The #ExxonKnew hearing – court transcript in full

THE COURT: All right. I see your point there. But let me quiz you about that. You have started off with a large
number of blue dots. Right? Looks to me like a large number of blue dots. But the things that I’ve been reading say that the actual amount of carbon dioxide is trace elements. It’s like 400 parts per million. But the way you’ve got it diagrammed there, it looks like 10,000 parts per million. So is it — would that make it — in other words, if you started with just two dots there, and then you doubled it to four dots you would still see a lot of red.
DR. ALLEN: Your Honor is quite correct there. But, of course, even though it’s only 300 parts per million, that’s still an awful lot of molecules in a cubic meter of air, and crucially, a lot of molecules relative to the wavelength of infrared energy. So infrared, infrared radiation has a wavelength much, much longer than the size of these molecules. And so the actual sort of — the actual absolute number of molecules is not
important. It’s the opacity of the atmosphere in the infrared, which is entirely driven in this example by the amount of CO2 in it. Because the oxygen and nitrogen molecules, as far as the infrared radiation is concerned, might as well not be there, because they can’t interact with it.
THE COURT: What you’re saying is even if there were just a small number of dots, as the infrared comes off the Earth the wavelength is long, so much longer than the molecule — is that right, or something that —
DR. ALLEN: Yes.
THE COURT: — that even though it doesn’t hit it smack on, it just has to get close.
DR. ALLEN: Exactly.
THE COURT: Okay.
DR. ALLEN: So, in fact, it’s the scale of the radiation that actually sets the chance of it hitting a molecule
rather than the scale of the molecule itself. You know, the molecules are tiny. But the wavelengths we’re talking about of infrared radiation are of the order of, you know, 10 microns or so. So that sounds like a small number. But compared to a molecule it’s actually a huge number. So that’s why there’s very little chance of a photon of infrared radiation emitted from the surface actually making it all the way through the atmosphere to space. It’s around less than a sixth of a chance.
THE COURT: The point you made, the ones that are higher up are the ones that would emit radiation into space as opposed — but wouldn’t the ones that are further down, once they absorb, and then they re-radiate, wouldn’t it progressively go up and still go out into space? Or is there some sort of diminishing returns problem?
DR. ALLEN: Oh, the atmosphere is being heated from below, for sure. But the crucial point which determines the net rate at which the planet as a whole can radiate energy to space is determined by the temperature of the molecules from which photons finally escape all the way out into space. It’s that sort of last emission that matters, because photons are bouncing around in the atmosphere all the time. But it’s the ones that make it out into space that determine the rate of energy lost to space by the planet as a whole. And so by adding more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we thicken this sort of foggy blanket of greenhouse gases around
the planet. We force the planet to emit from a higher altitude, and, therefore, we reduce the rate at which the planet is shedding energy to space.
THE COURT: How would that affect what you showed me about what Tyndall said about what you said was the logarithmic relationship? How would it affect that?
DR. ALLEN: Let me show you what happens next. So we now have an imbalance. One of the crucial insights of Fourier and Tyndall was that carbon dioxide does not interact with solar radiation. In fact, the Court asked:
“Does carbon dioxide reflect solar radiation?” The answer is: “It doesn’t, and/or to a negligible
degree.” And, therefore, this increase in carbon dioxide has no impact on the amount of energy received from the sun. So no additional energy is reflected away because of the increase in carbon dioxide.
And, therefore, as a result, there’s an imbalance now between the incoming energy from the sun and the outgoing energy to space, because the outgoing energy to space has been reduced as a result of the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Because of that imbalance, the Earth has to warm up
because it’s accumulating energy at the surface and in the lower atmosphere. And that’s shown here by the warming, more red colors appearing. And it has to keep warming until the color in the lower left — in the lower right is the same color as it was before, until it’s releasing energy to space at the same rate
that it was before. Again, thinking back to the home insulation example, if you put more loft insulation — if you put more insulation in your loft, then if you look at the house with the camera from outside it looks — you see a bluer color because it’s losing energy at a slower rate. If you leave the heating on at the same rate, the house gets warmer, and the house will keep getting warmer until it’s losing energy at the same rate. You might wind up uncomfortably hot. So that’s how the analogy — it’s not a bad one. It’s not a great analogy, but it makes the point. So this is why we get to this point about the logarithmic relationship. Suppose now after the warming I double carbon dioxide concentrations again. You’ll notice that it has the same impact as the first doubling on the reduction in radiation into space. Because of the way temperatures fall off with height
and the density of carbon dioxide molecules falls off with height, every doubling of carbon dioxide has the same impact as the last on outgoing energy into space. So that’s, in essence —
THE COURT: Okay. Say that last sentence again.
“Every” —
DR. ALLEN: Every doubling of carbon dioxide has roughly the same impact on the reduction of energy released to space as the last.
THE COURT: Well, give me a numerical example so that I can see that.
DR. ALLEN: So the first doubling might reduce outgoing radiation to space by 3.7 watts per square — let’s say 4 watts per square meter, for sake of the small number. The second doubling, even though it requires twice as much additional carbon in the atmosphere to do it, would reduce outgoing radiation into space by an additional 4 watts per square meter. And third doubling, which would require even more carbon, would also reduce radiation to space by 4 watts per square meter. So the reduction in energy to space goes up four,
eight, twelve, while the amount of carbon in the atmosphere goes up two, four, eight, sixteen.
THE COURT: Okay. I see what you’re saying. I think I see what you’re saying. All right.
DR. ALLEN: Crucially — so this is the point here about if we compare that reduction with the impact of the first
doubling, we see the same reduction in energy. Crucially, you don’t need to take my word for it. I do
appreciate you’re taking the time to understand this, this element of the basic physics. But we have seen this effect happening in observations made of the planet from space. In a truly impressive sequence, series of observations, NASA flew an interferometer on the Nimbus 4 spacecraft in 1970. And a very similar instrument was flown by a Japanese satellite in 1997. And by comparing these two spectra, by comparing the
outgoing infrared radiation measured by these two satellites 27 years apart, John Harries, and his co-workers, in 2001 was able to identify the reduction in outgoing energy resulting from the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases over the intervening 27 years. So we’ve observed this effect that was predicted by Svante Arrhenius almost a hundred years earlier, we’ve observed it directly in satellite observations made of the planet as a whole.
THE COURT: Could you explain that graph?
DR. ALLEN: The graph at the bottom shows the spectrum of outgoing radiation. If you look very closely you can see there are two. The difference between the two spectra’s very small. This is a very fine and precise observation. It was only possible because of the extraordinary precision of those NASA engineers building that interferometer back in the late 1960’s. But we can actually see the reduction in outgoing
energy to space, the change in the spectrum in outgoing energy to space that we would expect because of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
THE COURT: I still don’t get it. Is one of these — is there a 1997 line?
DR. ALLEN: There’s two lines there. One of the lines is 1970. The other line is 1997.
THE COURT: Are you sure? On mine it says “IMG” and “IRIS.”
DR. ALLEN: Sorry. Yes. Yes. So the IRIS instrument was flown in 1970. The IMG instrument was flown in 1997. So they are 27 years apart.
THE COURT: But I don’t see any — they are so close together some people would say there’s no difference. Where is the difference that you’re pointing out?
DR. ALLEN: Well, the difference — so I could — I could give the Court a more detailed zoom-in on the figure from the Harries, et al paper. And I’d be happy to do so. I was just showing this spectrum as an illustration.
But there if you — if you look carefully, as John Harries and co-workers did, at these two spectra, and also
account for the various changes that have happened over the intervening 27 year periods, you can see directly the reduction in outgoing energy due to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and in precisely the wavelengths you would expect to. You would expect to find that.
THE COURT: Which part of the wavelength is infrared?
DR. ALLEN: The infrared spectrum is — this is — by the way, this is the near infrared. This is only part of the
infrared spectrum because it wasn’t possible to measure the full infrared spectrum with the interferometers they were able to fly in 1970. But it shows for the wavelengths that they could observe the reduction expected due to the increase in greenhouse gases. So the crucial point here is that we don’t just have a
theory that rising CO2 opaques the outgoing spectrum of radiation, but we have direct observations from space of that theory.
THE COURT: I have to take your word for it because this diagram, to me it looks like it was very — the only place I see a reduction is on 1300. It looks to me like there there is a reduction but —
DR. ALLEN: Okay. I would —
THE COURT: My eyesight gone bad or what?
DR. ALLEN: Okay. I would happily — there is a — I would happily furnish the breakdown which they give in their paper. I just put the spectrum in because —
THE COURT: You are the one that came up with the chart, and I just don’t think your chart demonstrates what you’re telling me. And I take your word for it that that’s what they concluded. Okay. Good. I accept that point. But this chart doesn’t convincingly show it.
DR. ALLEN: I’m sorry. I’m having to sort of take figures from scientific papers and sort of show illustrations of
what we’ve done. And you are absolutely right. This doesn’t, in itself, demonstrate the answer. And there are further diagrams in the paper which I could —
THE COURT: Forget the chart for a minute. When they did these satellite comparisons over the 27-year difference, what did they measure was the infrared reduction being emitted off the Earth in that twenty — what was the reduction? Was it 10 percent, a hundred percent? What order of magnitude?
DR. ALLEN: In the wavelengths — in the wavelengths that were being affected, I mean I’d have to get the numbers. But they were seeing over that period — a useful way of thinking of it is in terms of the equivalent temperature of those molecules. That’s a useful unit to use. They were seeing a reduction of several degrees in the equivalent temperature of the molecules they were observing at those particular wavelengths.
So it was a substantial change relative to the sort of warming we talk about in terms of — so they were seeing a substantial reduction in the wavelengths that are affected by these particular gases.
THE COURT: Okay.
DR. ALLEN: And, crucially, it was the reduction of the size and in the frequencies that we would have expected to see that reduction as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases. So we’ve observed this effect directly from space monitorings.
THE COURT: All right. So you jumped from Tyndall to the space satellite, but there must be something in-between. I’m interested in the history, too.
DR. ALLEN: Yes. I’m just coming back to the history. So I was also going to stress that the models we use
for weather forecasting incorporate this basic physics of how carbon dioxide and other constituents of the atmosphere interact with infrared radiation. And these are tested millions of times per day in performing the weather forecasts. But to get back to the physics, Gilbert Plass, in 1955, during the sort of early part of the 20th century, he noted that there had been some criticism of this CO2 theory, because people
had observed — other scientists had observed that water vapour also absorbed strongly in the infrared wavelengths that were absorbed by carbon dioxide. So in his paper in 1955, Gilbert Plass noted correctly
that at the altitudes in the regions and also in the wavelengths that matter for carbon dioxide, the air was relatively dry because they were above the moist lower atmosphere, and therefore carbon dioxide was the dominant greenhouse gas. So even though people had noticed the water vapour absorbed strongly at the surface, as those diagrams illustrating the outgoing radiation to space actually emanates from further up
in the atmosphere above the moist lower troposphere above the moist region near the surface where water vapor is less important. It’s still an important greenhouse gas, but carbon dioxide plays a big role because the radiation is emerging from these dry regions of the atmosphere where water vapor doesn’t get in the way.
THE COURT: So okay. I’ll save my questions. Go ahead.
DR. ALLEN: Near the surface — I mean, near the surface, so in the conditions in this room the main absorber will be water vapor because, you know, the surface, you know, is warm. It can hold a lot of water.
And so because of the enormous amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, the actual amount of attenuation by CO2 between one side of this room and the other would be less than the attenuation by water vapor.
However, Gilbert Plass’ crucial insight was it doesn’t matter what is happening in this room. What matters is what is happening at the emission level, at the level at which the planet is actually radiating energy to space.
And at those altitudes, because we’re higher up in the atmosphere and the air is colder, it can now hold less water. The air is dryer and CO2 plays a dominant role.
THE COURT: Is CO2 lighter than oxygen and nitrogen, or does that even matter, the relative weights?
DR. ALLEN: A CO2 molecule is heavier than nitrogen and oxygen, but it is — that doesn’t affect the fact that it is well-mixed through the atmosphere. The individual molecular weights only matter when you get right up into the fringes of the —
THE COURT: So the concentrations 10 feet above the Earth are about the same as at 10 miles above the Earth?
DR. ALLEN: In CO2, yes. But in water vapor absolutely not.
THE COURT: Right. Okay.
DR. ALLEN: Because water vapor, as we know, as soon as the air cools, condenses and so on. So there’s much less water vapor around as you go up through the atmosphere.
THE COURT: So Gilbert Plass, his point again was what?
DR. ALLEN: Oh, his point was he picked up Arrhenius’ work. He noted that over the intervening decades Arrhenius’ work had been criticized by people observing strong absorption by water vapor. And he then made the point, yes, there is strong absorption by water vapor at the surface, but at the altitudes
that matter for the planet’s energy budget, CO2 is still the dominant greenhouse gas. So he — I mean, it’s interesting. It’s been very interesting for me as going back over these papers, one tends to
find the papers which are right, because they survive. And so it’s only in the sort of asides in these papers
that you learn about the papers that were wrong. And so evidently there were a bunch of papers published
in the 1930S’s, or so, sort of poo-pooing the carbon dioxide theory, because there were a lot of them that were talking about water vapor. And so Gilbert Plass was pointing out yes, that absorption happens at the surface, but it doesn’t — it’s not happening at the rate to interfere with CO2 at the altitudes that matter for the energy lost to space.
THE COURT: Okay.
DR. ALLEN: So coming home from this, Plass also emphasized the need — having sort of reidentifying carbon dioxide as a very important greenhouse gas. I sense you checking the time, but don’t worry. That
was the longest component of my talk.
THE COURT: I’m absorbed by this, but I want you to know that I am going to keep a clock on both sides.
DR. ALLEN: I do appreciate the constraint, and I will do my best. So — and so but the next — but the question was still open in the 1950’s, up to the 1950’s: How much fossil fuel emissions were likely to affect the global atmosphere? One thing which people had noticed was that there was 40 times more carbon in the oceans than in our total fossil fuel reserves, even if you burnt the lot. And so that might have made you think, well, you know, if we release all this carbon, it would just get diluted by the oceans, and it wouldn’t really make very much difference in the long run. Roger Revelle, in 1957, made the crucial observation that some simple high school chemistry, sort of buffer chemistry, limits the amount of carbon dioxide that the ocean can take up. Carbon dioxide — well, carbon exists in the ocean in three forms. If we — if you’ll bear with me and we ignore biology for the time being. The three forms are dissolved carbon dioxide, the hydrogen carbonate ion, HCO3- and the carbonate ion.
THE COURT: Say the last one again?
DR. ALLEN: The hydrogen carbonate ion, HCO3-, single minus, and the carbonate ion, C032 ions.
Every molecule of carbon dioxide that dissolves into the ocean, requires the conversion of a carbonate ion to a hydrogen carbonate ion in order to preserve charge. It’s a simple — the operation of a buffer, the kind of
things that one uses at school to maintain a constant pH. It’s a good thing this is happening, because otherwise the oceans would have acidified much more than they have done as a result of the solution of carbon dioxide into the oceans. But what it does mean is it’s that store of carbonates in the oceans that actually determines the capacity of the oceans to take up CO2 from the atmosphere. And only 10 percent of the carbon in the oceans is in the form of carbonate. So Revelle’s insight was that actually the oceans were
ten times smaller than you might think as a carbon pool. And that, therefore, we couldn’t count on the oceans to simply dilute away all the carbon we have been releasing from fossil fuels.
THE COURT: Is it true that Revelle initially thought that the oceans would absorb all of the excess, and that he came to this buffer theory a little later around 1957?
DR. ALLEN: You may know more of the history of this than I do in that case. I’m aware, as I say — I read the right papers. I read the final papers, so to speak. So this is the paper. Actually, I suspect it probably was the case in the sense that he was thinking about the problem.
THE COURT: He was an oceanographer. Right?
DR. ALLEN: He was an oceanographer. He was thinking about the problem.
THE COURT: Scripps.
DR. ALLEN: Exactly. He was at Scripps. And in the process of thinking about the problem he came to this crucial insight. And it was a good insight at the time. Up until that time, you know, the community, they
weren’t sure how long it would take for the carbon to be taken up by the oceans. But the community were just aware there was this vast carbon store in the oceans. And, therefore, there was some
doubt in the community as to whether fossil fuel emissions would actually make any difference.
So having made this observation, Roger Revelle, he emphasized — and I think he used the phrase:
“We’re conducting geophysical experiments.” And he emphasized the importance of measuring CO2 in the atmosphere to see if it was actually going up. Which brings us to the next crucial step in our story.
Charles David Keeling, also at Scripps, measured — started measuring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, very precisely in the late 1950’S. And he saw the famous Keeling Curve, this annual cycle of carbon dioxide resulting from the, in effect, the respiration of the northern hemisphere. And — but on top of that, a steady increase which could you not account for by respiration. The Court asked essentially about what happens to carbon dioxide breathed in by humans and, indeed, by animal life
and so forth. That does play a role in determining this annual cycle. So the annual cycle shows the sort of annual growth and the annual growth and decay of forests in the northern hemisphere taking up and releasing carbon. But it cannot account for the upward trend. And, in fact, we’re seeing carbon dioxide levels rising to levels that have not been seen for over 20 million years. They are now past — well past 400 parts per million, around 410 parts per million. THE COURT: Keep that chart there.
DR. ALLEN: This —
THE COURT: Explain the ones you have on the screen, please. DR. ALLEN: Yes. So this chart shows the combination of David Keeling’s observations in blue on the right, and ice core measurements of carbon dioxide going back over much longer period, back to zero on the left. So those two different time scales here, the left-hand panel has almost ten times longer time scale. And because, of course, we can measure carbon dioxide contained in bubbles in ice very precisely back over many thousands of years, and we see that carbon dioxide concentrations have been relatively constant throughout the Holocene period.
THE COURT: This is — that’s like a 2000 year?
DR. ALLEN: Two thousand year record. Almost no change. In fact, I could take that record a few thousand years beyond that, it would also be flat.
THE COURT: You said 20 million at the top, but it’s really only 2000. Is that right or am I —
DR. ALLEN: Yes. I’ve got another figure addressing that in a minute.
THE COURT: But let’s pause on this one. Let’s see. It starts down at 280. I can’t read that.
DR. ALLEN: The preindustrial concentration’s around 280 parts per million, and we are now at 400, 410.
THE COURT: All right. So that is — that’s not a doubling, but what is that?
DR. ALLEN: Well, we’re about in the units we need to use, which are, of course, logarithmic, we are just over halfway to doubling.
THE COURT: Say that again about logarithmic?
DR. ALLEN: Sorry. But you remember our discussion earlier about the fact that —
THE COURT: I do, but —
DR. ALLEN: So because there’s a curve — in fact, there was a paper my colleague just pointed this out. We crossed the halfway mark to doubling last year.
THE COURT: But when Arrhenius said “doubling,” he wasn’t talking logarithmic, was he? Or is that something you’ve added to it?
DR. ALLEN: No, he was — I mean, the point about the logarithmic relationship is the fact that every doubling —
THE COURT: Did he use the word “logarithmic”?
No.
DR. ALLEN: Yes.
THE COURT: No.
DR. ALLEN: Logarithmic? Well, he was writing —
THE COURT: Did he use — in his paper did he use the word “logarithmic”?
DR. ALLEN: I’m not sure. He was writing — THE COURT: Arrhenius, I’m talking about.
DR. ALLEN: Yes. No. He talked about the logarithm of carbon dioxide. He talked about the fact that —
THE COURT: No. No. That doubling thing.
DR. ALLEN: Yes.
THE COURT: Did he say that would be a logarithmic function?
DR. ALLEN: Well, it is a logarithmic function. If we go back to that quote —
THE COURT: No. I’m asking: Did he say that?
DR. ALLEN: Whether he used the word “logarithmic” in his paper, I mean, I don’t know.
THE COURT: Okay. Don’t answer. It’s okay. But I don’t want you reading modern day politics into this. I’d just
like to know did he say it was a logarithmic relationship?
DR. ALLEN: So whether said — whether he used the word “logarithmic,” mathematically, if he said something equivalent, mathematician wouldn’t care what word he used.
THE COURT: Yes, but the two examples he gave are not necessarily — it could also be linear.
DR. ALLEN: Yes.
THE COURT: The doubling and quadruple thing.
DR. ALLEN: Yes. Yes.
THE COURT: If you look at those, that part if it’s both linear and logarithmic.
DR. ALLEN: If a double — if a doubling has the same impact as the last doubling, then it’s logarithmic. If a
doubling — if the second doubling has twice as much impact as the first doubling, then it’s linear.
THE COURT: Okay. I’m not sure I agree with that.
DR. ALLEN: Can I use the board?
THE COURT: Well, first go back to — if we are going to argue about this, go back to the very first chart where you quoted him.
DR. ALLEN: Arrhenius.
THE COURT: I want to see the Arrhenius chart. Here we go. Right there. So he says any — so 2X
equals 4C. Right?
DR. ALLEN: Yes.
THE COURT: And 4X equals 8C. All right? So I readily agree that that would fit a logarithmic, but for just two data points which is all we got here. Doesn’t it also fit a linear function?
DR. ALLEN: You also have the third data point, which is preindustrial equals 0C. So 1X equals 0C. So there are three data points, because if you have no increase in carbon dioxide, then you have no warming.
So that’s why there are three points.
THE COURT: Wait. So you’re saying 0X. All right. Let’s say 0X would equal —
DR. ALLEN: 1X. 1X. 1X equals 0C, meaning same as preindustrial.
THE COURT: All right. So I have to think about whether or not that’s right. But I’ll that your word for it that
that is a logarithmic. Okay. All right. I’m using up your time with my dumb
questions. Okay. Go ahead.
DR. ALLEN: Okay. So where do we go to. Keeling and what’s happened to carbon dioxide. So confirmation that this carbon dioxide was being created by combustion and not, for example, just being released by the oceans because of the warming was provided by some observations by Ralph Keeling, also Scripps,
Charles Keeling’s son, who showed that oxygen concentration in the atmosphere was falling at the same rate that CO2 concentration was rising, because, of course, to create a molecule of CO2, you need a molecule of oxygen, if you are creating that CO2 by burning carbon. So that confirmed that this increase in CO2 in the atmosphere was being — was caused by burning something, if there was any remaining doubt about that question. We could also see from the lower panel here the isotopic signature. That’s the ratio of carbon 13. Carbon 13 means it’s a form of carbon which has 13 nucleons rather than the normal 12.
That isotope of carbon was declining again at precisely the rate we would expect if this additional CO2 in the atmosphere was appearing there because of combustion.
THE COURT: I haven’t — explain this upward chart here that has the green line going —
DR. ALLEN: The green line going up is this CO2.
THE COURT: I got that. What is the blue line then?
DR. ALLEN: The blue line are observations of the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere. Now, oxygen is almost 29 percent of the atmosphere . . .

#KeithBriffaKnew

The first disquieting note, the first thing that causes the novice to this to frown with unease or hang his mouth open with alarm, and the experienced skeptic to laugh bitterly, comes ten mails in, text document 0842992948. Two scientists – one cajoling the other to try to wring more from his data than the latter thinks it warrants, to try to turn some mildly interesting samples into a reconstruction of past climate – share a joke about a third who appears to have been notoriously fastidious about jumping to conclusions: ‘Are you not being (in the time honoured Don Graybill fashion) too demanding of the response function results when you say deriving a transfer function is not justified? We all strive for perfection but does it exist? Seriously, it would be easier as regards publication policy to get the Editor to accept a reconstruction…’
Keith Briffa to one Gary Funkhouser. Funkhouser laughs but declines the suggestion:

http://michaelkelly.artofeurope.com/cru.htm

Much went wrong here! Mention was made of Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” where he showed separated temperature and CO2 readings. What was missing? The fact that if you placed each over their respective years, it would be clearly obvious that both rising and falling CO2 trailed temperature increases and decreases. The clear conclusion would be that it was temperature that drove CO2 up or down – not CO2 forcing temperature. Makes sense that a warming ocean would eventually drive dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere, and the slowing molecular motion of a cooling ocean would provide room to absorb CO2, but the ocean would have to cool first,
The perfidy of Gore’s charts is that he separated the two, so that one could not see how temperature was the prime mover of CO2, and not the other way around.
The other completely missed point was that tide gauges all over the world – without exception, have shown sea-level changes at a straight-line linear direction. Where land was subsiding, the rise shown was more severe, but still linear in direction. Where land experienced uplift, the tide gauge showed local sea-level to be falling, and in a linear direction. Where the shore was tectonically inert – neither rising or falling, sea-level increased between 1 to 1.4 millimeters per year – no more, and straight-line linear too, for over a century. Since 1880, CO2 has accelerated massively (39% as of today), and since the 1960s, at an exponential (quadratic) rate. Sea-level in tectonically inert areas have shown NO signal whatsoever of any change in their straight-line linear progress. Even in areas of heavy subsidence, such as coastal Virginia, the tide-gauge readings do not show ANY recent or historical acceleration when juxtaposed against the severe acceleration of CO2. The same is true for San Francisco, New York, Boston, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
These points should have been made and driven home by the defendants. The point that the plaintiffs hypocritically (and accurately) declared the unknowns in bond offerings was well taken, but missed the climate mark entirely!
Some of this is available on a 2017 New Hampshire TV broadcast here:
http://www.hudsonctv.com/Cablecast/Public/Show.aspx?ChannelID=1&ShowID=6880

I read the whole thing, and it was interesting. I feel the “scientists” took it as a science lesson, whereas the lawyers were very much treating it as a trial by proxy. It was good that the judge took so much interest and asked lots of questions. I’m surprised that no one seemed to know about the Ring of Fire as a general knowledge topic though, and that the definition of RCP had to be repeated several times throughout. I also felt the Chevron lawyer could have done a better job in that he used the unknowns in the IPCC report as a defence, rather than focusing more on knowns as above commenters have mentioned (tide gauges etc). It did feel a little like a cop out, but Chevron couldn’t very well say hey look at this science when they’d be accused of fabricating results as part of Big Oil. Overall, very interesting proceedings.

I thought one of the more telling sections, to my untrained layman’s eye, pages 126 -129 wherein the demand for energy world-wide but especially India, China & USA appeared to blame the burning of coal.
Could some-one tell me just where does this fit with blaming the oil companies?
“Yes. And it really goes to the global
nature of this. Their economy has been expanding. That leads to
more activities. That creates a demand for more energy. They
are burning coal, more coal than the U.S.
The U.S. has been using other sources of energy:
Natural gas. That has been one of the contributing factors to
the levels you see comparing the United States and China”

THE CASE
Judge Alsup knows the plaintiff and defendant equally desire consumers should pay more for the defendant’s products. Both openly advocate for carbon taxes, carbon trading and renewable energy levies to fund subsidies and grants etc.
Judge Alsup could have invited ‘sceptical science’ to join the tutorial. Happer, Koonin & Lindzen submitted a detailed amicus curiae brief and offered to participate in the tutorial.
Alsup clearly did not want tutorial data presented that may contradict data presented by the plaintiff or defendant.
The plaintiff’s case is improper.
Only three options were available to it:
1. In a court, seek injunctive relief to halt the sale of the defendant’s products in Cal.
2. By regulation, ban the sale of the defendant’s products in Cal.
3. By regulation, impose a nuisance levy on the defendant’s products in Cal.
Judge Alsup will dismiss the case upon commencement.
This is a Nuisance case (Cal. Civ. Code § 3479).
To prove loss or damage (loss under nuisance can be interference with a right), the plaintiff must plead the existence of a duty and causation.
The plantiff must, by expert witness, show an event causing loss or damage was caused by the defendant.
The event can only be an event occurring between 19xa and 19xb.
19xa is the date on which the defendant was made aware (or became aware) by a ‘qualified’ scientist that the combustion of their hydrocarbon products may cause a nuisance.
19xb is the date on which the plaintiff was made aware (or became aware) by a ‘qualified’ scientist that the combustion of the defendant’s products may cause a nuisance.
Any reasonable person would expect the University of Cal (University of Cal, Berkeley; Cal State University; Cal University of Pennsylvania) would advised the State of any risk of nuisance from the combustion of hydrocarbons given UC was involved in AGW research from its earliest days.
At 19xb, the plaintiff had but three options (set out above) which it failed to exercise.
Judge Alsup will likely dismiss this case based on the defendant’s dismissal motions.
There are three further grounds for dismissal:
1. Invalidity by The Statute of Limitations (19xb).
2. The plaintiff was aware of the nuisance risk prior to the defendant or at a date so close as to make the assessment of a quantum of damages impossible.
3. The defendant is fractionally responsible for any nuisance and the plaintiff is unable to separate the defendant’s emissions from Worldwide CO2 emissions from coal and hydrocarbon combustion.