmosphere. A 0.51% rearrangement of 46,713 Gt of stores and 100s of Gt annual fluxes doesn’t impress me as measurable let alone actionable, attributable, or significant.
2) Figure 10 in Trenberth et al 2011jcli24, in addition to substantial differences of opinion, i.e. uncertainties, 7 of the 8 balances considered, 87.5%, showed more energy leaving ToA than entering, i.e. atmospheric cooling.
3) Even IPCC AR5 expresses serious doubts about the value of their AOGCMs (IPCC AR5 Box TS.3, Box 9.2) and significant uncertainties, a frequent scientific concern expressed by Feynman (TS.6).
The sea ice and sheet ice is behaving as usual for decades (DMI, Climate4you) and does not affect sea levels. Polar bear population is the highest in decades, the weather (30 years = climate) is less extreme not more, the sea level rise is not accelerating, the GCM’s are repeat failures, the CAGW hypothesis is coming unraveled, COP21 turned into yet another empty and embarrassing fiasco, IPCC AR6 will mimic SNL’s Emily Letilla, “Well, neeeveeer mind!!”
“report that “the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible” applies to the AR5 report assessments and findings.
This significant limitation in AR5 global climate model outputs”
It isn’t a significant limitation – it’s a distortion. By “climate state” they mean the state of the climate at a particular point in time. The set of variables that a GCM holds for a time instant. It means you can’t forecast weather a century in advance. We knew that. What you can forecast are global trends and statistics.
“What you can forecast are global trends and statistics.” Please elaborate.
It’s what is normally understood by climate. Atlanta is warmer than Chicago. That doesn’t mean that you can predict that on any day that it will be warmer. But it has a warmer climate. And warmer climates are predicted. The process of getting warmer is a trend.
Nick
Your example is not a an example of prediction, but rather a statement of known fact. Obviously, we know a lot of facts about our natural world, which facts we are able to set out, even if we do not understand the reason for those facts.
We know that the Arctic is colder than the Sahara. To say that the Arctic will be colder in December 2041 than the Sahara is not a prediction of any future state. This is fundamentally different than trying to predict some minute changes in the atmosphere and to predict what those minute changes will make with respect to a dynamic system such as our planet’s climate.
Richard,
“To say that the Arctic will be colder in December 2041 than the Sahara is not a prediction of any future state. “
But the prediction is that the Arctic will be warmer in 2041 than it was in 2011. That is, a warmer climate, in the same sense as it has a colder climate than the Sahara now. It’s not a prediction of a climate state, which is at a point in time. But it is of a climate average.
Nick,
But that is where the problem with chaos come in to bite.
Nick,
“But the prediction is that the Arctic will be warmer in 2041 than it was in 2011.”
And this is based on the foundation of conjecture that the article is addressing. The point being that you make this claim presuming that CO2 is the primary driver of the climate and if CO2 levels rise between 2011 and 2041, the temperature will increase. This ignores effects from the Sun, natural variability, etc. Do you really think that the LIA was colder because of lower CO2 levels or do you deny the evidence that the LIA existed?
The real problem here is an wildly overinflated sensitivity which is at about 4x greater than we observe as the sensitivity to varying solar insolation across latitudes. This incorrect presumption of a high sensitivity is another of the unfounded conjectures that underlies the belief that CO2 emissions will have a catastrophic effect on the climate.
Nick Stokes March 7, 2017 at 5:50 pm
“It [chaos] isn’t a significant limitation – it’s a distortion” of the AR5 global climate model outputs.
Ok, but I’d prefer that there would also be due respect given to the effect Unicorns might have on climate state “trends and statistics”. And maybe Fluffy Bunnies.
” there would also be due respect given”
Due respect is given. But they want to know, so they run GCMs.
Nick Stokes – “But they want to know, so they run GCMs.”
With so many parameters as to make the output unuseful. Perhaps not quite implausible.
Nick
Is it chaotic purely because it is not understood, and once understood does it stop be labeled chaotic
“once understood does it stop be labeled chaotic”
No. “Chaos” is misunderstood. The technical term corresponds to something familiar in our lives. You can’t track from one detailed state to another, but the evolution follows a pattern (the attractor). And that is what you are interested in.
It’s almost always so in fluid mechanics. The N-S equations famously can’t be tracked far from their initial state. But there is a whole major engineering study of computational fluid dynamics. This finds the patterns and statistics that matter, like lift and drag for aircraft. It’s just as well that those don’t depend on initial conditions, because you don’t know what those were anyway.
If merely a confirmation-bias appeasing, global trend and a global statisic set are the goal, then a spatially gridded model on a custom supercomputer app is not needed.
Lord Monckton’s simple climate equation, with a realistic negative feedback parameter set, run on a hand-held calculator are all that is needed.
But you don’t know the feedback parameter. Well, OK, I guess some people here do. But science has to work it out.
No, Monckton’s equation allows easy computation of a realistic range of feedback values. That range of feedback input, produces a range of output. The result: A central value and your statistical envelope.
“What you can forecast are global trends and statistics.”
And here is the REAL model uncertainty associated with such “forecasts”:
http://www.skeptic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/v14n01resources/figure4.jpg
AR3/TAR 14.2.2.2:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by generation of ensembles of modal solutions.”
Just noting that this statement is self-contradictory. Until now I wasn’t aware of the italicized component. But it is pretty much cleared up by AR5:
“The scenarios should be considered plausible and illustrative, and do not have probabilities attached to them. (12.3.1; Box 1.1)”
Except that I don’t consider the scenarios “plausible” or “illustrative” of anything other than a CO2-Climate Change Fantasyland.
“Until now I wasn’t aware of the italicized component.”
Yes. It’s what they usually leave out, in order to misrepresent. They are predicting statistics, not states.
Nick Stokes March 7, 2017 at 8:00 pm
“They are predicting statistics, not states.”
When do you get to move on up to Playing House?
” But it is pretty much cleared up by AR5″
No, the scenarios have nothing to do with it. They are the part outside of science – what humans will do. The running of GCM ensembles is about variation within what science can predict.
And a measure of the REAL knowledge is reflected in the accuracy
“What you can forecast are global trends and statistics.” No, you can’t.
Provide actual proof.
How? How can you forecast it accurately? Or, so it has any relevance?
Statistics in this regard don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re tied to, or are referencing, the future the AR5 says can’t even be forecast a decade or a century out. And the trend is the umbrella or superset of these forecasted trends over those 50 or 100 years.
Forecasting, after all, is the main synonym for prediction.
“…Swedish scientist calculated that increasing CO2 would warm the planet.” Spencer Weart’s book mentions the controversy at the time his theory was introduced. He was mistaken then and is still wrong.
Believing that 0.04% of the atmospheric gases magically influences weather and dominates the climate takes a real sci fi flight of fantasy.
The upwelling/down welling/”back” radiation of greenhouse theory is comic book science, Saturday morning cartoon science, cinematic shape-shifting, mutant superhero science defying six of the three most fundamental laws of thermodynamics and physics.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/agw-myth-of-back-radiation.html
Believing in the upwelling/downwelling”/back” radiation GHG/GHE theory is like believing in the X-men, but without the kewl movies. Not surprising since they share a common fan base.
Why does no one refer to “the Swedish Scientist’s” subsequent revision of his hypothesis which is really a don’t worry scenario.
Except that the warming from 1850 to 1940 appears to have been of entirely natural origin, and there are multiple lines of evidence that temperatures today, in the Northern Hemisphere, are no warmer than they were in the 1930s/early 1940s.
Since we have so little sampling and so poor spatial coverage, we do not know what the position is in the Southern Hemisphere, and since we have no reliable or insightful data on the Southern Hemisphere, it follows that we have no useful data on global temperatures.
We are only left with Northern Hemisphere data from which to draw conclusions as to what is happening, and as I say, there are multiple lines of evidence that suggest no significant warming post 1940 notwithstanding that some 95% of all manmade CO2 emissions have taken place since 1940.
Both Hansen in his 1981 paper (Science 213) and Phil Jones in the Climategate emails, noted the problem with Southern Hemisphere data, where Phil Jones noted that for much of the Southern Hemisphere the data is simply made up. .
Don’t forget that Hansen in his 1981 paper assessed that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were as at 1980/81 some 0.3degC cooler than 1940. Other assessments such as NAS 1975, Jones and Wigley 1980 assessed the cooling even more substantial. If temperatures have warmed by about 0.3degC to about 0.4degC since 1980 (as the satellite data would suggest) then today, the Northern Hemisphere is broadly the same temperature as 1940. What does that say about the efficacy of so called GHGs, and 1900 predictions based upon changes in the composition of the atmosphere.
So the predicted ‘Global Warming’ didn’t materialize, necessitating the moniker ‘Climate Change’.
Now there’s been no observed increase in extreme weather events, or in normal person language, no climate change(s).
Nebulous warming.
Nebulous change.
What will the next political label be?
rebelronin at 5:57 pm:
… there’s been no observed increase in extreme weather events …
What will the next political label be?
Winters are getting warmer and summers are getting cooler.
Looks like the next label should be “Extreme Mildness”
Excessive mildness
JW
mark twain already named the name:
The Royal Nonesuch
I thought we already had it, Weather Weirding.
Or “Extreme Average”, “Nonanomaly”?
It will be like in Pleasantville; “High 72F, low 72F, not a cloud in the sky”. Every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasantville_(film)
Come on now, be reasonable. All the alarmists want is for the rest of us to join their Granfalloon. Why all the resistance?
“What will the next political label be?”
How about “Climate Concern”?
That should cover every scenario including none, none of the above and all of the above.
Excellent. Who is Lawrence Hamlin?
The UN is built on conjecture. The notion that national identity can be subordinated in order to address the “world’s problems” is the most insane platform of all. National identity is everything for the most developed countries. Why do you think the Swiss elected to stay out of the EU, why do you think the World Cup is the most watched event on TV worldwide, with the Olympics a close second. Why do you think Putin is widely admired in Russia, and why do you think Brexit and Trump happened?
+1
Well personally I think Trump won because 50 000 people in the mid-West believe that he would
make a better president than Hilary Clinton. If they had thought otherwise Clinton would have won the electoral college in addition to winning the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. You cannot claim that there was any landslide or nation wide rejection of the neo-liberal policies offered by Clinton.
As for Brexit a major reason why the leave campaign won is that they lied. For example they
claimed that leaving would give an extra 350 million pounds a week to the National Health Service
and then the day after the election stated that it was a lie and that they should never have made that claim. Similarly many of their other claims were lies as well. And given what has happened since
it is clear that the leave campaigners had no idea about Brexit or what leaving would entail.
Mark Twain already named the game: The Royal Nonesuch
No Geronimo, you still don’t get it, the democrats have been losing seats since 2010 that in itself is a landslide.They will continue to lose seats until they figure out that they are wrong and come to the table to negotiate in good faith instead of the silly attempt to dig in. The general public is tired of the pc mentality and arrogant elite that think they are our betters.
When a politician says something that turns out to be untrue, that’s not a lie. That’s a prevarication. There’s a difference. Trust me.
“As for Brexit a major reason why the leave campaign won is that they lied. For example they
claimed that leaving would give an extra 350 million pounds a week to the National Health Service”
No, they didn’t.
They had two statements on Boris’ battle bus:
‘We send the EU £350 million a week’
‘Let’s fund our NHS instead’
What it does not say is Let’s spend £350 million on the NHS.
It is mischievous and provocative but anyone with even the simplest grasp of the English language will recognise that simple fact.
Sadly, few MSM journalists have a grasp of the English language. Nor, it seems, do you.
HotScot:
You say
Well that is clear enough, but you continue
Clearly, it is YOU who has an inadequate grasp of the English language.
The statement “Let’s fund our NHS instead” (n.b. instead) is a clear and unambiguous proclamation that they want to spend that “£350 million a week” on the NHS: the statement has no other possible meaning, and anyone with even the simplest grasp of the English language will recognise that simple fact.
Richard
“Let’s fund our NHS instead” is not the same as “We will give this 350 million to the NHS every year instead of to the EU”.
One is clear and the other a suggestion.
Have you never had to read or write requirements? If 10 quid more is given to the NHS then the suggestion is met. And it is only a suggestion not a promise.
richardscourtney – March 8, 2017 at 3:19 am
Sorry bout that Richard, but these two (2) statements, as posted, ….. to wit:
Are neither conjoined in the same sentence, …… nor are they even in the same paragraph, …… thus, ……. at face value, ….. it is obvious someone is guilty of …. mentally “conjoining” of two (2) quoted statements that may or may not have ever been “conjoined” in their original form, thus resulting in, …. to wit:
“Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.”
+1000
Germinio. I refer you to HotScot above about the NHS. So the leave campaign lied did they? What about the whoppers told by the Remain Campaign. We’ll have World War III (D Cameron), that our economy would fall off a cliff (BoE, IMF, ECB and others). Then we had the threats – You’ll go to the back on the line – Obummer. Emergency budget (G Osborne)
You forget (or choose to ignore) that the EU is an unaccountable and unelected system. It has 5 presidents – none of whom were elected. Its parliament is toothless and cannot introduce or repeal any law. it isn’t so much undemocratic as anti democratic. It ignores referendums it doesn’t like (France and Holland in 2005) and insists they are run again until the “right” result is produced (Ireland – Nice and Lisbon treaties)
And I’ll tell you something else. 17.4 million of us wanted to return our country to our control, to ensure that OUR laws have supremacy and not some law concocted in a foreign land. Because I and others wanted national self determination i was smeared and traduced by the elites as a bigoted little Englander, a loony, a fruitcake and a closet racist. Over in the US – they’re called “Deplorables” Yeah, that kind of persuasive tactic always works on me – NOT
richardscourtney March 8, 2017 at 3:19 am
No, it isn’t. It was a proclamation that they want to fund our NHS instead of the EU, that is all. The figure of £350 million per week was incidental to their argument and their statement did not imply that they want to spend that specific amount on funding the NHS.
In any case, Brexit hasn’t happened yet, so no-one is in a position to know how much funding the NHS will receive after it has happened and therefore no-one is able to say that the Brexiteers have lied about it either. To judge them to have lied about an event which has not yet occurred is to prejudge them and that is an act of blind prejudice, like saying “You dirty rat! You killed my brother!” when the brother in question is still very much alive and visibly present in the same room. I think one would have to be in a somewhat disturbed state of mind to make such a patently false – even hysterical – accusation.
U obviously aren’ t British . Lots of people distrusted the EU , it’s as simple as that . UK was never really ‘In ‘ . The biggest liars were the Pollsters using dodgy statistics ( something everyone here is used to ) .
You also forget that the ‘experts’ claimed Trump had no chance because of the electoral College system . Bit like milder winters causing thicker ice ….
“rapscallion @ March 8, 2017 at 5:15 am” Has it exactly right.
I voted Leave because I wanted my government to be electable. All the decision-making sections of the EU government are not electable. They appoint themselves.
Interestingly, more people in the UK voted Leave than have ever voted for anything ever before.
The fact that the great and good were running around trying to spin their point of view was neither here nor there. I believe that it made very little difference to the outcome.
The only factor that may have influenced people was the large number of rich, establishment figures who wanted to remain in the EU. That convinced us that it was somehow good for them. How that would improve the lives of the peasants (e.g. me) was never made clear.
As I live in the US, it completely boggles my mind to the point of disbelievement that anyone would want to live in a country that gets all (most) of their laws, regulations, currency, etc., from a bureaucracy of public servants working in a bureaucratic factory developing this glorious plan that all of the countries in the EU are to comply with. These laws are then sent to the EU members and then passed by that countries bureaucracy (parliament, congress, whatever.) Reminds me of Animal Farm.
Just a somewhat casual outside observer but I would say that the U.S. was going slowly in the wrong direction for the last 20 tears or so and Hillary looked like at least 4 more years of exactly the same blind stumbling.
You are seriously deluded on Brexit. The reason for the yes vote was simple – people were sick to death of the wretched EU.
+ 1
+1 mark midwest, how it got down here is a mystery
So how the Climate community and the IPCC maintain their fraudulent scheme is quite straightforward, and comprises two facets.
-The first is at the individual model level, a model run by any one particular group. Essentially, by using tuning of the required parameterization, which allows the computation group to produce any result for CO2 sensitivity they deem “reasonable”, a large range of results are generated. Each is pure, unadulterated confirmation bias for its modelling group due to the tuning, but not in and of itself necessarily a nefarious or fraudulent scheme.
– The second step is the combining of the many GCM outputs into an ensemble of Combined (or Coupled) Model Inter-Comparison project (CMIP) is where the real fraud occurs. While it all seems innocuous to the naive observer, what happens with a CMIP is an obsfuscation of the total error range (at best, by producing a CMIP ensemble mean), and an allowance for future cherry picking of a “winner” model in the future (the fraud).
Consider that to the non-scientist, the ensemble and an ensemble “mean” seems “sciencey”. It is climatism in action. What the CMIP does is it creates a collaborative environment where everyone model group’s science-model voice is heard and consolidated. It lends itself then to a self-serving creation of a group consensus — i.e. GroupThink sets in. Science dies in the darkness of consensus. Dissenters are outcasts then from the consensus group, funding is threatened, papers are rejected, and are generally ridiculed by the group.
The real cure is two fold.
-1. Fully expose the individual GC model tuning for what it is: confirmation bias. Make sure this is “tuning” point is fully understood far and wide in the non-climate-science science world.
-2. Defund many or most of the government modelling groups and their supercomputer use for conducting long range climate studies. They are currently, objectively worse than useless, they are misleading for assessing climate sensitivity to increasing CO2.
Maybe keep only two smaller groups, one at NOAA/NCAR and one at a single DOE facility so they can compete with each other, and cross-pollinate people and ideas. This will eliminate also the fraudulent CMIP scheme.
With regard to the fraudulent peddling of the GCM average/spread as some sort of genuinely significant statistical measure: Garth Paltridge, in his book “The Climate Caper”, reveals the further con that these models are somehow all “independent” efforts – nothing could be further from the truth:
“They take some or all of the code from the model of another group, and slightly modify those bits of it that are relevant to their particular interest and expertise. The overall process ensures that there is a gradual, and largely unconscious, move towards a situation where all the supposedly independent models have common physics and common values for their tuneable parameters. Quite naturally they begin to tell the same story.”
Great, Lawrence – Thanks
I believe an earlier comment is even more pertinent here
“Horner is spot on when he says “the only real option is to withdraw the United States as a party to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”
Furthermore there is no danger from anthropogenic global warming. The EPA should revisit and reverse its endangerment finding.Climate is controlled by natural cycles. We are just past the 2004 peak of a millennial cycle. See my EAE paper at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958305X16686488
and earlier accessible blog version at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/
Here is the abstract for convenience :
“ABSTRACT
This paper argues that the methods used by the establishment climate science community are not fit for purpose and that a new forecasting paradigm should be adopted. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in time in relation to the current phases of those different interacting natural quasi periodicities. Evidence is presented specifying the timing and amplitude of the natural 60+/- year and, more importantly, 1,000 year periodicities (observed emergent behaviors) that are so obvious in the temperature record. Data related to the solar climate driver is discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and correlated with the millennial peak -inversion point – in the RSS temperature trend in about 2004. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. Estimates of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling are made. If the real climate outcomes follow a trend which approaches the near term forecasts of this working hypothesis, the divergence between the IPCC forecasts and those projected by this paper will be so large by 2021 as to make the current, supposedly actionable, level of confidence in the IPCC forecasts untenable.””
The AGW conjecture sounds plausable at first but upon closer examination it is severely flawed. In part to generate evidence to support the AGW conjecture the IPCC supported the development of a plethora of climate models. The large number of different models is evidence that a lot of guess work has been involved. If there were no guess work then only one model would have been supported. The plethora of models have generated a wide range of predictions for today’s global temperatures but they all have one thing in common. They have all been wrong. They have all prediicted global warming that never happened. If they are evidence of anything it is that the AGW conjecture is flawed. The climate simulations actually beg the question because it is hard coded in that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming so that is what the simulation results show. Because they beg the question such sumulations are totally useless. If the IPCC actually learned something from the simulations they would have by now reduced the number of different models under consideration but that has not happened. Others have generated models that show that climate is correlated to solar and ocean effects and not to CO2.
There is no real evidence in the paleoclimate record that CO2 has any effect on climate. Warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere because warmer water holds less CO2 then cooler water but there is no real evidence that the additinal CO2 adds to warming. It is all just speculation.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect provided by gases with LWIR absorption bands. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping action of so called greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect..So to on Earth. As derived from first principals, the atmophere keeps the Earth’s surface on average 33 degrees C warmer than it would other wise be because gravity limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect and it accounts for all 33 degrees C that has been observed. Additional warming caused by an additional radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed on Earth or on any planet in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect is fiction as is the AGW conjecture.
Kyoji Kimoto, reporting in an artiicle entitled “Basic Global Working Hypothesis is Wrong” has found that the original calculation of the Planck climate sensivity of CO2 is too great by more than a factor of 20 because original calculations forgot to take into consideration that a doubling of CO2 wiill cause a small but very signiificant decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. So instead of a Planck Climate sensivity of 1.2 degrees C, CO2 provides a Plankc climate sensivity of less than .06 degrees C which is rather trivial.
Then there is the issue of feedbacks. To make the warming effect of CO2 seem significant the AGW conjecrture assumes that H2O will provide a positive feedback and hence amplify the warming effect caused by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. The idea is that warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere and because H2O is the primary greenhouse gas, more H2O causes more warming and hence amplifies the warming effect of CO2. This line of reasoning ignores the fact that besides being a greenhouse gas, CO2 is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface which is some form of CO2 to where clouds form and radiate to space. According to energy balance models, more heat energy is moved by H2O via phase change then by both LWIR absorption band radation and convection combined. The cooling effect of H2O is also evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is siginificantly less than the dry lapse rate. So in reality H2O provides a negative feedback hence retarding any warming effect that CO2 might have. The H2O feedback also has to be negative for the Earth’s climate to have been stable enough for life to evolve.
If CO2 really affected climate than the increase in CO2 over the last 30 years should have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.
In their first report the IPCC published a wide range of possible values as to the climate sensivity of CO2. In their last report the IPCC published the exact same values. So after more than two decades of effort the IPCC has found nothing the would narrow their range of guesses one iota. The IPCC deliberately ignore’s all logic indicating that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really less than their published range for fear of losing their funding. Supporting the AGW conjecture has been a matter of politics and not science. Belief in the AGW conjecture is really anti science.
Loved your comment. Thx.
‘the development of a plethora of climate models. The large number of different models is evidence that a lot of guess work has been involved’
The same applies to medical treatments that work.
If a treatment works there is one of them, if treatment is not highly effective then there are a hundred products at the local Chemist[ drug store], that try and address the problem.
None work well.
nice summation Will.
-Joel O’Bryan
I am not sure that this sentence is right.
It may be that you are referring to H2O rather than CO2. H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s Atmosphere and it is H2O that moves heat energy from the surface to high up in the atmosphere where radiant gases such as CO2 can then radiate that energy into space.
Apart from that, your comment provides much to ponder on.
You are correct. I meant to type H2O there rather than CO2. There does not seem to be an edit option so I can go back and correct it. At least someone out there is reading it carefully. I thank you for your correction. Most of what I am saying here can be found elsewhere on the Internet. For me, reading many of the explanations of th AGW conjture, there was a lot that did not make sense like the idea that CO2 controls H2O so that even though the vast majoriety of the radiant greenhouse effect is attributed to H2O, it is CO2 that controls climate. But CO2 does not really control anything. It is just CO2. The AGW conjectrue pretends that heat energy transfer via LWIR absorption band radiation dominates in the tropospohere but in reality conduction and convection dominates. I read descriptions of how the greenhouse effect is suppose to work and then I tell my self but that is all wrong. I do not believe that the majoriety of the atmosphere is thermally inert as the AGW conjecture would have one believe.
@ willhaas – March 8, 2017 at 1:22 am
HA, when I read that statement ….. I just assumed you had inadvertently neglected to include the word “not”, ……. as noted below.
“This line of reasoning ignores the fact that besides being a greenhouse gas, CO2 is not a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere ”
My premise was, it would make no sense for you to be claiming atmospheric H20 vapor was the major coolant of thermal energy ……. while at the same time, in the same paragraph, ….. claiming atmospheric CO2 was the major coolant of thermal energy.
Now wacko warminists are guilty of such intentional acts, ………. but not real scientists.
“The large number of different models is evidence that a lot of guess work has been involved.”
I’m going to win the lottery grand prize by buying all the tickets. Who’s with me?
The UNFCCC-IPCC CMIP scheme for GCM projections are GroupThink at its best.
One must understand the CMIP process for what it does.
It institutionalizes GroupThink. This ensures those modelling groups who cooperate in the high CO2 sensitivity projection get their gold. Those who don’t, if any, get ostracized and defunded.
IPCC was extremely biased from the very beginning. This is also evident from the: Report of the second session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 28June1989.
“In welcoming the delegates to the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) Headquarters … The Executive Director of UNEP, hailed the fruitful alliance between WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and UNEP. The firm commitment of prof. Obasi, the Secretary-General of WMO, coupled with the determination of UNEP leadership, has resulted in a partnership which is helping to unify the scientific and policy-making communities of the world to lay the foundation for effective, realistic and equitable action on climate change.”
…
“The Executive director stated that the impacts of climate change and global warming would have serious consequences for humanity. In Egypt alone, global warming could flood much of the Nile Delta and Drown 70 centuries of civilization in less than one, and could inundate one fifth of the nations arable land.”
…
“It would be desirable for the Panel´s report to be ready by august 1990 for presentation to the Second World Climate Conference and to the United Nations General Assembly. It should be born in mind that both the governing council of UNEP and the executive Council of WMO expected the first report of IPCC to form the basis for international negotiations on a global convention on climate change. The report can also play a valuable guiding role for the large number of conferences, meetings and symposia on climate change being held all over the world. For all of these reasons, the report should be completed in good time.”
…
“The issuance of the report would only be the beginning of a far more arduous task. To tackle the problem of climate warming effectively, radical changes would be necessary in international relations, trade, technology transfer, and bilateral and multilateral strategies. The panel´s continued work would be the only guarantee of the concerted response to the global threat of climate change”
…
“In his opening remarks , Prof. Bolin said that the primary objective of IPCC, in making its first assessment, is to produce a document which could provide guidelines for the formulation of global policy and which would enable the nations of the world to contribute to this task”
…
“IPCC´s first report will contain the 20-page summaries for policy-makers to be produced by the working groups and an overall integrated summary of these placed in perspective. Professor Bolin suggested that the integrated summary be written by a drafting group consisting of the officers of IPCC and the chairmen of the Working Groups. He asked that this plan of his be enforced by the panel.”
…
“The panel invited interested UN organizations, regional or global intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and private institutions that wish to to contribute in the matter, to collaborate with appropriate analyses. …. The panel invited the contribution from these organizations in order that its own work may be improved.”
…
Imagine the pressure to conform with the prejudice of the leaders. Imagine beeing the one saying: Hold on a moment, how do we know for sure that ….?
Since when has RCP 8.5 ever been plausible, and even if it was at some time plausible, by the time AR5 was written, the ‘pause’ or slow down in warming had been ongoing for approximately 17 years such that it was clear that RCP 8.5 was implausible.
RCP 8.5 should be dropped as a plausible or illustrative future scenario.
Agree. It never was plausible. Worse, many future consequences papers are based on it as if it was the BAU case.
Rarely has a more truthful or apt description ever been produced by the CAGW alarmists, albeit unintended.
The UN regarded Climate Change as an opportunity for a power grab, a chance to impose global governance in a range of matters. It also provided a vehicle for the redistribution of wealth.
The IPCC was set up to demonstrate the effect of man made CO2 emissions on global warming. It was never an objective study of climate forcings or feedbacks. It was not interested in natural climate drivers. It was to provide scientific “evidence” suitably crafted for policymakers to convince governments that a catastrophe was looming. Its purpose was to help the UN achieve its political objectives.
+1 And with control of the MSM by the same cabal you have a manufactured world catastrophe that can only be solved by a central government. Guess who.
Such leadership from Prof Lindzen is very much welcome to real climate scientists. It is good to see that other prominent scientists are now joining hands and speaking up. It will now lead climate science to true direction. Such open effort was very long overdue. Credit also goes to fair Trump administration that set the environment.
Nick Stokes claims to understand fluid mechanics, but clearly does not. Time varying high Reynolds number fully 3-D flows cannot in general be solved, and climate is far more complex than these flows (phase change, varying insolation, land conditions, varying ocean currents, clods, etc.). However, with EXPERIMENTAL measurements allowing approximate fits of flow parameters, new flows that are within a limited range of conditions can also be reasonably approximated. This is a process of INTERPOLATION. However, once you go beyond the range of conditions enough, the results become increasingly uncertain. That is, you cannot EXTRAPOLATE for these flows. Increasing time in a highly non-linear problem with numerous variables like climate cannot ever be solved in the fashion that is being used. The comment on strange attractors is another point of misunderstanding by Nick. You can only talk about these if you KNOW what they are and their strength. We do not. Even if you did, the time period to reach toward them is totally unknown, and can be days to millions of years.
Excellent comments.
+100
I find it interesting that alarmists rattle off supposed solutions to Navier–Stokes as if it were easy. Apparently the Clay Mathematics Institute doesn’t think so as the “Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness” is one of their Millennium Prize Problems. One wonders why Climatologists haven’t claimed their $1 million prize money for its solution.
Jim
None of your contributors have mentioned that the IPCC Assessment Reports are written as much by politicians as by scientists. It is true that scientists write a long Technical Report, but is also true that politicians write a “Summary For Policymakers” which is released to the press under the pretence that it had been written by the scientists. Then, unforgivably, the long Technical Report is retrospectively re-written to be consistent with the Summary For Policymakers that the politicians had written.
Professor Lindzen has testified about this:-
“It’s not 2,500 people offering their consensus, I participated in that. Each person who is an author writes one or two pages in conjunction with someone else. They travel around the world several times a year for several years to write it and the summary for policymakers has the input of a handful of scientists, but ultimately, it is written by representatives of governments, and of environmental organizations, each pushing their own agenda.”
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-all?ID=7E60E3FA-802A-23AD-4291-E3975CBB96CB
I have written about this in more detail on my blog at:-
http://steelydanswarandpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/ipcc-reports-are-poltics-not-science.html
Right you are. The usual suspects predictably advancing the usual failed policies of centralized control operating mindlessly. Weather a bit dodgy for you. Give us power, money, and control. We will smooth things out. Promises failing. Things getting worse. Hard to disbelieve your eyes. That’s because you didn’t hand over enough in the first place. A racket folks.
“more than 300 eminent scientists, engineers and other qualified and knowledgeable experts”
not many of them eminent, certainly almost none qualified on climate science or related fields.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=3678
(please don’t just trot out the usual pointless abuse about Skeptical Science. If you must reply, answer the points put – are these people qualified to speak on climate?)
Good morning Griff (here it is)
Appreciate all you do to keep us entertained. Mean that sincerely. Even a believer must find it difficult to swallow the constant fails and foibles of those pushing this junk. They are lucky to have you for now.
You don’t have to be expert to realise that climate models are flawed. They run much hotter than observation which is enough to invalidate them. Their other predictions concerning humidity and the tropical hotspot also show that the assumptions on which they are based are wrong.
The predicted extreme weather is actually less extreme, the unprecedented warming is similar to warming last century.
It doesn’t take an expert to understand the attempts to get rid of the inconvenient MWP or the manipulation of the temperature datasets, the smearing and intimidation of those who dare to question the so called science.
As a non-expert, I see that your protestations are strawman arguments.
Griff if you don’t want to read much deserved abuse of the BullS**t filled Skeptical Science site then you should not use their site as a reference. Use a “REAL SCIENCE” site and you won’t get the abuse.
Notice that Griff, employs the attack the credentials of people,ignore their arguments fallacy.
Still clueless you are Griffy girl.
In Griffies world, the only people who are qualified to speak on Global Warming are his fellow alarmists.
Let us have a look then at how one qualified climate scientist operated:
UEA’s renowned Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Phil Jones:
“I’ve never requested data/codes to do a review and I don’t think others should either. I do many of my reviews on travel. I have a feel for whether something is wrong – call it intuition. If analyses don’t seem right, look right or feel right, I say so. Some of my reviews for Climatic Change could be called into question!”
– Phil Jones keeps peer-review process humming … by using “intuition”
What Phil Jones demonstrated here is that he did not perform review in accordance with The principles of science and a suitable code of conduct for research integrity
So the problem is that Phil Jones may have qualified as a climate scientist but failed to qualify as a proper scientist that follows proper scientific principles.
So how do you suggest that we identify that a climate scientist that is also a proper scientist?
or how an article within climate science has been through a proper review?
By voting?
Who do you think is qualified, Griff? Is Michael Mann qualified?
“(please don’t just trot out the usual pointless abuse about Skeptical Science. If you must reply, answer the points put – are these people qualified to speak on climate?)”
Certainly more qualified than your heroes Cook the (failed) cartoonist, Loopy Lew Lewandowsky the “climate psychologist” (titter!)<, Marcott the imitation Hokey Schtick artist and "Drillbit" Dana Nuttijelli the part time Guardian CAGW alarmist who earns his crust working for the Evil Oil Orcs.
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford for maliciously traducing her yet?
Just a technical comment: .png images are usually smaller when saving web screenshots, without all the noise from .jpg 🙂
Why don’t we want nicer weather and more abundant crops, again?