Apparently, MIT didn’t like its name being used in petition to Trump. Dr. Richard Lindzen responds to that letter.
March 9, 2017
President Donald Trump
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
On 2 March, 2017, members of the MIT Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate (PAOC) sent a public letter to the White House, contesting the Petition I circulated. The Petition, signed by over 330 scientists from around the world so far, called for governments to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Since MIT’s administration has made the climate issue a major focus for the Institute, with PAOC playing a central role, it is not surprising that the department would object to any de-emphasis. But the PAOC letter shows very clearly the wisdom of James Madison’s admonition, in the Federalist, 10:
“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.”
For far too long, one body of men, establishment climate scientists, has been permitted to be judges and parties on what the “risks to the Earth system associated with increasing levels of carbon dioxide” really are.
Let me explain in somewhat greater detail why we call for withdrawal from the UNFCCC.
The UNFCCC was established twenty five years ago to find scientific support for dangers from increasing carbon dioxide. While this has led to generous and rapidly increased support for the field, the purported dangers remain hypothetical, model-based projections. By contrast, the benefits of increasing CO2 and modest warming are clearer than ever, and they are supported by dramatic satellite images of a greening Earth.
We note that:
- The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) no longer claims a greater likelihood of significant as opposed to negligible future warming,
- It has long been acknowledged by the IPCC that climate change prior to the 1960’s could not have been due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Yet, pre-1960 instrumentally observed temperatures show many warming episodes, similar to the one since 1960, for example, from 1915 to 1950, and from 1850 to 1890. None of these could have been caused by an increase in atmospheric CO2,
- Model projections of warming during recent decades have greatly exceeded what has been observed,
- The modelling community has openly acknowledged that the ability of existing models to simulate past climates is due to numerous arbitrary tuning adjustments,
- Observations show no statistically valid trends in flooding or drought, and no meaningful acceleration whatsoever of pre-existing long term sea level rise (about 6 inches per century) worldwide,
- Current carbon dioxide levels, around 400 parts per million are still very small compared to the averages over geological history, when thousands of parts per million prevailed, and when life flourished on land and in the oceans.
Calls to limit carbon dioxide emissions are even less persuasive today than 25 years ago. Future research should focus on dispassionate, high-quality climate science, not on efforts to prop up an increasingly frayed narrative of “carbon pollution.” Until scientific research is unfettered from the constraints of the policy-driven UNFCCC, the research community will fail in its obligation to the public that pays the bills.
I hope these remarks help to explain why the over 300 original signers of the Petion (and additional scientists are joining them every day) have called for withdrawal from the UNFCCC.
Respectfully yours,
Richard S. Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences
SUPPORTING SIGNERS:
Most of signers of the Petition, agree with my remarks above. In the limited time available to prepare the letter, it has been reviewed and approved by the following:
ABDUSSAMATOV, Habibullo Ismailovich: (Dr. sci., Phys. and Math. Sciences. ); Head of space research of the Sun sector at the Pulkovo observatory, head of the project The Lunar Observatory, St. Petersburg, (Russian Federation).
ALEXANDER, Ralph B.: (Ph.D. ,Physics, University of Oxford ); Former Associate Professor, Wayne State University, Detroit, author of Global Warming False Alarm (2012).
BASTARDI, Joseph: Chief Meteorologist, Weatherbell Analytics.
BRIGGS, William M.: (Ph.D., Statistics & Philosophy of Science); Author of Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics.
CLOUGH, Charles: (MS., Atmospheric Science); Founder and Retired Chief of the US Army Atmospheric Effects Team, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, Retired LtCol USAF (Res) Weather Officer.
DOIRON, Harold H.: (Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston 1970 ); Retired VP Engineering, InDyne, Inc.; Senior Manager, McDonnell Douglas Space Systems; and former NASA Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle Engineer Chairman, The Right Climate Stuff Research Team, composed of NASA manned space program retirees.
EASTERBROOK, Donald J.: (Ph.D.); Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University; former president of the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division of GSA, Associate Editor of the GSA Bulletin for 15 years, and many other professional activities. He published four books and eight professional papers in the past year.
FORBES, Vivian R.: (BSc., Applied Sciences); FAusIMM, FSIA, geologist, financial analyst and pasture manager, author of many articles on climate, pollution, economic development and hydrocarbons. (Australia).
HAPPER, William: (Ph.D., Physics); Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics (emeritus) Princeton University; Director of the Office of Energy Research, US Department of Energy, 1990-1993.
HAYDEN, Howard “Cork”: (PhD.); Professor Emeritus, University of Connecticut.
IDSO, Craig: (PhD, B.S., Geography, Arizona State University, M.S.,Agronomy, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 1996 ); Chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
LEGATES, David R.: (PhD, Climatology, University of Delaware); Certified Consulting Meterologist.
LUPO, Anthony: (Ph.D., Atmospheric Science); Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri.
MARKÓ, István E.: (PhD,Organic Chemistry, Catholic University of Louvain); professor and researcher of organic chemistry at the Catholic University of Louvain ( Belgium).
MOCKTON, Christopher: ; The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (United Kingdom).
MOORE, Patrick: (PhD., Ecology, University of British Columbia, Honorary Doctorate of Science, North Carolina State University); National Award for Nuclear Science and History (Einstein Society).
NICHOLS, Rodney W.: (AB Physics, Harvard); Science and Technology policy Executive Vice President emeritus Rockefeller University President and CEO emeritus, NY Academy of Sciences Co-Founder CO2 Coalition.
SINGER, Fred S.: (Ph.D., Physics, Princeton University, BA, Electrical Engineering, Ohio State University); professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia. He directs the nonprofit Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), which he founded in 1990 and incorporated in 1992 after retiring from the University of Virginia.
SOON, Willie: (PhD); Independent Scientist.
SPENCER, Roy W.: (Ph.D., Meteorology ’81; M.S., Meteorology, ’79; B.S., Atmospheric & Oceanic Science, ’78); Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville; co-developer of method for satellite monitoring of global temperature; author of numerous papers on climate and satellite meteorology.
STEWARD, H. Leighton: (MS., Geology); Environmentalist, No. 1 New York Times Best Selling Author, Recipient numerous national environmental awards or directorships including the EPA, Louisiana Nature Conservancy, Audubon Nature Institute, the National Petroleum Council and the API. Former energy industry executive and chosen to represent industry on Presidential Missions under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.
MOTL, Lubos: (PhD., Physics ); former high-energy theoretical physics junior faculty at Harvard University (Czech Republic).
WYSMULLER, Thomas H.: (BA, Meteorology ); Ogunquit, Maine, NASA (Ret.); Chair, Water Day 2013, UNESCO IHE Water Research Institute, Delft, The Netherlands; Chair, Oceanographic Section, 2016 World Congress of Ocean, Qingdao China; NASA TRCS charter member.
ZYBACH, Bob: (PhD., Environmental Sciences, Oregon State University); www.ORWW.org, author of more than 100 popular articles and editorials regarding forest history, wildfire mitigation, reforestation planning, and Indian burning practices.
Original letter here: Lindzen Personal PAOC Explanation-final
Good short response on climate change advocacy.
Interesting viewpoint from Scott Adams as to the inability of AGW types to effectively communicate their message:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158159613566/how-to-convince-skeptics-that-climate-change-is-a#_=_
Scott Adams is a very sharp guy. A must-read!
“And why can’t science tell me which one of the different models is the good one, so we can ignore the less-good ones? What’s up with that? If you can’t tell me which model is better than the others, why would I believe anything about them?”
It’s because they’ve never been able to communicate their message that they’re reduced to soundbites, bullying, character assassination, and moral blackmail. Their problem is : that only works when you have the moral high ground, which they don’t. They can’t explain their message because when the full complexity of climate is explained people are likely to ask – wow – so complex – how can you be sure it’s all down to one thing? So they reduced everything to soundbites: 97% say …, GHG causes atmospheric warming, X is a denier, IPCC says, …
They thought they had the moral high ground and some are still puzzled when I tell them CO2 is not a pollutant but is, in fact, a boon to life on earth.
Thanks, BFL, I liked this bit…
Scott wrote
GCMs dont measure temperature, at best they’re proxies for temperature and so if they’re chosen because there is a belief they will represent future temperature then they have to stay.
You cant exclude their results for the same reason you cant choose the tree rings that best represent the known part of the temperature record because that has been shown to produce a hockey stick. The alarmists are damned if they do and damned if they dont in this regard…
Having said that the GCMs are already fitted to the warming in such a way as to give too high sensitivity…so excluding the “bad ones” would be an obvious move to improve their “capability” hiding the fact they have no predictive capability anyway…
They can only meet it with attack on person.
Interesting that he says he’s a believer… sure didn’t sound like it.
Better than the original petition. Very good.
Yes, let’s stay on the offense side of the discussion.
The Alarmists have no data to support their claims, and we have Richard Feynman (among many) and the Scientific Method on ours.
More CO2 is better for plants and thus animals; warmer is better for mankind (especially the poor). Reliable, available, and cheap energy is best for all
BINGO! This is Common Sense 101, and for the life of me I have never understood how someone possessing high IQs would be so low in wisdom, i.e. common sense. This is so elementary that even a grade schooler can grasp it.
Yes. Geology Jim (and jlk) indeed.
The best defense is — a good offense.
As soon as addiction comes into play, IQ goes out the window. Warmunists (and a few of us) are addicted to adrenaline, similar to rage-a-holics. Reading WUWT turns Warmunists into spittle-spewing, eye-rolling maniacs in seconds. Then they post here.
Despite overwhelming evidence that CO2 is good for plants it looks like they are trying to get around that one
Rising CO2 due to climate change may not improve agriculture, model shows
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-co2-due-climate-agriculture.html
Although many people have argued that rising carbon dioxide levels would benefit crop production, a recent model of the effects of increased CO2 shows that it’s not that simple and that elevated levels could have a much less positive effect on plant photosynthesis than previously predicted.
What is it with the belief amongst these alarmists that models trump real world data?
Wow. Need to alert greenhouse operators. They mustn’t believe the productivity they are seeing when some university has created a model that refutes that productivity. Perhaps they should reduce or even scrub CO2 from their greenhouses to promote optimal growth. Yeah, that ought to work.
“less positive” IS STILL POSITIVE
Predicted! The effects of CO2 on plant growth has been documented in many experiments. Sometimes I think these people think that computer models trump reality.
Thanks for that point EricHA. Indeed alarmist researchers are well-funded to undermine the conventional and fact-based wisdom that plants love CO2. Your link goes to a Purdue study that uses models to forecast impacts on agricultural production, while assuming that farmers will not adapt their methods and seed choices as they have always done.
Not long ago a Stanford study attempted to prove plants do not always benefit from rising CO2, by using flawed logic that blames CO2 for the presence of other limiting factors.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/researchers-against-co2/
EricHa: If you look, there are always shell games surrounding the headlines of these stories/studies. For example, a study – I think it was released in 2015, but I don’t have it in front of me, so I’m just calling out from memory (but I’m sure other posters remember it) – but it made an attempt to discredit CO2 as plant food by showing how some California-area plants didn’t do as well with increased CO2 – but you had to look deeper to find that these were plants that had adapted to arid, desert climates. In a more lush environment, they would have died out and been replaced by a preponderance of other plant life.
So, replacing a desert with a lusher environment threatens species specifically acclimated to a harsh, inhospitable, arid habitat. But that doesn’t make the land barren, does it? Quite the opposite.
The authors should be locked in a greenhouse with CO2 at 1100 ppm for a month, then see if they can report factually that “elevated levels could have a much less positive effect…”. What idiots.
So now we’re to believe model’s on crop growth when every model on co2 and warming has proven false? Easily discredited by satellite pictures of greening all over the planet… We could use about 1000ppm to green us up even more…We evolved as a species at 4000ppm …Since were devolving in common sense many this could help.
So now we’re to believe model’s on crop growth when every model on co2 and warming has proven false? Easily discredited by satellite pictures of greening all over the planet… We could use about 1000ppm to green us up even more…We evolved as a species at 4000ppm …Since were devolving in common sense many this could help.
“You cannot look at just one effect in isolation, … and make a determination of how it will affect global crop production,”
Except CO2.
The warmists want to sheet home everything to their favourite bogeyman!!
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-co2-due-climate-agriculture.html#jCp
https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2
For what it’s worth.
I have a model that says you should send me all your money or the Earth will turn into a great big, cajun-blackened, spherical pizza.
Don’t forget to stay on the offense when it comes to the purely political side of the AGW issue. No doubt somewhere out there in enviro-activistland, somebody is going to pipe up by saying Dr Lindzen charges fossil fuel companies $2500 per day for consulting. It is a two decade-old accusation where — as I explained here http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=2235 — the logic of it falls apart over him never apparently raising his fee after all that time. Go on the offense of where that worthless talking point accusation originated, and you put a core clique of enviro-activists in a world of hurt.
Really would have been good to point out the unnecessary government expenditures that could be better spent. This seems to be a major thrust of the new administration.
John: Exactly. That is, in a nutshell, why this whole AGW scare has been such a waste. It is also in itself a motive.
And I agree – any good entrepreneur trims waste, and that’s what we’re getting in a guy like Trump.
“they are supported by dramatic satellite images of a greening Earth”
Again, it begs the question, who’s the “denier”?
The Climate Liars at MIT hide behind the illogical Appeals to Authority and to “Consensus”. Big surprise.
The MIT letter foolishly cites SLR when that has not accelerated, ocean acidification which ignores buffering and the biological pump, and more extreme droughts and floods, which even the IPCC SRES (2012) said there was no evidence for. They have truly drunk the coolaid.
Drunk the coolaid? They’ve gargled it to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell.” Not only that, but…well, I’ll just stop here.
Of course they do. Their jobs depend on it.
The best short summary of the state of climate “science” that I have seen to date.
Two words about the Models
Spaghetti Plots
Every time there is a storm brewing the local TV Meteorologists provide all the evidence we need about the Hubris of the Models and “Settled Science”
Dr. Lindzen asked me to sign the original letter, and I did so. I was unaware of his follow-up to President Trump, with which I also agree.
Whoever you are, we thank you for your conscientious courage.
Not sure, but I surmise that “whoever you are” is Forrest Mims, author of a wonderful series of notebooks on electronics, and a man of many achievements.
If I am right, thank you Mr. Mims.
Dan
https://fmims.wordpress.com/
His website is linked under his username: https://fmims.wordpress.com/
Mims has several interesting sites. Definitely measurement-oriented.
Good on you Mr. Lindzen
I’m wondering just why MIT is so upset. Is it because they consider him a heretic, who should be either burned at the stake, or just jailed for being a contrarian? Or is it because of the government hand-outs in funds they would lose, were this scam halted? Or perhaps a combination of both?
Yes
Whatever happens to the gross total amount of government funding, it is important to remain on good terms with those who disburse the individual grants. The process is manned (and Manned!) by global-warming zealots, so MIT researchers need to be seen to be singing from the ‘correct’ hymn sheet.
follow the money…
I suspect that the real reason is that the MIT faculty just like most faculty are:
a) still either living under the delusion that its all a bad dream and when they awake Hillery will be President or,
b) still deep into the denial phase at the potential loss of their sinecures from the Obama EPA
In either event — ultimately MIT is nothing if not pragmatic and utilitarian — they will eventually figure out a way to continue their gravy train
PS: full disclosure my undergraduate degree is Physics from MIT, and I know and respect Dick Lindzen and his unsullied character as a scientist — even if I do think that as a theorist he attaches too much credibility to the surface instrumental record
Nit picking but ….. should have spelt Lord Monkton’s name correctly. /synic on: This is bound to seized upon by the alarmist community as evidence of false/fraudulent science /synic:off
Nit picking but …..cynic.
More nit picking “Monckton”. with a ‘ck’.
Well said those men! Your work is appreciated, and will hopefully have great impact.
It’s “Taffy 3” (Linden, David) vs. the Yamato (MIT, Goliath). Cheers for the underdog!
Great stuff Dr. Lindzen. But please, please correct that typo which has AGAIN appeared in your petitions and letters.
MOCKTON..?
Sorry but repeated, uncorrected errors just scream ‘hastily cobbled together’ rather than ‘well thought out and robust’.
Just sayin’.
Monckton!!!
MOCKTON, Christopher: ; The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (United Kingdom).
Yep did not correct it
The sapient vs the herd .
President Trump’s response to MIT asking to talk with him in person: Sure, MIT. Be sure to bring your analytical equipment. A demonstration of your “science” (slight cough) will show us all just how seriously we should take your “data.”
MIT’s “Wheel of Climate”
(Source for photo: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/26/how-not-to-make-a-climate-photo-op/ )
(photo caption contest here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/02/wheel-of-silly/ )
Note Mr. Blue Jeans. Those 2 fingers are telling us something….. “MIT is throwing you a climate curve ball.” Poor guy. The other three aren’t THAT dumb. Wonder whatever happened to him…..
http://leanblitz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/gamesigns.jpg
“Note Mr. Blue Jeans. Those 2 fingers are telling us something….. “MIT is throwing you a climate curve ball.” ”
That’s funny, Janice! 🙂
Aw, TA, thanks. (and I thanked you on that other thread, too 🙂 )
Just awesome! What’s the tuition for this clown show? About 95% of that wheel should say plus or minus no real idea!
Thanks, Janice–that’s a hoot! The thing that strikes me about this is the apparent seriousness with which they present this wheel. The proportions shown have no more rigor than “expert opinion”. I could randomly size those wedges and nobody would be the wiser.
A statistician with real-world experience in estimating wrote: “If someone says the chance of X happening is 71.3%, we know that the three and the one are certainly spurious, and for that matter, the seven is probably spurious, as well.”
Well, at least the .3 has a 10% chance of being correct. The 71, not so much
The sound of screeching gravy train brakes.
” I love the smell of gravy train brakes in the morning. It smells like …. objective reality!”
Well said, very well said indeed! I can just fully second Prof Lindzen.
Professor Lindzen is a very brave man, and one day he will be acknowledged for his principled stand against false testimony, vested interests and academic fraud. Thank you for standing up to the attempted assassination of your character by your erstwhile colleagues. We salute you!
Many others share your views but are forced to remain silent because their institutions and faculties are funded by climate-alarmism money. These captive academics are held hostage by those mandarins and masters that control their livelihoods, their positions and salaries, their homes and their families.
May they draw inspiration and hope from your example, and be brave enough to sign your petition to the President of the United States to encourage him to look anew at the tyranny than has been visited upon the world by the United Nations and its network of oppressive agencies.
That is the best summary I have seen of the real motivation behind these parasites and the reason genuine scientists can’t get a word in edgewise.
Would it be possible to redirect the grant money to find proof that there will not be a climate catastrophe?
If MIT wants to make its case, it should do so in a face-to-face, or at least digital point / counterpoint, exchange with Linden and his team.
It’s always easy for warmists to sway a layman in the climate debate with tons of evidence, so-called. But the problem with that is that the layman can’t know what his would-be persuader has left out, as Scott Adams pointed out recently. Only an opponent can point out the omissions, half-truths, and contestable points in the warmists’ presentation.
If MIT were acting in good faith, it would have stated its willingness to engage in a protracted and detailed debate, moderated by an independent and respectable panel of scientists, and “called out” Linden to agree. Lindzen should now respond with such a call-out.
PS: An example of warmists baffling their targets with BS is the way they convinced GOP bigwigs like former secretaries of state Baker and Schulz to get on board with their carbon tax proposal.
The formal, all-aspects, long-running, moderated debate I propose should have occurred ten years ago. There should be a “science court” (not one part of the legal system) (Google for it) that would hear such debates, and allow cross-examination, and re-hear such debates every so often if necessary.
It doesn’t take much in the way of convincing to convince most politicians to support another tax.
A few million $$ in re-election contributions does wonders to convince politicians. Easily raised (diverted) from the 100’s of millions in federal grants for climate research. And since the universities typically skim about 50% off the top of the federal grants for “administrative overhead”, they are more than willing to lend their name to keeping the gravy train flowing.
The carbon tax proponents on the GOP side are supported by the nuclear power industry which needs a “price” on carbon to justify project financing in regulated markets for new plants. They offset the reduction in carbon “cost” to get funding streams rolled into regulated consumer prices.
@fredberple 11:34
“… universities typically skim about 50% off the top …”
I’ll try to help out here for those that may be unfamiliar with (some) university research.
What is done: The researchers are usually responding to a Request For Proposal (RFP) from a government agency. The researcher or group responds and includes a budget. They do not concern themselves with the cost to the university. Such costs are negotiated by accountants for both the universities and the funding agencies. The results will vary depending on the type of research and may be expressed as a percentage of total salaries.
The value returned by this calculation will be added on to the budget rather than being skimmed from the money needed for the research.
It does cost to light, A/C, heat, manage, and so on. Everyone accepts these expenses are legitimate.
@roger K: Totally agree Roger. And, as I have said before here at WUWT, the Trump admin and the skeptics need to go on the offence against the alarmists by demanding answers to questions they can’t answer and asking for scientific evidence and literature the alarmists can’t produce.
I am a layman here, not a scientist. But from what I understand, some of the science the alarmists might be stumped on would include empirical data and scientific literature that suggests the current warming is unusually fast compared to millions and billions of years ago or even compared to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They also should be asked to produce the scientific evidence (empirical data, literature) which shows conclusively that we humans have a significant imprint on that warming which is a cause for concern—no models allowed.
If the temperature adjustments at NOAA cannot be scientifically justified, that needs to come out as well. Put a skeptic in charge of it and have an audit done on NOAA’s procedures and data. Just cutting the CAGW gravy train and expecting it to die out as a result may not be enough—as much as I wish it could be.
Governments don´t fund skeptics.
I support your idea, NOAA procedures and data handling should really be exposed to a rigorous and truly independent audit. There is nothing to loose on that, those who are sure that NOAA will pass an audit have nothing to fear. A problem might be that an audit should be performed with reference to a set of standards. Unfortunately, I don´t think there is a clear scientific standard to audit NOAA by. I would suggest this set of scientific principles as a starter.
Lindzen’s letter to POTUS is clearly much stronger that MIT’s follow-up to POTUS. Lindzen trumped MIT from the start.
Maybe Trump will follow the money and find out the motivation of MIT’s response. Could be a good place for a few trimmings on the budget. Got a number of signatories that could be evaluated.
Glad to see Happer’s name on that list, again.
Dr. Lindzen rules!
This is how the climate war will be won. Facts, logic and real science.
And heroes like Lindzen, Watts, Koutsoyannis, Drapela, Salby, Soon, Monckton, Spencer, Curry, McIntyre, Carter, Lewis, and many, many, more…..,
i.e., the good {people} who {did SOMETHING}.
It would be a somewhat normal way if that were true Scarface, with respect. This one though, since scientists didn’t police their own, is going to be won by Donald Trump and – You’re Fired.
It got to the point where this was the only way. Well done voters.
Actually, “facts, logic and real science” haven’t played a major part in public policy until now, and there is little reason to suppose that they will achieve pre-eminence in the future. Some people are more adept than others, but no-one has a good understanding of how the climate works — certainly not to the extent that meaningful, accurate predictions can be reliably made (outside the short term).
If the climate suddenly starts warming again the Warmists will be reinvigorated, screaming through a compliant MSM that we are all doomed unless heaps of money are spent on their pet projects. A proved anthropogenic cause? You won’t need it: it will be assumed, and the panic-merchants will carry the day.
The ONLY thing that will give victory to the sceptics is a prolonged pause (or, better yet, cooling trend) that cannot be denied, fudged or explained away. The general public is disinclined to think and not very bright, but people will not be receptive to a message of thermal Armageddon when their genitalia are freezing off.
Rewind — a great debate on the topic held as part of the MIT Reunion Weekend in June 1990
If I remember the arrangement correctly:
On the Left side of the stage Red Light and Palm Trees — Stephen Schneider
On the Right side of the stage Blue light and Fir Trees — Richard Lindzen
Those were the days when superficially at least MIT played straight down the middle on Climate Issues. A very intellectually – strong and gentlemanly debate — but in my opinion it was no contest — Lindzen beat Schneider on facts and logic hands down
Note that at that time there was not a whole lot of money in climate science and as Dick characterized the state of things in our discussion after the event — Climate Science was the intellectual backwater of all of the earth sciences — the sharp folks went into Meteorology.
That is when I told Dick that his trust in the ocean temperature record was misplaced, as I’d done some digging in connection with a totally different matter, but which needed data from the sea surface data record on a global scale. I I came to the conclusion that circa 1990 — All of the sea surface and near subsurface data had systematic errors of various kinds. He said that as a theorist — he just had to trust the reliability of the experimental data while he was skeptical of the models.
“That is when I told Dick that his trust in the ocean temperature record was misplaced”
Note that in the decades before the advent of the significant coverage of the oceans by the buoy networks, the ocean temperature data was acquired in the main by ship’s engine room water inlet temperature data.
Ship’s engine cooling water inlet temperature data is acquired from the engine room cooling inlet temperature gauges by the engineers at their convenience.
There is no standard for either the location of the inlets with regard especially to depth below the surface, the position in the pipework of the measuring instruments or the time of day the reading is taken.
The instruments themselves are of industrial quality, their limit of error in °C per DIN EN 13190 is ±2 deg C. for a class 2 instrument or sometimes even ±4 deg. C, as can be seen in the tables here: DS_IN0007_GB_1334.pdf . After installation it is exceptionally unlikely that they are ever checked for calibration.
It is not clear how such readings can be compared with the readings from buoy instruments specified to a limit of error of tenths or even hundreds of a degree C. or why they are considered to have any value whatsoever for the purposes to which they are put, which is to produce historic trends apparently precise to 0.001 deg. C upon which spending of literally trillions of £/$/whatever are decided.
But hey, this is climate “science” we’re discussing so why would a little thing like that matter?
Waiting for the usual alarmist ad hominem attacks on the list of names at the end. Note to Alarmists: Don’t bother. We can look up slander and propaganda on desmogblog ourselves.
“By contrast, the benefits of increasing CO2 and modest warming are clearer than ever,”
I have a little problem with this phrase. If you didn’t know better, you would think human-caused CO2 was causing “modest warming”. But there is no evidence that humans are causing a net increase in the Earth’s atmospheric temperatures, even though theory says it might. There may be NO net increase.
So linking CO2 plant food with “increased warming” is not a good idea. You are in effect saying CO2 is increasing the heat in the atmosphere when you couldn’t prove that if your life depended on it.
It is an inaccurate statement if the “modest warming” is meant to be connected to CO2. We should be as precise in our language as we can manage. No sense in conceding points to the alarmists when we don’t have to.
For the earth as a whole, increased temperatures may be negligible, but in urban areas, where most people live, the effects of warming from waste heat can be significant- not that that’s bad- who wants a shutdown from a large snowstorm?
+1
Richard Lindzen also called them out on their “conflict of interest”.
Last paragraph “Petion” should be Petition.
It can be added that United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is established by United Nations to support United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCC:
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IPCC WORK
1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as the IPCC or, synonymously, the Panel) shall concentrate its activities on the tasks allotted to it by the relevant WMO Executive Council and United Nations Environment Program Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process.