Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Bureaucracies are ideal environments for groupthink because it is critical for them to eliminate any notion that they are unnecessary or that the problems might have a resolution. You control the story by any means necessary.
Those involved in fighting the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) deception from the start, are all too familiar with the signs of groupthink that I identified in an earlier article. It was even more important in this case because, as the leaked Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails indicate, they knew it was a false message. Indeed, the fact that the emails were so damaging is strong evidence.
A role of some members of the group is to act as “Mindguards,” those “who act as self-appointed censors to hide problematic information from the group.” It appears, we have a case of one of the Mindguards still operating. The question is why?
Recently, an event occurred that on the surface seemed innocuous. It reminded me that even though CRU and its denizens were exposed for corrupting climate science, many of them escaped and scattered to plum jobs groupthink continues., some continue the battle. One of the people heavily involved almost from the start was Gavin Schmidt. He later gained employment with NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA GISS) where he appears to pursue the same activities of defending a false message. Recently it was reported that Schmidt sent the following Twitter message.
“This reminds me of a point made before (but not recently I think): the claim that the Jun 23rd 1988 Hansen testimony was deliberately scheduled for the climatologically hottest day of the year was (and is) wrong.”
The problem for Gavin is that the person who arranged the hearing explained what he did. Senator Timothy Wirth was interviewed on PBS Frontline, hardly a Koch Brothers sponsored network and responded to questions as follows.
“How did you know about Jim Hansen?
… I don’t remember exactly where the data came from, but we knew there was this scientist at NASA who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify. Now, this is a tough thing for a scientist to do when you’re going to make such an outspoken statement as this and you’re (sic) part of the federal bureaucracy. Jim Hansen has always been a very brave and outspoken individual.”
What else was happening that summer? What was the weather like that summer?
Believe it or not, we called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6 or June 9 or whatever it was, so we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo: It was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it. It was stiflingly hot that summer. [At] the same time you had this drought all across the country, so the linkage between the Hansen hearing and the drought became very intense.
And did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?
… What we did it was went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right? So that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room and so when the, when the hearing occurred there was not only bliss, which is television cameras in double figures, but it was really hot. …
So Hansen’s giving this testimony, you’ve got these television cameras back there heating up the room, and the air conditioning in the room didn’t appear to work. So it was sort of a perfect collection of events that happened that day, with the wonderful Jim Hansen, who was wiping his brow at the witness table and giving this remarkable testimony. …
What is it about this that Schmidt doesn’t understand? Why is he claiming that it didn’t happen?
Some might say it’s because of the the recent WaPo article where Senator Wirth recants his former interview with PBS Frontline, which aired in 2007. Now 11 years later, he says he “made it up”, perhaps in response to blowback he’s gotten.
In my opinion, the answer to these questions appears to be in Schmidt’s role at the CRU. He was in groupthink classification a “Mindguard.” The group was increasingly annoyed at the questions and challenges they were getting as more people began to catch on to what they were doing. Schmidt proposed a counterattack.
The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds and give more context to climate related stories or events.
The word “working” was used frequently by the group to suggest all those who criticized them lacked currency and inside information and were obviously uninformed. It is another trait of groupthink.
We know from the emails that they had reliable mainstream media people directly communicating with them. For example, on July 23, 2009, Seth Borenstein, masquerading as a national science writer for the Associated Press wrote to them,
“Kevin, Gavin, Mike, It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?”
Another example was the unhealthy connection between Richard Black of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the CRU. As Michael Mann wrote,
…extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. Its (sic) particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black’s beat at BBC (and he does a great job).
We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what’s up here?
RealClimate is a reference to Schmidt’s counterattack solution driven by their siege mentality, and clearly, these media people could serve as conduits. On December 10, 2004, Schmidt reported:
Colleagues, No doubt some of you share our frustration with the current state of media reporting on the climate change issue. Far too often we see agenda-driven “commentary” on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis. Many of us work hard on educating the public and journalists through lectures, interviews and letters to the editor, but this is often a thankless task. In order to be a little bit more pro-active, a group of us (see below) have recently got together to build a new ‘climate blog’ website: RealClimate.org which will be launched over the next few days:
The group he referred to included Mike Mann, Eric Steig, William Connolley, Stefan Rahmstorf, Ray Bradley, Amy Clement, Rasmus Benestad and Caspar Ammann. They are familiar names to anyone who followed the saga of the leaked emails and the ongoing climate science debate. Evasiveness pervaded the behavior recorded in the CRU emails, and RealClimate (RC) continued to counterattack.
So, we know Schmidt carved out a role as Mindguard at CRU. Now it appears he is continuing the role at NASA GISS. Why would he bother to concern himself with the shenanigans in 1988? Why would he try to revise what happened? We know the group has a history of rewriting history including the paleoclimatic and secular record.
There appear to be a few incentives. One is that public concern is waning as this report notes,
A lot of work on climate change these days is trying to address what seems to be a major part of the problem; people don’t care all that much.
A survey by the Guardian newspaper of 18,000 people in 17 different countries found that,
Overall, climate change achieved a 12.8 percent share of concern, ranking behind only international terrorism and the threat of poverty as the most concerning issues globally.
However, doesn’t that mean that 87.2% are not concerned?
The second incentive is the Trump election. It is threatening to expose the entire fiasco and certainly is making more people look at what was involved. US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was followed by actions against the EPA and their involvement with the global warming issue. Pruitt began the process, but his replacement Wheeler is going to dig deeper and discover the entire story.
The third incentive is that the Green Climate Fund that replaced the Kyoto Protocol is failing. Virtually nobody is paying up, and the Executive Director Howard Bamsey resigned following a disastrous meeting in which no new projects were approved.
As more people reconstruct the entire AGW deception, they will undoubtedly find the Senator Wirth orchestration of the 1988 Senate hearing. The tone and details of the story are alarming and deeply disturbing to any normal outside person. What’s frightening is that Wirth appears to think that what he did was clever and well within the manipulations associated with Senate hearings. The truth is it is extreme even for that environment. Tell that story to the public, and you realize how damaging it is to the entire AGW story. I think that is why Schmidt wants to claim it never happened. On the face, this appears illogical because by mentioning it you run the risk of drawing attention. It was the type of risk the CRU group, with Schmidt’s active involvement as Mindguard, took for years. They thought as the creation of RealClimate confirms that by getting out in front of the story they could control it.
I think it is worth noting that, at its start, a politician was involved.
Politics and egos have ruled climate “science” ever since.
He couldn’t win “leader of the free world” so he decided the world didn’t deserve freedom and he would impose himself upon us anyway. Climate Weinstein.
Thank you. They think they can control the narrative, and they may think they understand the climate. They can’t and they don’t, at least to the extent they would like.
True; but only in the long term. Meanwhile a great deal of damage is done.
Anti-human climate alarmists control the narrative. There is no doubt about that.
Take a look at Hansen’s page at Wikipedia, for example. It has been changed many, many times to include a mention of the hearing’s sabotage and it has been deleted every time. At the time of this comment, the only reference to the sabotage is in the “Talk” tab and it will probably be removed from there too in not too long.
The anti-human climate alarmists have gotten away with murder in plain sight. Nothing is going to change that, so learn to live with it. The only hope is that they do not continue to murder and, let us be honest with ourselves, only a fortuitous spell of global cooling is going to take care of that.
Yet, we all know that when CO2 kept increasing and the global temperature has been stagnant, they had to change their narrative to invent “Climate Change” that whatever happens, it’s still we humans that are to blame.
Even the greening of Earth’s arid areas is seen as a negative. There is exponentially more flora and fauna because there is more free Carbon for them to build their cellular structures, because the Carbon Dioxide is the main molecule that transports Carbon to the flora. And all the fauna that eat flora are better fed to grow and reproduce and feed carnivores and omnivores…that all create more Carbon Dioxide. No matter how good this all is to rational thinking, common sense and logical people, it’s the end of the Earth to those people.
As for your last sentence. What are they going to do if real global warming started again? Seriously, I have been asking the question for days now and nobody seems to want to address it.
in the past scientists have shown 5 long periods of Glacial Periods averaging 12 degrees Celsius (54 degrees F) , and they show 4 long periods of Interglacial Periods of 22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees F), that over the history of Earth a Mean global temperature of 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees F).
About 12,000 years ago Earth started warming rather rapidly that by about 10,700 years ago it paused for nearly 1,000 years before it warmed again to about 15 degrees Celsius (56.7 degrees F) and then warmed more to 15.9 degrees Celsius…etc. You’ve all seen the graphs of the global warming and cooling going back to “The Last Ice Age” to the “Little Ice Age” to present.
So the questions are…
Why has the Earth’s Global Temperature had a 10,000 to 12,000 year Stalled Temperature Mean of 15 degrees Celsius with an average fluctuation of +/- 1.0 degrees Celsius?
and
If the Global Mean of Earth’s existence is 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees F), then why isn’t the temperature getting hotter toward the 22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees F) of a true Interglacial Period?
and
That the Earth has not warmed past the 17 degrees Celsius, the Earth is still technically in the Glacial Maximum and it has never “Ended” as scientists have been alluding to and could it plunge back into the 12 degrees Celsius and by what means would cause it to?
My theories are both volcanic activities and big meteors were the cause of the Glacial Period during the time of a Solar Minimum, that as others are pointing out that during Solar Minimums a weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic Field weakens and causes even more volcanic activities and the protective barrier of the Solar Radiation allows more Cosmic Radiation disruptions in our atmosphere, as it allows smaller meteors through it, too. And there’s the Comet that exploded some 12,000 years ago around the time of the Younger Dryas as the Solar Maximum comes back causing a rapid Global Warming for about a thousand years, that a Solar Minimum happened creating a short Stall for another thousand years until the Solar Maximum caused the first Holocene Climate Optimum that was the hottest period in the past 12,000 years. Since then Earth has had numerous Volcanic Activities creating Global Cooling events. But there’s still the nagging thought that our Sun is just not getting as hot as it did some 12,000 years ago. Whatever…we are living in a Stalled temperature for 10,000 to 12,000 years and people are arguing about 1.0 degrees Celsius of warming, that is really still in an Ice Age.
Tidying up Wikipedia to be politically correct on anything related to climate change used to be William Connolley’s job. I wonder whether he is doing that today?
I don’t know if Wiki-fiddler Connolley is still active, but his vanity page is still up and actively defended:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley
while much more worthy people are deleted for ‘lack of notability’:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/11/tabloid-climatology-may-be-the-real-reason-for-the-marcel-leroux-william-connolley-wikipedia-dustup/
Even with Connolley pushed to the background, there are still virulent climate activists pushing the narrative around the clock.
As found to my editing hours lost on subject(s) I know a lot more about that the biased admins (IMHO), being undermined in good ol wiki, for the most part it’s a good aide but subject to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woozle_effect
When Senator Wirth first told the story, the story itself was about essentially faking the news, now that he retracts his story and admits he reported fake news, he undermines his credibility a second time as a representative of the people of this nation, and in concert with a supposed scientist. Wirth’s story the first time was reprehensible, and with his admission to lying (whether hid actually did or not) he seals his guilt.
Wirth should be impeached.
Wirth is the vice chair of the UN Foundation’s Board of Directors. Probably not impeachable.
Be careful with assumptions, the UNF is not a UN body, it is a private NGO originally financed by Ted Turner. It is headquartered in the US. Look at wiki and see who is on the board, and was. Eyes wide.
Check the UN/UNEP 2017 Organization Chart for UNF? Page bottom right side.
UN System Chart, March 2017
Notes Section: United Nations Foundation.
http://www.unsceb.org/CEBPublicFiles/UN%20System%20Chart_ENG_FINAL_MARCH13_2017_0.pdf
Also online.
He probably lied to some extent in telling each story.
I always questioned whether June 23 would be around the hottest date in DC. In fact, the highest temperatures there usually occur between July 9 and July 20.
“When Senator Wirth first told the story”
The headline here describes that as
“an Almost Unbelievable Deceptive Beginning”
and if you take that literally it is true. As many have pointed out. The story was unbelievable, and it is not clear to me that Wirth meant it to be believed. But what is amply clear is that none of the supposed “deceptive beginning” actually happened. WaPo has set out why it is actually impossible. No-one but Wirth said it had, and he later said that it didn’t. So there is nothing there. But it’s what Dr Ball bases this story on.
D’OH !
“The story was unbelievable, and it is not clear to me that Wirth meant it to be believed.”
“No-one but Wirth said it had, and he later said that it didn’t.”
But you would argue this means there was no deception involved here.
There was no deception involved in 1988. Tim Wirth told a tall story in 2007, which he subsequently retracted. That is all.
So you would argue that Tim Wirth “told a tall story” in 2007 regarding what happened in 1988, and because he “subsequently retracted” that story, that there’s no deception here?
The headline here was
“Global Warming Today is Now Haunted by an Almost Unbelievable Deceptive Beginning”
2007 was not the beginning. Wirth’s tall story might haunt Wirth (I doubt it), but not Global Warming.
A just cause doesn’t require deception or lying to convince.
So what do you think Wirth’s 2007 story was trying to convince people of? And how did it promote global warming?
So what do you think Wirth’s 2007 story was trying to convince people of?
When you’re dealing with liars, anything is at best speculation is it not? All we can really know is the context in which the lie took place, i.e., the theory of AGW.
Why lie in the context of AGW if the cause is just? There should be no need?
And how did it promote global warming?
Liars rarely promote their causes once they’ve been proved liars. But from this it doesn’t follow they weren’t trying.
“Liars rarely promote their causes once they’ve been proved liars. But from this it doesn’t follow they weren’t trying.”
I dunno Mr Trump sure gives it a fair crack. He constantly repeats lies he is caught out on.
Hi Griff, or Nick
I don’t suppose you could be bothered to give us an example, could you? If Trump “constantly repeats lies,” it should be very easy to provide at least one example of a clear lie that he knew was a lie when he said it. Most examples I have seen are like the one in WAPO. They claimed Trump lied when he said that 3 million jobs had been created since his election. As their proof they showed that only 2.5 million jobs had been created since Trump became President. See what they did? He said since the election, and they changed it to since he became President nearly 3 months later. Who is doing the lying here?
Here is a Fox News man giving a few examples
https://youtu.be/Kcw8aoGxgss
Wow that was Fox news higlighting his dishonesty.
Trump lies on a daily basis and folks here say nothing. Wirth tells a lie in 2007 and folks here demand he be impeached.
He’s already confessed to being a liar. Why should we believe him about which time he told the lie?
Trump constantly lies, doesn’t seem to stop his apostles believing the next one.
Nothing could make it clearer that the whole ‘global warming/climate change’ circus is nothing more than a political charade than these comments from Simon.
Check out Tim Wirth – Maurice Strong connection? Strong did live in Colorado for awhile.
Haha – two people live in a state with 5.6M – so therefore they must have met. Let’s just postulate anything, no matter how far fetched.
Two people with a strong philosophical position that Earths population is too great.
Guess I know not to ever ask you for the truth.
Nobody said 2007 was the beginning. Obviously the reference was to Hansen’s testimony and the circumstances surrounding it. Are you really this obtuse?
” the circumstances surrounding it. Are you really this obtuse?”
I don’t think you’ve been following. There is no reason to believe anything of those “circumstances”. The only person who said they happened was Wirth, and he then said they didn’t. And as WaPO and even people here say, the story just doesn’t add up. So people say – look, Wirth was lying. He confessed! But if so, that says something about his interview in 2007. It doesn’t say anything about the beginning of AGW (which in any case long preceded 1988).
There is no reason to believe anything of those “circumstances”. The only person who said they happened was Wirth, and he then said they didn’t.
Which is, of course, every reason to believe something of those circumstances. Why lie either way? It only makes you look like a moron, and a suspicious one at that.
And given you’re Australian(?), you might think there’s something to be made of WaPo. If the Washington Post is able to call attention to their credible reputation for objective reporting, then I’m a premier climate scientist.
the fact that he genuinely believes WaPo has any credibility shreds the last remnant of claim Nick has to any semblance of credibility. FCS, how embarrassing. Nick, I try to be polite and give you the benefit of the doubt but you are so entrenched in your religion there is no saving you from yourself.
I do enjoy watching you continuously pull a “Stokes”. Makes for great theatre.
Actually Wirth gets full marks for his mastery of Alinsky’s Rules. The whole neomarxbrothers membership is adroit at lying as a strategy. The Big Lie is being redone today in grander fashion than its inventor even could have imagined. Goebbels would have been impressed.
Hey Gary, 10 points for Gryffindor for including Alinsky, neoMarxism and Goebbels in a single posting. But you really should be aiming higher. You could’ve had 15 if you included global elitist, rent seekers and virtue signaling in your post.
C at 7:52 – goes without saying.
Well, this Senator Wirth is thoroughly discredited which ever way you look at it. So was he or Hansen the more deceptive. Deception has always been a key requisite of CAGW hasn’t it Nick?
All we know is that Wirth is a liar. Either he lied in 2007 or he is lying now. There was no pressure for him to lie in 2007, but there has been tremendous pressure from his peers to recant what he said in 2007. If you are honest, you have to factor that in when trying to determine which statement by Wirth was a lie. But to just believe that he lied then but is telling the truth now, as Nick does, requires extreme bias.
>The only person who said they happened was Wirth, and he then said they didn’t.
In his retraction, Wirth claimed that he was just repeating what lots of other people had said. One of those ‘lots of other people’ is John Kerry, so clearly, it is not the case that the only source was Wirth. To turn your argument back on itself, Wirth is the only one who has retracted, so why should we believe this sole claimant above ‘lots of other people’ who have stated otherwise?
Why would the ‘truth’ coming from a self-confessed liar be more reliable than the original lie? The trouble is, it fits a pattern of deception by scientists, politicians and bureaucrats, all of which is documented. If the science was sound, why the need for deception at all? I’m interested in why you cling to the theory, given that none of the predictions have played out in the real world.
If Wirth told the truth in 2007 there was deception in 1988. Wirth’s later retraction proves him to be unreliable but it remains more probable that his first version approached the truth – it is difficult to see why he would have made the story up.
Right. He was lying in 2007 when he made comments undermining his own position, but not practicing deception in 1988 when attemptimg to substantiate it. So he only lies when it hurts himself? Soeme form of self flagellation or atonement for past sins?
Nick, do you really have such a low opinion of the readers here at WUWT that you can write that nonsense and expect anyone to believe it? Is Griff your alternate personality? Are you even more of a liar than Wirth? Are you still beating your wife?
It seems to me that there is a large lack of objectivity on display here.
It would appear that the points made by Nick are probably correct. The issue is what actually happened in 1988, not what someone says happened.
Factually, it was not possible to have a hearing in August, or possibly late July because of recess. So the very warmest period was not available in any event.
It is not clear whether they played around with the windows, or even if they did, it is not clear what impact that really would have made.
But my understanding is that 1988 happened to be a particularly warm summer. But this is just per chance. Maybe the promoters got lucky in that regard.
We all know that this is predominately politics, not science, but it would be better if we concentrated on the science, and the problems with the science, rather than getting side tracked by the circumstances surrounding this hearing.
For example, was Hansen right on his claims of attribution? On what basis could he claim attribution given that he was, in 1988, of the view that the contiguous US was not as warm as it was in the 1940s, that he was of the view that the globe was no warmer than it was in the 1940s, and he was of the view that Southern Hemisphere data is suspect given the lack of historic data and lack of good spatial coverage. Given those basic facts isn’t a claim of finding attribution impossible.
We all know that this is predominately politics, not science, but it would be better if we concentrated on the science, and the problems with the science, rather than getting side tracked by the circumstances surrounding this hearing.
Disagree. When politicians like Wirth place themselves into the context of the debate by deception, lying, etc., then it is perfectly reasonable to discuss and criticize their actions.
Ignoring the political side of this issue won’t make it go away.
I am not ignoring the problem. I am very conscious that this is a politically motivated led agenda.
If we were talking about the politics behind the IPCC or behind the Paris Accord, that would be a different matter, but the lead example put forward by Dr Ball is a distraction.
Wirth at one time said something about the hearing, he later retracted it. It would appear that the retraction he made is correct, and that factually no silly games were in reality played at the time of the hearing. Thus, factually, the hearing was not influenced by silly games.
Dr Ball seeks to argue that the hearing was based upon deceit, the silly games surrounding its planned date and the windows, but the evidence suggests that there was no deceit of the type suggested by Dr Ball. The evidence suggests that Wirth is economical with the truth, sometime after the hearing he spun a tall yarn, and then later retracted it. So what?
The material deceit in this instance, is Hansen’s claims of attribution and failure to acknowledge the extent of unknowns and natural variation. In my opinion, in this instance, this is what we should concentrate on.
“No-one but Wirth said it had, and he later said that it didn’t. So there is nothing there.”
except for the fact one of them is a lie
You’re not concerned that a self-aggrandising politician got the ball rolling?
That Wapo article contradicts itself. Not only wasn’t it hot, it was stuffy because of the cameras. Do you really use swampy ac in Washington?
Nick, did you actually read the Washington Post article you linked. Not only did Wirth make the claim but so did Kerry and in apparently more than one speech. Through the WaPo article it jumps back and forth between it was hot, it wasn’t, windows might have been opened, might not but no body claims to remembers. Having been around legislative politics most of my life I can assure you that it certainly could have happened because that is one way the game has always been played. That now it is part of the mythology and it it is harming the AGW orthodoxy suddenly everyone is denying what happened. Wirth’s staffer would NEVER admit that it happened if he wants to continue working in Washington. Thing is no matter how one looks at it, Wirth created fake news, either the first time in 1988 during hearing preparations, later in the 2007 PBS interview or more recently claiming he made it all up. If you are correct and nothing close to what Wirth said actually happened why the need for Kerry and Wirth to lie. It is just such behavior, the hyperbole, creating false gloom and doom, that has turned the public off to the entire issue.
“Thing is no matter how one looks at it, Wirth created fake news”
Yes. So it didn’t happen, right? Does anyone now believe the story about opening windows, etc?
So what is the “deceptive beginning” of AGW?
At the very least both Wirth and Kerry lied. Nick will you admit that much even though you never criticize a Democrat?
Wirth said it wasn’t true. And Kerry wasn’t there. So how does that make for a deceptive beginning for AGW?
Although I must say that even opening windows is hardly a haunting deception, if it happened. But it didn’t..
As much as you criticize that which you deem to be untrue here, and rightly so, btw, you should criticize that which you believe to be a lie, don’t you contradict yourself on this?
Why the hypocrisy, other than to save the reputation of a mere theory?
I’m reading your comments in absolute astonishment. Anything that doesn’t conform to the agw narrative, you just whitewash. It’s bizarre, and you’re nothing but a spectacle at this point.
Anthropogenic global warming is a hypothesis. ‘Climate change’ is a non-scientific euphemistic term that is mired in deception and corruption. And Nick Stokes is a case study for how narrative based ideologs can and will dismiss any and all evidence contrary to the herds agenda.
“If it happened. But it didn’t..”
Suspiciously Specific Denial there, Nick. You sure you aren’t just doing this for giggles and to push up the page hits?
In answer to your entire claim that nothing happened let us consider the time line of events.
It is 2007. Everyone believes in Global Warming, how important it is and how the people who exposed it to the world are heroes. Deniers are Bad. In an effort to reveal to the world just how close we all came into being Denied to Death our brave Senator tells the story of how they were forced to stage manage the event so that even those thickie Deniers would finally understand how important CO2 control actually is.
Move on a few years to whatever date our brave Senator apparently retracted the entire story. By now the panic predictions of doom and gloom are already starting deviate from the real world observation and Mr and Mrs Public are starting to question ‘The Science’. Being seen to have stage managed the event is now seen less as going the extra yard to help prove what is right and more of a deliberate attempt to con people. What was once a funny little story has become embarrassing so best thing to do is try and laugh it off as a joke whenever it is mentioned.
Plausible?
Provable? Of course not, but my version of events is definitely plausible, isn’t it. 😀
Yes Craig !
So Wirth must have lied about overheating the room the first time?
Nick,
The larger deceptions were Hansen’s adjustments of the GISS temperature records and his failure to adequately account for the effects of UHI. Wirth clearly lied about stage management of Hansen’s testimony, however Hansen’s data adjustments were also a deceptive beginning of the CAGW story.
But the lie is after the event.
In fact quite sometime after the event, ie., the interview was in 2007 which is almost 20 years after the 1988 hearing.
Factually, it appears that there were no silly games that impacted upon the hearing itself, so factually the hearing was not compromised by factors that Dr Ball claims supports his contention that global warming is haunted by a deceptive beginning.
In my opinion it was, but on different grounds, ie, the claim of attribution given what Hansen thought to be the temperature profile of the US, the globe as at 1988, and his views on the compromised quality of SH data.
So, Nick, do you have a picture of the window at the meeting? Is it open or closed. Nobody else but you would come to the defense of a liar.
MrStroker:
The deceptive beginning of
the man made climate change cult
was the false claim that anyone really knew
how much humans affected the
average temperature, followed by
the false claim that the average temperature
could be predicted many decades into the future.
The second deception
was that warming,
mainly at night,
was bad news.
The third deception
was that average temperature
compilations had
a margin of error less than
+/- 1 degree C.,
and hiding the fact that
most of our planet
has no thermometers,
therefore government bureaucrats
just make up numbers!
The fourth, and worst, deception
was the unproven and unlikely
water vapor positive feedback theory,
claiming a positive feedback would triple
the alleged warming effect from CO2 alone,
in the absence of any historical evidence
that much higher levels of CO2
in the past ever caused “runaway warming”.
All of these deceptions are still alive,
and form the house of cards foundation
for the false coming climate change catastrophe
scaremongering.
You defend that house of cards,
as if trying to convince us
that the government bureaucrats
and politicians promoting
the false CO2 boogeyman
could not possibly be wrong,
or biased … even after 30 years
of very inaccurate climate model
predictions !
That’s why you get
so many negative votes here!
“…No-one but Wirth said it had, and he later said that it didn’t…”
Actually Wirth clearly stated in his retraction that lots of people said it had and that he was just recounting those stories. Fail.
The climate con game didn’t just start off with shady science it needed an alignment of interests .
Hansen wasn’t just hand picked , they had to pick the hottest day to launch the campaign and open all the windows . Hansen only played his part of the white coat scientist when scientists were considered honest .
His roll was necessary to enable the con of Globalists (UN ) looking for a rallying point , corporate con men of the Enron variety , promoters like Al Gore and finally politicians looking for a new source of taxation .
The media , who are scientifically illiterate, pumped the tires because climate porn sold . Eventually people tuning out the” earth has a fever fear” stories and the science was more and more exposed
for grossly exaggerating increases in CO2 as well underestimating the benefits of Co2 which historically has been at much higher levels without any effects from humans .
The final nail was Trump being elected . This gave reason for political fence sitters to get off a loser
proposition that had enabled a massive fraud in the face of evidence that destroyed “scientific consensus” propaganda and unnecessarily lead to the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands from fuel poverty courtesy of politicians who knew what they were doing .
The jig is up , as the money drains away and the earth’s alleged fever disappears it will be replaced by something else … like plastics filling our oceans .
The $ trillion dollar climate fear industry better pick a winner this time .
The jig is up , as the money drains away and the earth’s alleged fever disappears it will be replaced by something else … like plastics filling our oceans .
And now we have the dead plastic whale in the Philippines. Someone spent a lot of time, effort and money creating this baseless alarm. Greenpeace couldn’t be that stupid. Oh, wait.
https://www.buzzworthy.com/haunting-dead-whale/
Does it stink?
No. The Greenpeace hippies are gone.
I’m concerned about plastic pollution. That seems to be a real and measurable problem that we can fix.
If you look at where the plastic is coming from, it is all from 3rd world east asian countries. The rivers are choked. Solving that problem will entail education and energy, else any cleanup is useless.
Yirgach
Are you saying plastic is not a threat to marine life? Really? Can you read?
I can read.
As a matter of fact I have read that the world is flat.
Also I have read that unicorn farts can power electric vehicles.
PS: Plastics pollution is a local/regional problem, not a global issue as this idiotic stunt would have you believe. Deal with it appropriately.
Well if you can read then use the skill. Maybe think about what you write too, because it is nonsense. Plastic in the oceans is a global problem. We are finding it all over the planet…. that makes it global.
I’ve read many things that aren’t true.
Starting with pretty much anything you’ve ever written simon.
MarkW
congratulations, you wrote a sentence without using the word troll.
“In my opinion, the answer to these questions appears to be in Schmidt’s role at the CRU. “
“So, we know Schmidt carved out a role as Mindguard at CRU. Now it appears he is continuing the role at NASA GISS”
This is bizarre. Schmidt was never at CRU.
Never let reality get in the way of a good conspiracy.
Of course, the idea that people might be fully committed to their cause because they believe in it is far less believable than that they are just… evil.
None of this politics affects in any way whether the climate is in danger.
In my opinion it isn’t. But that’s based on logic and observations not my Corbyn supporting politics.
Can many Trump supporters say the same?
F**k it I voted Up when I meant to vote down – the climate change conspiracy is real and promulgated by all who support the idea of an unelected and unaccountable global government designed to end democracy and the the industrial-capitalist system that the UN had vowed to end
Just vote it down twice to correct it..
I think many of the scientists DID and probably still do think it was ‘for a good cause’. Didn’t Schneider say exactly that? Wasn’t that part of the ‘post-normal science’ paradigm? The trouble is, they couldn’t/can’t see the frightening arrogance of such a belief, and the dangers of unintended consequences. I guess Stalin and Mao and Hitler were fully committed to their causes too…it was all for the greater good, no? But don’t be so naive to believe that there aren’t also nefarious interests pushing this. So it’s a combination of lots of things – good intentions, stupidity, arrogance, self-interest AND evil.
Evil was originally just a synonym for bad. Wickedness means weak morals. Worshipping Satan is the enjoyment of hissing in peoples ears to get your way.
So evil is the right word.
Obviously, Schmidt was never employed by CRU and did not (directly) work for them, but I do not think that that is what Dr Ball is saying, when he refers to Schmidt as a Mindguard.
That said, Dr Ball could certainly have better expressed the point he was making, and the article in my opinion lacks substance and does not set out a cogent case that global warming is built upon a deceptive beginning.
Further, if Dr Ball wishes to call out Senator Wirth then Dr Ball ought to produce statistically significant evidence that the day of the hearing is the hottest day of the year as Senator Wirth initially claimed.
I suspect that it is not. The real game being played at that hearing was to open all the windows the day before, so that the Aircon was not working effectively when the hearing took place. That added drama to the hearing.
“but I do not think that that is what Dr Ball is saying”
He says it several times. What else could this mean:
“It reminded me that even though CRU and its denizens were exposed for corrupting climate science, many of them escaped and scattered to plum jobs groupthink continues., some continue the battle. One of the people heavily involved almost from the start was Gavin Schmidt. He later gained employment with NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA GISS) where he appears to pursue the same activities of defending a false message.”
“later gained employment”?? He has been at GISS since at least 1998.
Nick
What one states, and what one is trying to say, can be different things.
I know what he stated, and of course the starting point to any interpretation is to give a literal meaning to the actual words used. That said, I tend to give a purposeful construction to things written on blogs, and I seek to look to the meaning of the point that the writer is trying to make (however badly this may be expressed).
If you are seeking to make the point that the article as written is sloppy, I would agree.
In fact, I do not see the point of the article; it is little more than a moan fest.
If Dr Ball wanted to set out a case that as from the early days it was a “false message,” then there is plenty of material that could be set out to support that claim. The present article does not set out the supports.
https://hro001.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/of-climategate-constabularies-and-copenhagen-gavin-schmidts-ever-changing-story/
He was instrumental in the deflection of attention away from the content of the leaked CRU emails from the beginning. Nobody is claiming that he was an employee but he certainly was a part if the cleaning team.
Oh please, Robert. You don’t write this “So, we know Schmidt carved out a role as Mindguard at CRU. Now it appears he is continuing the role at NASA GISS” to mean that Schmidt didn’t work for CRU but then did work for NASA. The exact same words are used in both cases.
Not sure what you are trying to get at. Its not a mathematical error. Employee or not, asked to volunteer his services or doing it off of his own bat is all irrelevant. Schmidt did lead the damage control for the leaked CRU emails.
Go and read the emails Nick.
So what did Gavin Schmidt say in the emails?
Ask Mann.
No-one else seems to know.
And Mann has fought tooth and nail to keep his emails hidden (using other’s money).
That’s why “no one else seems to know”.
PS I don’t know myself, but, has an FOIA request ever been filed for his Penn State emails?
PPS None of all the “FOIA” stuff would have been needed if he all the rest involved had been open and honest scientist to begin with.
PPPS Someone with a conscience released the ClimateGate stuff.
Only those without a conscience tried to hide them.
What has any of this got to do with Gavin Schmidt? If he is supposed to have done some mindguarding, why can’t anything be quoted?
Don’t you know, Nick? Innuendo is apparently sufficient here on WUWT, a site that in the same breath prides itself on its rigorous analysis.
Nick….Dr Ball called him one of the “mindguards”…..the emails and communication going back and forth…coordinating what they would say
CRU and its denizens ……..One who frequents a place….they were frequently in communication
Nick, it is impossible that you are not aware of the continuous communication and collaboration going on between the CRU, Penn State and Colorado’s feds.
So where is Gavin Schmidt in that? And why can nothing be quoted?
Nick, you have been acting as damage control for long enough to be well aware that there are plenty of choice quotes. You are just employing the old faux innocent [citation needed] trick to make people do the tedious work for you. When people don’t take the bait, you claim to have won. I just spent a whole 20 seconds of my life on Google to dredge up this zinger:
https://junkscience.com/2011/11/climategate-2-0-schmidt-make-data-available-in-impenetrable-as-possible-form/
“Frankly, I would simply put the whole CRU database (in an
as-impenetrable-as-possible form) up on the web site along with a brief history of it’s provenance (and the role of the NMSs) and be done with it.”
He’s recommending posting the data (grumpily). So?
The claim is that he is a CRU mindguard.
An honest scientist is only too happy to share his or her data.
“happy to share his or her data.”
GISS has always done so. It seems to be the preferred site here for station data, even though GHCN is the original source.
He is recommending posting the data only because refusing to post it looks worse for the narrative. Even then, he advocates making the data as difficult as possible to use in order to stymie critics. The rest of the email shows Gavin Schmidt’s role quite clearly and is quoted in full in my link above for any interested reader to make their own judgment.
This is what passes for rational discourse on WUWT, which claims itself as a site read by “skeptics in the best sense of the word” – ie, not biased, let the data and facts determine the conclusion. Nick Stokes refutes an erroneous assertion about where Schmidt worked, and he gets 12 negative votes.
Again, only an error in that it can be read that way. Doesn’t read unambiguously as he did work there. States clearly that he had a role in damage control of revelations from the CRU emails which is the truth. You have a couple of links to back it up.
You are pretending that its an error like only using the positive of square root of x and stuffing up the argument. Its childish.
No, it’s not childish in the slightest. I constantly see “making a mountain out of a molehill” references in posts here. The Wirth stuff is a perfect example. To state that the temperature of a hearing room in 1988 played a major role in AGW science getting traction is ludicrous.
Wirth didn’t think it was ludicrous – in fact, he boasted about how effective it was as political theater.
Maybe I need to use putting i before e as an example instead of maths. Its not the same as a mountain out of a molehill. It has no relevance to his argument. Schmidt didn’t need to work for anyone to join in the damage control which he undoubtedly did do.
Bell says: “Believe it or not, we called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6 or June 9 or whatever it was, so we scheduled the hearing that day”
Amber says: “they had to pick the hottest day to launch the campaign and open all the windows”.
Fact check:
Except that the hottest average temp in Washington is late July/early August, hence the historical congressional adjournment in the late summer starting the 1790s. This whole story seems fabricated.
“What is it about this that Schmidt doesn’t understand? Why is he claiming that it didn’t happen?”
Because it prob’ly didn’t.
It is extremely unlikely that June is statistically the hottest month, but it could be the case that June 6 or June 9 is statistically the hottest day of the year, but I am sceptical of that claim, as I note in my comment below which crossed with yours.
PBS are an honest organisation. When they quote the Senator you can be pretty sure the Senator said that.
Therefore either the Senator is dishonest or Schmidt is dishonest.
If PBS and the Senator are telling the truth they must have meant that they picked the hottest day of the year – that Congress are sitting for. Which seems reasonable.
If Schmidt is telling the truth then we have discovered a very big scandal.
“If Schmidt is telling the truth then we have discovered a very big scandal”
Hardly. Wirth was actually speaking on PBS. But Wirth long ago said that it wasn’t true, as Hansen had always said. Schmidt is simply pointing out the obvious holes in the story.
As a foreigner I find the idea of a US Senator lying to the media and a media organisation not fact checking the politician to both be very big scandals.
You know there is this guy Trump? Lying is now fashionable.
This might not apply since it was in sworn testimony (under oath) and not said to the media, but, I suppose it all depends on what the definition of “is” is.
It’s only now fashionable? I Hope you Change that rubbish statement.
“US Senator lying to the media and a media organisation not fact checking the politician to both be very big scandals”
How about a President (currently in the UK, apparently trying to overthrow HM Government). But the media (WaPo) did fact check, although they admit, too late.
Wow, you really are sinking in the bullshit pile nick…..
“…apparently trying to overthrow HM Government”
lol
“…currently in the UK, apparently trying to overthrow HM Government…”
Put your tinfoil hat back-on, please.
We can’t, Michael, it’s firmly affixed to your head. How would you summarize a US President trashing a sitting PM and then saying that Boris Johnson would make a great PM?
Trump was just trying to help Teresa May out by giving her some good advice.
Trump’s off to overthrow the Russian government next.
“Trump was just trying to help Teresa May”
I can just imagine the response here if Theresa May had dropped by in 2016 on here way to her golf resort in Georgia, with some advice on what Trump was doing wrong, and saying that Hillary would make a great president.
…with some advice on what Trump was doing wrong, and saying that Hillary would make a great president.
You mean something similar to the following:
“And with Mrs May also one of the mogul’s most vocal critics, their relationship is unlikely to be any better when she becomes prime minister.
She is likely to prefer Hillary Clinton, who she has worked with to tackle terrorist threats across the world.
…
‘Politicians should be very careful as we are dealing with the issue of terrorism, as we fight terrorism, we need to be bringing communities together. Bringing greater cohesion in communities, not seeking to divide.'”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3687961/Theresa-collision-course-Trump-president-bitter-row-police-no-zones-500-000-strong-petition-ban-UK.html
And:
Donald Trump could be BANNED from UK after Theresa May slams his anti-Muslim rant
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/630387/Donald-Trump-Muslim-ban-UK-petition-Theresa-May
He is free to object to May’s comments as she did his, but you don’t go round promoting someone who could be looking to overthrow the current prime minister. That’s called interfering in domestic politics. Not done.
nobody follows your rules, so go pout.
“I can just imagine the response here if Theresa May ….”
Exactly. It was politically extremely rude and arrogant. Wait it was Trump. Par for the course.
“Trump’s off to overthrow the Russian government next.”
Why would he bite the hand that feeds him?
And I see Trump has just said this…
“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness ….”
He really is playing for the other team. I mean what leader blames his own side?
Not to mention calling the EU a foe.
an actual leader just calls it as he sees it.
he’s your president- but since you’re no leader, i guess it’s not, technically, hypocrisy to blame him for everything…lol
i mean- bush isn’t around any more.
keep spinning that prayer wheel. peach mints, benno!
Readers please note, I wrote this before Trump met with Putin… Now Trump says he believes Putin over his own secret service. Like I said, why would he bite the hand that feeds him? He is beyond anything ever seen in world politics and is looking more and more guilty (collusion) by the day. Sad for the great USA.
I think it’s Obama’s secret service Trump doesn’t believe. You know, people like former CIA Director John Brennan who was one of the principle Obama minions trying to frame Trump for collusion with the Russians.
Trump said he believed in HIS intelligence services.
“How about a President (currently in the UK, apparently trying to overthrow HM Government). ”
How about Obama pitching up here issuing dire threats to the British people in an effort to coerce them into voting in a referendum for the outcome supporting him and his Globalist cronies?
Encouraging a country to stay in a trade bloc is not the same as trashing a sitting PM and pumping up a buffoon as being great PM material.
Encouraging? Don’t you mean threatening? That’s what Obama was doing.
I recall Obama telling the British people that if they voted for Brexit they would have to move to the back of the line.
I didn’t hear anyone on the Left complaining about that.
Embrace the healing power of “and”. They can easily both be dishonest.
“Bell” didn’t say that…Wirth did. So nearly 20 years later, he had forgotten when DC temps usually peak. He even added “or whatever it was.” The point is that he claimed an intent to hold it on a very hot day (and it was). Please try harder next time.
Furthermore, he ensured the AC wasn’t working the day of the hearing.
“The second incentive is the Trump election. It is threatening to expose the entire fiasco and certainly is making more people look at what was involved.”
I don’t think it’s making more people look at what was involved. Alarmists and SJWs are simply doubling down, and ridiculing everything Trump does, whether it’s climate related or not.
They are not just doubling down, but going to obvious, even crazy, extremes which is making people question their motives and credibility.
“statement as this and you’re (sic) part of the federal bureaucracy”
Why was a “(sic)” inserted after “you’re”. “You’re” is perfectly correct in this case.
Obviously Senator Wirth either lied first time around, or is lying in his retraction. Either way, he no longer has credibility.
I suspect that he was lying first time round, and wanted to portray a good story, and make it appear that he was clever.
The reason I hold this view is that he probably had rather little control over the precise scheduling of the hearing, and I am sceptical that the date in June is statistically significantly the hottest day of the year in DC. But no doubt somebody can look into that and answer that.
Accordingly, it could well be the case that factually Schmidt is correct.
“But no doubt somebody can look into that and answer that.”
The data for DC is here. The hottest time is July. It certainly isn’t June 6 or 9 (the hearing was June 23 anyway). So on that basis alone, Schmidt is right. But in fact, as the WaPo pointed out, the timing was dictated by the legislative process of the relevant energy bill, not by Tim Wirth.
The unconditioned hearing room, however, was dictated by Wirth.
I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September. … But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents — or at least their staffs — never stop making mischief.
Gore Vidal
Well, WaPo quotes the guy in charge of the infrastructure doubting whether the windows even can be opened, here. There is nothing from the time to indicate that the room was unusually hot.
Except that picture of Hansen sweating during the hearing?
Which picture?
My question as well. The claim is that Hansen was mopping his brow. I’ve so far failed to find any picture that shows him mopping his brow, or obviously sweating.
There are several pictures of Hansen testifying. There is even video footage (linked). A lot of faces and bald heads, including Hansen’s, are shiny with perspiration.
https://goo.gl/images/ftxJNu
To me that just looks shiny with lighting. Here’s another picture of Hansen with a shiny head, but I wouldn’t assume he was sweating.
Rubbish, the guy next to him does not look sweaty. Neither does the woman visible behind him. No signs of sweat on the collar of Hansen or the guy next to him.
Who am I supposed to believe? You or my lying eyes. All three faces in the picture are shiny, and their clothes are rumpled.
Jul 15 70°88° 56° (1895) 100° (1988) 0.12″ NA
Jul 16 70° 89° 56° (1930) 104° (1988) 0.12″ NA
Jul 17 70° 89° 56° (1929) 102° (1980) 0.12″ NA
Jul 18 70° 89° 55° (1892) 103° (1887) 0.12″ NA
Jul 19 71° 89° 56° (1911) 102° (1930) 0.12″ NA
Jul 20 71° 89° 53° (1890) 106° (1930) 0.12″ NA
Jul 21 71° 89° 56° (1909) 104° (1926) 0.12″ NA
Jul 22 71° 89° 53° (1890) 103° (1926) 0.12″ NA
Jul 23 71° 89° 56° (1890) 101° (1991) 0.12″ NA
Jul 24 71° 89° 57° (1947) 96° (1987) 0.12″ NA
Jul 25 71° 89° 58° (1915) 100° (1930) 0.12″ NA
Jul 26 71° 89° 54° (1920) 103° (1930) 0.12″ NA
Jul 27 71° 89° 55° (1920) 100° (1940) 0.12″ NA
Jul 28 70° 88° 56° (1920) 100° (1997) 0.12″ NA
Jul 29
I’ve been trying to make sense of this claim for the 6 or 9 dates, and the only possible explanation is if they were saying the 9th of June held the record for hottest June day. This is just possible using the DCA data as they list 9th June 2011 as being 102°F, but also say the same temperature occurred in previous years. If a 102 temp had been recorded prior to 1988 it is possible he might have been told that the 9th was “historically” the hottest day of June.
But why you’d think that would mean scheduling the hearing on the 9th meant it would be more likely to be warm, and why given that he scheduled it for two weeks later I have no idea.
The only other possibility I can think of is he asked for when the longest day was, assuming incorrectly that that would be the hottest, and ended up scheduling the hearings for close to the summer solstice.
But it seems more likely that the call never happened. What is certain is that whatever the reason for scheduling the 23rd of June it could only have been luck that it was the last day of a heatwave.
Geez, maybe they were aiming for a statistically hot period and couldn’t get the scheduling to work, but Wirth thought they did because it happenrd to be so hot.
Pretty much what I’ve been saying. It was hot that day but it’s daft to suggest that this was because of a specific choice of date., or that this amounts to deception.
Found this confirmation that June the 9th did hold the record for warmest June day, with the record set in 1874 – so it does seem possible this is what Wirth meant when he said that historically the hottest day was the 6th or 9th of June.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/washington-dc-ties-record-high-of-101/2012/06/29/gJQAiiRmBW_blog.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.87bf9b1a53bd
However congress is in recess during July.
Are you sure? There seem to be quite a few hearings scheduled for tomorrow
https://www.house.gov/legislative-activity/2018-07-17
And here’s video of Congress working during July 1988
https://www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=house&date=1988-07-14
Unfortunately CAGW is a religious cult. Which means no matter how many facts you feed people they will never accept it and will continue to virtue signal and parrot debunked alarmist points while proudly sharing the latest drivel from the guardian pronouncing doom upon us.
It is cultic. It is not religious. It exhibits groupthink and operates a strict code of punishment for insiders who question anything upheld as ‘true by belief’.
Further clarification can be made by pointing out that the cult believers brook no middle ground. One who is not a believer cannot be an unconvinced neutral party. They are rather, categorized as the equivalent of heathen, deniers of revealed truth. That is cultic. Religions hold that some are convinced, some actively oppose and the majority are unconvinced, just as with most topics, hypotheses and sales pitches.
It is surprising how many former believers became skeptics when they were dogpiled by a raving mob just for asking an innocent question.
I believe they don’t think they are being deceptive, at least in the sense of promoting a total falsehood, they think they are doing whatever is necessary to draw people’s attention to an urgent issue, clearing obstacles from the path to climate action. It never crosses their minds that what they are doing might be wrong.
Eric, I believe that is exactly the case. I have had many discussions with CAGW types and the majority of them truly believe they are trying to save the planet and if they don’t continue their battle, the Earth will turn into a scorched rock.
These folks may be totally sincere but they are also incredibly ignorant of Earth’s history and paleoclimatology. When things like the LIA or MWP, RWP, or Holocene warming, they assume a glazed expression and start quoting Algore!
Eric, it’s time for them to consider it, conclude that they are doing something wrong (both scientifically and politically) and stop doing it.
For many they are victims of “the End justifies the means”. The decieved are the “useful idiots”.
The “End” has nothing to do with saving the planet.
and once again Eric comes into the discussion offering a reasonable conclusion. I would say this is the most sound and is technically in between both parties perspective. Deceptive, yes, but looked upon by the actors as insignificant enough (a little white lie) to assist as Eric stated. Maybe the intent wasn’t to outright deceive but certainly to stack the odds in their favor.
But the real issue is, Democrat or Republican, (with all the knowledge of how government and officials almost never tell the truth), why would either side defend a politician? Seriously? Talk about an exercise in self-deception. sheesh.
How do you know a politician is lying? his mouth is open.
In my opinion, this article would have been much better had it concentrated on the data.
As at the time of this hearing in 1988, Hansen was of the view that
(1) the contiguous US was not as warm as it was in the late 1930s/early 1940s, and
(2) that the Northern Hemisphere was not as warm as it was in the late 1930s/early 1940s, and
(3) that there was a sparsity of historic data for the Southern Hemisphere, and there was a lack of good spatial coverage in the Southern Hemisphere which compromised the worth of Southern Hemisphere data.
So notwithstanding about 40 years of rising CO2 emissions, there was no hard evidence of any warming. It is the lack of acknowledgement of the extent of natural variation and the false claim that the data established attribution which is the real deception upon which global warming is based.
Further, it was known that there was nothing global about the warming since many papers had been published in the 1980s showing that warming was not uniform, and even AR1 (1990) concedes that as at that time, the Northern Hemisphere is no warmer than it was in around 1940.
It was based on his models at the time not the record. He predicted the temp would rise, and it did, which is only now part of the “data”. So you might say he was saying what would theoretically happen, but he largely got it right. But there was nothing “deceptive” about it. He didn’t the temperature _would_ rise, he said the science pointed in that direction.
“The science”? Or his?
He made projections based on his science that have not come true.
Whether or not he was being honest back then, he was wrong.
Political policy has been based and trillions of dollars spent (and siphoned off by profiteers) on preventing what he got wrong.
Hansen made very specific predictions about temperature which have been falsified. Largely, he got it wrong. His most ridiculous predictions were made more recently and involve ridiculous, hopeless calamities he wishes upon a mankind that rejects his eschatology.
As for data, please refer to Hansen 1981, which contains the IPCC’s first temperature chart showing it was cooler in 1980 than 1940. He later claimed his own work to be untrue, not specifically of course, but denied the ’40’s were warmer, even though he had published data showing it was.
His predictions are unbelievable and have always been so. See Hansen 1969 for his prediction of the impending cooling catastrophe.
“Hansen 1969 for his prediction of the impending cooling catastrophe”
More details please? I don’t think Hansen was making Earth predictions in 1969. Or ever predicted a cooling catastrophe.
And, of course, his 1988 prediction has proved very accurate.
And, of course, his 1988 prediction has proved very accurate.
Accuracy achieved by chance isn’t accuracy. It’s happenstance. You yourself have admitted the parameters upon which the “prediction” (which I seem to recall you also argued wasn’t a prediction, but rather a “scenario”) came about as true were all wrong, e.g., volcanoes predicted to erupt did not, CO2 levels from China coincided by chance, etc.
“Hansen made very specific predictions about temperature which have been falsified.”
“Accuracy achieved by chance isn’t accuracy.”
Hansen was falsified, and anyway it was just dumb luck.
His 1988 PREDICTIONS have been shown to be a farce repeatedly. The best anyone can do is argue his global temp projection looks halfway good as long as you pick the right scenario for a given year and ignore the fact that the GHG levels associated with that scenario do not match reality.
The 1969 reference has to do with a time when he was running global cooling models. Shocking this is news to you, but you are good at feigning ignorance, too.
“The 1969 reference”
The reference is to a paper. I don’t believe there is one as described, but I’m always glad to be enlightened.
Nick
On a similar theme:
This is an extract from the Schneider 1971 Science paper (Volume 173). No doubt you are very familiar with this paper;
And here is the key plot:
I understand that the model used in this paper was designed/written by Hansen. I have seen a contemporaneous newspaper article introducing that paper which clearly states that Hansen is the modeller. Assuming that the newspaper is correct, Hansen is putting Climate Sensitivity at less than 1 per doubling (even taking account of water feedback), and this is explained by the assertion that the radiative effect of CO2 is already saturated at 1 bar pressure.
Nick please answer the following:
What was not known about radiative physics and/or the radiative properties of CO2 at the time when the 1971 paper was published in Science?
Detail what new radiative properties of the CO2 molecule and/or understanding of radiative physics has been discovered since 1971, which now render the conclusions drawn in the 1971 paper false, because of a lack of proper understanding of the key underlying physics?
Why is Hansen’s 1988 model any better than his 1971 model?
“I understand that the model used in this paper was designed/written by Hansen”
One of the endless things that people here believe that just aren’t so. In the paper, R&S thanked Hansen for advice on radiative transfer matters (his expertise) and doing some Mie scattering calculations. That is all.
“Why is Hansen’s 1988 model any better than his 1971 model?”
Because it existed.
Nick,
I note that you have side stepped the issue and not answered the questions raised. Let us leave aside the issue as to whose model it is, and let us address the science behind the 1971 paper.
Rasool and Scneider of NASA/GISS in their 1971 paper published in Science Volume 173 assessed Climate Sensitivity as follows:
This assessment was made on the basis of CO2 in 1971 being approximately 300 ppm, and included the water vapour feedback, and there are no new properties of CO2 or radiative physics discovered since 1971 that would render the assessment mase by NASA/GISS in 1971 flawed.
Nick, if you consider that since 1971 some new radiative properties of the CO2 molecule have been discovered, and or new understanding of radiative physics has been found which would render the point made in the 1971 paper obsolete or wrong, please detail what these new factors/discoveries are, and please reference the discovery and dates thereof. If you are aware of any papers by Hansen published prior to 1988 explaining the errors in the Rasool and Schneider paper, please reference those. As far as I am aware, at no contemporaneous time did Hansen distance himself from thee 1971 paper.
But see also a cross section of our atmosphere:
This also proves the point that CO2 does diddly squat below the tropopause. It supports the conclusion drawn by Rasool and Schneider regarding saturation.
When interpreting the above plot, one has to consider the absorption characteristics of CO2. It has a notable absorption band at 667 cm-1 wavelength, and at 1500 cm-1 wavelength.
You will note at the 667 cm-1 wavelength how it illuminates above the tropopause particularly between 20 to 50 km showing how CO2 assists in energy being taken up to TOA whereat it is then radiated to the void of space, but there is all but no response at this wavelength below the tropopause, ie., below about 14 km. Note how below the tropopause, water vapour is lit up the below 600 cm-1 wavelength band, and above 700 cm-1 wavelength band. However, just where CO2 has its absorption wavelength of 667 cm-1, there is a complete void!
Below the tropopause nothing is happening at that wavelength band so DWLWIR is not at that wavelength band finding its way to the surface.
Again below the tropopause water vapour is lit up between 700 cm-1 and 1450 cm-1 wavelengths, but just where CO2 has another absorption band at 1500 cm-1 wavelength, there is little response and because water vapour is dominant below the tropopause, CO2 is not adding to the water vapour response.
Incidentally, there is little water vapour above the tropopause. You can see the CO2 1500 cm-1 wavelength band radiative signature above the tropopause at a height of around 33 km and above.
In summary, CO2 is only operative above the tropopause where it assists in dissipating and carrying energy upwards to TOA from whence it is eventually radiated away into the great void of space.
CO2 is doing diddly squat below the tropopause, further confirming the point made by Rasool and Schneider on saturation.
In the real world, below the tropopause the key and dominant players are conduction, convection and latent/sensible energy transfer.
“Nick, if you consider that since 1971 some new radiative properties of the CO2 molecule have been discovered, and or new understanding of radiative physics has been found which would render the point made in the 1971 paper obsolete or wrong, please detail what these new factors/discoveries are, and please reference the discovery and dates thereof. If you are aware of any papers by Hansen published prior to 1988 explaining the errors in the Rasool and Schneider paper, please reference those. As far as I am aware, at no contemporaneous time did Hansen distance himself from thee 1971 paper.”
And so it goes here. Hansen wrote a paper in 1969 predicting an impending cooling catastrophe. Oh, he didn’t? Well, Rasool and Schneider used Hansen’s model to predict… Oh, they didn’t? Well, Hansen didn’t repudiate their conclusion. Or something.
In fact, Schneider explained the errors, just four years later, in 1975.
Nick
I asked what had changed post 1971, and you open with a rant about 1969. You know that 1969 does not post date 1971, and that makes you appear a fool, which I know that you are not.
The later paper by Schneider is interesting but did not explain the errors, but noted reasons why there were differences. It is mere conjecture as to who is right and who is wrong on Climate Sensitivity (if any at all) to CO2. It was conjecture in 1971, in 1975 and is conjecture today and that is why there are so many different values put forward. It is obvious no one knows, and there is a reason why.
That paper clearly confirms that no one knows what is going on in the atmosphere, no one understands all the processes involved, and these cannot be modelled.
The paper says that if A is happening then the outcome will be X, if B is happening the outcome will be Y, if C is happening then the outcome will be Z etc. There is no empirical evidence/observation evidence put forward in the paper suggesting that what is happening is A, or that C is not happening etc. So the paper does not narrow the field.
Materially, no one knows whether it is G that is happening, and no one has even thought that G was a possibility still less what G would lead to. As I say, the paper is simply conjecture, but seeks to run out various scenarios of the outcome of various conjectures.
The paper lends support that we should be looking at what the satellite says about temperature (rather than land based measurements), and it also notes the uncertainty surrounding clouds which they admit could be a negative feedback. Dr Spencer of course has detailed why clouds are (in his opinion) a negative feedback.
Materially, you do not comment on the IR signature enlightened by the plot that shows that more DWLWIR is not reaching the surface in the wavelengths that CO2 has a particular signature. Whilst unfortunately the scale is such that one cannot easily see what is happening say every 1/2 km, within that limitation, it is clear that CO2 is not causing more DWLWIR to reach the surface. So that answer one point raised in the Schneider paper (towards the end of page 1).
Whilst photons do not as such have a temperature, their wavelength does loosely correspond to a BB temperature, and simply there are few photons of the required wavelength in the lower atmosphere (say ground to 8 km) to have an impact, and this is because of the temperature of the surface and the temperature of the atmosphere. Maybe at the Antarctic, or at some other particular cold ice sheets, or at the top of some high mountain ranges such as the Himalayas, there may be surface radiation of photons of the right wavelength to have some slight impact, but generally it appears that the CO2 infrared absorption/reradiation does little in the atmosphere below the tropopause. Whereas IR from water vapour does make it all the way to the surface, as can be seen in the 400 to 600 cm-1 band, and in the 800 to 1300 cm-1 band.
If Schneider had had the advantage of having seen that plot when he wrote the 1975 paper, he might have been able to have clarified matters further.
PS. I had read the 1975 paper before, but unfortunately had forgotten about it, and materially overlooked that it was written by Schneider. I have made a mental note of the relevance of the author.
Richard,
“I asked what had changed post 1971, and you open with a rant about 1969.”
I was summarizing; my original comment was responding to a claim of a Hansen paper in 1969. Not your claim, I know; I am noting how unchecked beliefs thrive here, and how hard it is to respond when the basis keeps falling back without correction.
“That paper clearly confirms that no one knows what is going on in the atmosphere”
The paper was titled “On the climate carbon dioxide confusion”. There was some in 1975, although some would have said that Schneider had had more than most. But he did clarify.
“The paper says that if A is happening then the outcome will be X, if B is happening the outcome will be Y, if C is happening then the outcome will be Z etc. “
Yes, almost all of science is like that. “If a man drops a ball from a 100 ft tower…”. Scenarios. That is why it is wrong to claim, as people do, that R&S were predicting an Ice Age. They calculated that an Ice Age would follow if aerosols quadrupled. They may well have got that part right. But aerosols didn’t quadruple, and now looks like they won’t. This wasn’t so obvious in 1971.
“Materially, you do not comment on the IR signature”
Yes. I don’t know what it is proving. IR is emitted and absorbed a great deal in GHG bands before finally getting to space (or ground). The DWLWIR that reaches ground appears to come from levels quite close to ground. That was the point of last emission.
I don’t know how Nick maintains the patience he does. There is nothing quite like the special experience of having to educate people on the basic facts of who did what and when, while they argue with you and attack you.
Philip,
“while they argue with you and attack you”
That can happen a lot. But Richard V has substantial points and sticks to topic. I’m always glad to discuss with him.
Nick Stokes said a mouthful when he wrote: “but I’m always glad to be enlightened.”
Me too, Nick. So, what’s your absolute BEST human CO2 attribution paper? You must have a favorite, don’t you? And also, if different, what was the best one that was published prior to 1995, which might have swayed Ben Santer to defy his IPCC assessment working group and change the sign of the summary from “no, there is no clear attribution” to “YES, there is attribution!” I’ve been waiting for this enlightenment for over 20 years. Please clear it up for me. It’s in your power. But do it also for David Appell. He needs it most of all, His whole being is like an unhinged cry for help, for some logical hat rack upon which to hang his public opinions on CO2 caused warming. Enlighten all of us. Call on Ben Santer or anyone else you want if you need help.
I hear crickets, but no Nick, who’s so sure, so willing to chime in on dozens (if not thousands) of pedantic little crap debating points, but on the big important issues having to do with logic, science, truth, there’s nada, who should have this paper highlighted and practically memorized, if it exists. You know, I’m starting to believe it doesn’t even exist, Nick…
BTW, my challenge is for the all promoters of CAGW. Nick is not the only one on the hook, here. You ALL owe us this paper, this logic, this explanation of why you think human emitted CO2 is changing the climate, how you measured it, tried to falsify it, how you couldn’t do that, so that now it’s so obvious to you, but curiously, it still cannot be explained to me except as an appeal to your imaginary authority. Can you not understand how pathetic and ironic that is?
Hansen said in 1988 at that testimony that global warming had already arrived. Among other things he said was that “our climate model simulations for the late 1980’s and the 1990’s indicate a tendency for an increase of heatwave drought situations in the Southeast and MidWest US”. 1) CAGW depends on more water vapour forcing because any forcing by CO2 is not enough. No one disputes this. 2) More water vapour does not cause droughts. No one disputes this. 3) There have not been any more droughts than there ever were. CO2 has nothing to do with extreme weather events. Roger Pielke has documented this and any government agency in the world that tracks extreme weather events will tell you there is no trend unless it is downward. No rational person can doubt this because all they have to do is look up the records. So Hansen was wrong about more extreme weather events happening. He also forecast that the number of 100F degree days in Washington and Omaha would be far more in the future and also the number of 90F degree days would be far more. He further said that the number of days per year in which the nighttime temperature does not fall below 80F will increase 9 times. Check out Tony Hellers video about this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2u_TIWPupw
He also predicted in 1988 that the North Pole ice would disappear within 10 years and that the Great Lakes water levels would drop precipitously because of drought. That has never happened.
He also said in 1988 that the West side highway in NewYork would be under water within 20 or 30 years.
I will quote Michael Mann on James Hansen. ” Amazing…remarkably prescient when it comes to the predictions he made decades ago and how it’s played out.”
I guess Michael Mann lives in a different universe from us.
Another quote from Andrew Dessler texas A&M scientist ” Hansen in that 1988 congressional testimony nailed it”
More than 1 climate scientist lives in a different universe.
and yet by 1999 Hansen had changed his mind
“In 1999, NASA’s James Hansen Also Said The US
Was Not Warming
Science Briefs
Whither U.S. Climate? By James Hansen
— August 1999
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed
precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought.
in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly
increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the
country”
However he changed his mind yet again .
In December 2005, Hansen argued that the earth will become “a different planet” without U.S. leadership in cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.
He also said that global warming of 2C above preindustrial times (~ 1850) would be dangerous and that mankind would be unable to adapt.
He has made other stupid predictions that I have detailed in an earlier post.
“It appears, we have a case of one of the Mindguards still operating. The question is why?”
A trillion dollar per year industry (as of 2015, no less) might be a reasonable assumption as to why.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/11/climate-change-industry-now-15-trillion-global-bus/
As more people reconstruct the global warming deception, they will recall that global warming started with Margaret Thatcher trying to destroy UK coal miners union. Yes, boys and girls of fossil fuel agitprop, it was the conservative heroine who was the source of original deception. It is all nicely described in the movie “the great global warming swindle”, still freely available on youtube.
She was a politician (one of the very few great ones), and all politicians blow with the wind, and latch onto any causes that will bolster their chosen/favoured policy.
The unions were seeking to destroy the government. Obviously, she had to show the unions that they did not run the country; the democratically elected government runs the country.
Coal was already in terminal decline, and appeared to have no long term future without exorbitant subsidies. Being a free marketeer, she was against subsidies.
So not unsurprisingly she supported AGW in her stand against the unions, but her later papers/book make it clear that she was unpersuaded by the science and was sceptical of AGW.
If she had seen how the UN and IPCC would develop, she would have been vehemently opposed to that institution and its one world government, but of course, Margret Thatcher was out of power by 1990 when AR1 was released.
Excellent article. An English note: In the second inset of quotations, the construction “you’re” is followed by (sic) as though “you’re” were incorrect. In fact, the meaning of the construction is “you are,” for which the contraction “you’re” is perfectly correct. In a later inset, the word “its” (meaning “belonging to it”) is incorrect; it should have been written “it’s” meaning “it is”. In that case, the (sic) is correctly placed. A combination of fussiness and marginal ineptitude that too often spoils the work of some of these scientists.
I remember reading, many years ago, about the deliberate choice of the hot day and the engineering of the air conditioning breakdown, and how cleverly that was done to make the case for imminent global warming. For Schmidt to disavow it now–or Wirth, for that matter–is laughable.
For that matter, the designation of June 23 as the climatological hottest day of the year is nonsense. I live within 100 miles or so of DC, and here the hottest period of the year is July 4 to 24, during which the daily high averages 90, the low 69, and the midpoint 79.5. Obviously the temperature will fluctuate during the day and from day to day; but June 23 is 11 days too early for the designation so ignobly thrust upon it.
Something else I noticed the PBS interview got wrong. The interviewer states:
“The one thing that Hansen didn’t do that day in front of your committee is use the term “global warming.” He said, “Gentlemen, I’m 99 percent sure that human beings are contributing to climate change,” but he didn’t quite have the nerve, because he was outside scientific consensus at the time.”
Wirth seems to agree:
“Oh, Hansen went a long way. This was a very, very brave statement. He was on the edge of the science and almost 20 years younger than he is today, so he’s relatively new in the field. … He went as far as anybody could possibly have expected him to go, I think. Again, it was a very brave thing for him to do. ”
But according to the transcript this is simply not true. His opening statement contains the observation that “the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect”
He goes on to use the words “global warming” several times. It also appears in the prepared statement.
There are a number of discussions going on, that treat or discuss a Senate meeting, June 23rd, 1988 as if the meeting was last year with modern central A/C.
Late June is not a typical “hottest day of the year” candidate. Never was.
I remember thinking when I first heard that story, was that Wirth was bloviating.
However, June 23rd does fall within the period during Washington DC summers when brutal heat waves cook the city.
Summers in Washington DC and the term “dog days of August” go hand in hand. Government shutting down during August was because the city was pestilent and extremely uncomfortable during late summer. Utterly forgotten these days is that Washington DC environs were wet and swampy. Mosquito transmitted diseases, e.g. yellow fever and malaria were all too common.
Then there is the local climate for Washington DC. Summer mid days in DC tend to lack wind movement. Leaves in the trees hang straight down, until later in the afternoon when breezes begin to pick up.
I spent a few year living in New Orleans. Yeah, New Orleans was hot, but on most hot days, I could watch leaves fluttering and spinning as they hung from trees.
The words to describe Washington DC in summer is stifling hot and dang uncomfortable.
Lots of cities in America’s South are hotter; however, few cities match Washington DC for sheer discomfort.
According to Ronald Reagan Airport that is quite close to the capitol buildings:
?dl=0
Temperatures were high for most of the day, winds between 10mph-15mph and it looks like a thunderstorm or two passed through.
It also appears that the person who was supposed to read the thermometers, skipped reading them during the storms. Providing empty temperature recordings that government loves to fill with their preferred temperatures for national/global purposes.
Temperatures near 100, dewpoint average is 69°, with a high of 74°, little wind. Then there are the wonderful government buildings where windows are small and far from the seats.
Air conditioning installed back in those days is not the modern air conditioning so many people expect today.
Especially when one remembers that the Capitol building was a cheap sandstone monolithic building that isn’t easily adaptable or quickly changed.
“HISTORY OF THE U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING”
What was “modern air conditioning” back in 1951 is not remotely what people nowadays consider modern.
Was it updated?
First, major changes to government buildings, including replacing defective condensers, compressors and motorized fans, requires planning, allocating, contracting and finishing capital improvements. N.B. That is “capital” as used in finance.
In government, it takes years to accomplish this. If the President wants it cooler, they’ll buy a small window unit under expense funds and install it for his use.
Back to “Was it updated?”
If so, it would be during a major capital construction update:
Which fails, as modern security measures should, mention or describe the Senate’s current air conditioning system.
Leaving us with the impression that in 1988, the Senate Chamber was cooled by some assemblage of equipment based on designs/installation of the 1951 capital improvement contracts.
I visited the capitol one summer shortly after moving to Washington DC, including waiting in line to visit the Senate Chamber. The wait was hot and humid with minimal cool air circulating. The Senate Chamber was hot humid and very closed feeling.
Wirth and Hansen, really did not have to do anything to increase Senator discomfort. Operating relic coolings systems with 1950s designed ventilation would be subject to frequent breakdowns.
Any breakdowns on the June 23rd, 1988 would be subsumed by egotistical politicians into something they planned and carried out.
That particular circumstance and action is fatal to Wirth’s claims.
Senators and Congressmen call maintenance for any interface or interaction with building equipment; always! Most of these characters wouldn’t plug in a clock without calling some maintenance flunky to perform the dirty work.
Don’t overlook, that back in 1988, many Federal offices kept their thermostat adjustment boxes under lock and key. Especially, for any thermostat accessible to office employees.
Then, there is that minor fact that most of American Federal Government still operates under President Nixon’s indoor temperature recommendations, to save precious fossil fuels.
i.e. 68° F (20° C) in winter.
78 degrees F (26° C) in summer.
Aggressive cost cutting building or maintenance managers often set thermostats under their control lower in winter and higher in summer.
Add in approximately 100 Senators, a multitude of aides, a lot of technology, television, camera gear; all of which required incandescent light bulbs in 1988, and even modern air conditioners can choke. Old relics are certain to fail at maintaining decent temperatures and utterly unable to control humidity.
The Senate’s first air conditioning system:
Maybe someone should explain to Ball.
1 gavin is at GISS, not cru.
2 groupthink about landing on the moon is also pervasive.
Mails dont change science.
The existence of groupthink says nothing about science.
Hearings on hot days and other tricks dont change science. None of these has any bearing on science.
The temperature of the earth is governed by three principle factors
Solar
Aerosols
GHGs
GHGs warm the planet they do not cool it.
Add more GHGs and you can expect the temperature to go up.
We added GHGs,
for 150+ years, and as predicted, temps have gone up.
Mails dont change this.
The crazy politics of warmists dont change this
The existence of groupthink doesn’t change this.
If you want to change these basic facts of science you
Have a Nobel prize winning job in front of you.
Get crackin. Do that science.
Hint, blogging won’t cut it.
“We added GHGs,
for 150+ years, and as predicted, temps have gone up.”
They’ve gone up and down, often against the whims of CO2, and still haven’t reached the “optimum” temps of earlier epochs. Nothing to see here, as usual.
And the temperature would appear to be no warmer today than it was during the highs of the late 1930s/early 1940s!
So that suggests that adding CO2 has done diddly squat; so much for predictions!
“GHGs warm the planet they do not cool it.” That is debatable. Our weather report keeps saying (Example) it’s 90 degrees (F) but it feels like 100 degrees (F). So without GHGs the temperature it would be 100 degrees (F). I also point out to you temperature in Yuma compared to Shreveport. The lows are are about the same year around but the highs are different. Yuma is about 10 degrees (F) hotter than Shreveport. Again, the difference in GHGs. Explain that away Steve Mosher.
I do not think that we yet know whether adding CO2 warms the planet more than it cools the planet.
It appears that CO2 does diddly squat below the tropopause, and this is where we experience temperature, but it is a player above the tropopause where it carries energy up to TOA where it is then radiated to the great void space.
Below the tropopause it appears that only water vapour, conduction and convection rule whereas above the tropopause radiative processes are the dominant process for dissipating energy.
See the cross section of the atmosphere where it appears that CO2 does nothing of significance below the tropopause (which is marked with the dotted line), but is a significant player above 20km.
This is consistent with what Rasool and Schneider of NASA/GISS said in their 1971 paper published in Science volume 173. In this paper, they stated that the effects of CO2 are already saturated at 1 bar pressure and that is why increasing CO2 will have little impact.
The temperature gradient is the key here. I can see how water can make things warmer by increasing the altitude of its effective TOA while the atmosphere cools with height but the TOA for CO2 is well into an area that it warms with height. Raising the TOA has to cool the atmosphere once above a small amount so the effective TOA is above the troposphere.
And then the question of why the oceans would warm instead of just the TOA.
When interpreting the above plot, one has to consider the absorption characteristics of CO2. It has a notable absorption band at 667 cm-1, and at 1500 cm-1.
You will note at the 667 cm-1 wavelength how it illuminates above the tropopause particularly between 20 to 50 km, but there is all but no response below the tropopause, ie., below about 14 km. Note how water vapour is lit up below 600 cm-1, and above 700 cm-1. Just where CO2 has its absorption wavelength of 667 cm-1, there is a complete void!
Again below the tropopause water vapour is lit up between 700 cm-1 and 1450 cm-1, but just where CO2 has another absorption band at 1500 cm-1, there is little response and because water vapour is dominant below the tropopause, CO” is not adding to the water vapour response.
Incidentally, there is little water vapour above the tropopause. You can see the CO2 1500 cm-1 radiative signature above the tropopause at a height of around 33 km and above.
Wow, old construction worker has disproven the link between GHGs and temperature by pointing out that two cities located at the same latitude have different temperatures. Stop the presses! Gee, perhaps something to do with the fact that one is a coastal city whose temperatures are moderated by ocean temps, and the other inland which does not get that same benefit?
“What’s frightening is that Wirth appears to think that what he did was clever and well within the manipulations associated with Senate hearings.”
Climate change was and is nothing more than a political messaging Trojan Horse.
And like any Trojan Horse — Inside there be dragons, … in this case, waiting to unleash their Marxist policies on an unsuspecting public.
At first the AGW conjecture sounds plausible and really investigating it the idea that it is the “consensus” opinion makes it sound all that more plausible but upon closer inspection one finds that the AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and cannot be successfully defended.
There may be a consensus among those whose income depends on the AGW conjecture but a true consensus does not exist. Scientists never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture. But even if they had it would make no sense what so ever because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process. Consensus is a political argument and not a scientific argument. Having to include consensus as a reason to believe, means there must be really something wrong with the science.
For those that believe in the radiant greenhouse effect, the AGW conjecture ignores the fact that good absorbers are also good radiators and that gasses with LWIR absorption bands do not trap heat energy any more than any other gases in the atmosphere. The LWIR absorption band photon absorption energy is thermalized, shared with other molecules through conduction, and some of it is radiated away. Some of the heat energy obtained by these molecules from neighboring molecules is also radiated away. In fact it is the non greenhouse gas molecules that are more apt to trap heat energy because they are such poor LWIR radiators to space.
The initial radiametric calculations made decades ago yet still used today came up with a climate sensitivity of CO2 of 1.2 degrees C for a doubling of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere not including any feedback effects. A scientist form Japan pointed out that these initial calculations ignored the fact that a doubling of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause a slight decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. This cooling effect attributed to CO2 reduces the climate sensitivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20 yielding a climate sensitivity of CO2 of less than .06 degrees C which is a trivial amount.
An important part of the AGW conjecture is that H2O, the primary greenhouse gas, provides a positive feedback amplifying the climate sensitivity of CO2 by a significant number. The idea is that CO2 based warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more warming because H2O is also a greenhouse gas with LWIR absorption bands. The IPCC likes to assume an amplification factor of 3 or more but they are not sure what it really is. Others have shown that if you believe in all of this that the amplification factor is really trivial. That the AGW conjecture totally ignores is the fact that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface which is mostly some form of H2O to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. The over all cooling effect of H2O is evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate in the troposphere is significantly less than the dry lapse rate. So instead of a positive feedback, H2O must provide a negative feedback and hence must retard any warming that CO2 might provide making the warming effect of CO2 even more trivial.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiametric greenhouse effect provided for by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect and not a radiametric greenhouse effect that keeps a greenhouse warm. So too on Earth. Gravity, along with the heat capacity of the atmosphere provides a convective greenhouse effect which reduces cooling by convection. As derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect keeps the surface on the Earth on average 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is what has been derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. No additional warming has been observed from an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere, or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well.
Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea the the climate sensitivity of CO2 is effectively zero. There may be many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them.
It was even less than that. Rasool and Scneider of NASA/GISS in their 1971 paper published in Science Volume 173 assessed it as follows:
This assessment was made on the basis of CO2 being 350 ppm, and included the water vapour feedback, and there are no knew properties of CO2 or radiative physics discovered since 1971 that would render the assessment mase by NASA/GISS in 1971 flawed.
But see also a cross section of our atmosphere which I posted above, which also proves the point that CO2 does diddly squat below the tropopause.
But see also a cross section of our atmosphere which I posted above, which also proves the point that CO2 does diddly squat below the tropopause.
Actually it does nothing of the sort. In the absence of the CO2 the H2O band would be continuous and show cooling upto 8×10^-3 K/(day cm-1), in the presence of CO2 it drops to ~0. Clough makes this clear in the paper from which that figure is taken:
“A critical perspective for interpreting the effects of carbon dioxide in the troposphere for atmospheres with significant amounts of water vapor is the recognition that the effect of carbon dioxide is to moderate the strong cooling associated with water vapor.”
Although skeptics like to contest the 97% consensus claim, it is actually a damning confession of groupthink as can be seen in this case study of peer review in climate science.
https://chaamjamal.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/peer-review-of-climate-alarmist-research-by-climate-alarmists-a-case-study/
Beginnings… origins
As in religion?
Indeed (as noted by others here), climate change is almost a religion among its adherents. Question any aspect of it and you invoke lightning and thunder (fortunately not divine) upon yourself.
Perhaps it fills a void for those not inclined to believe in a more formal religion.
Dr. Ball.. Thank you for speaking the whole truth.
I’m no bible thumper, but this is hard to ignore.. I recently learned that the number for carbon is 6 protons, 6 neutrons & 6 electrons. Since the human body is mostly carbon, it qualifies as the ‘number of man’. And if cash were replaced with a carbon card, then chip? Seems like an unambiguous warning to me. And ‘only the truth shall set us free.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t7QD-CKUPw
SEPTEMBER 19: Arch of Baal” erected in New York City
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/19/justin-trudeau-praised-un_n_12093658.html
SEPTEMBER 19: Justin Trudeau Hailed At UN in New York As ‘Example’ To The World
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2018/04/19/trudeaus-follies-the-coming-carbon-tax-showdown-in-canada/
Trudeau’s Follies: The Coming Carbon Tax Showdown In Canada
Canadians who see through Technocrat PM Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax are getting some traction to spread the protest to a wider audience.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/17/toronto-named-as-the-heartland-of-the-radical-climate-revolution/
Toronto Named as the Heartland of the Radical Climate Revolution
65% Oxygen. Oops soz, I thought you were being serious.
The human body isn’t mostly carbon though. It is mostly water.
worth a read:
24 Jun 1998: NYT: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate
By PHILIP SHABECOFF and SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
(A version of this article appears in print on June 24, 1988, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate)
Dr. Hansen, director of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, testifed before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee…
Senator Timothy E. Wirth, the Colorado Democrat who presided at hearing today, said: ”As I read it, the scientific evidence is compelling: the global climate is changing as the earth’s atmosphere gets warmer. Now, the Congress must begin to consider how we are going to slow or halt that warming trend and how we are going to cope with the changes that may already be inevitable.” …
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html
The problem comes when you are convinced that your opponents are “agenda-driven” but refuse to recognise that you might be as well.
As for setting up an attack plan for scientific papers that don’t conform….
Just unbelievable really. No interest in whether new work might refute what they believe.
Nice reading!
It is interesting to read how people in other cultures react to the so-called “Climate defenders”.
A first observation of the Climate Defenders, is that they seem to suffer from the well known decease called: Fact-fobia. But further studies of their rhetorics reveal that they are plain and simple specimens of the breed: Bureaucrats, and their goals are to attain power, keep and increase their power, and eliminate anyone who threatens their way of life.
In my home country, Norway, it is social suicide not to support the official view on “Human induced climate change.”
I have submitted about 100 articles and critical notes to various public media. like newspapers, and not one note has been published.
I know that this is censorship, because I was a regular contributor to these media regarding social issues for many years, and all those articles were published.
This note is just to tell you that in Norway the methods of silencing anyone who try to criticise the official view on the climate change, is to deny them access to public space, and to cut off any public spending. Like newspapers who dares to print anything remotely criticising the official views, will loose their financial support from the government. Anyone who do research showing that the mean temperature has actually gone down the last 40-50 years will loose their research grants, get fired, and will be denied any academic job.
And so on.
I am a retired petroleum geologist, who to a large degree has made a living of reconstructing paleo climate.
Schmidt was handpicked not for his science but he was a ‘safe pair of hands ‘ who would carry-on with Hansen ‘good work’ without question.
At this stage it worth considering what makes a good climate ‘scientist’ , a think skin, a massive ego and an ability to talk through the side of your mouth is clearly important. But more importantly it seems a willingness to employ industrial scale levels of smoke and mirrors, to lie with a straight face and to never question why models fail to match reality .
But can you blame them, this is an area that went from a little known and less cared about area of natural sciences to major league with more money than it could spend , in a short time and without actually offering much on the science front . All that money and all those ‘experts ‘ and computing power and they still no better at weather forecasting. Meanwhile their professional standards can be best called ‘heads you lose , tails I win ‘ so its an easy , well paid life for third rate academics who otherwise would find it hard to get any job, while a lucky few have made millions . So why would they want to change any of that ?
Hand-waving rubbish. Post something informative, back it up with something, anything.
No body believes politicians are other than self interested. Money, power and the votes that keep that coming are their three driving objectives. All else is optional. They assume whatever gets these goals is justified, debate proves the case, not the facts. Which is why lawyers and the law control things, not reason, not justice, not the facts. Politics and politicians are not decent, honest or truthful, but they make sure what they do is legal, by laws they pass. The basis of the democratic system. Twas always thus. just hope it doesn’t go the next step – Hitler, Putin, Erdogan, Netenyahoo, Sisi and most of the African lot were/are all elected. Are politicians inherently bad and self serving or good and altruistic. Discuss.
He might have been part of a discussion to delay it hence the 6th/9th 23rd mix up. Only thing that makes sense, mixed with self importance. Hardly something completely made up. Definitely not the whole truth.
As a result of climate “science”, all science is now regarded as “science”. Where there was once great respect, mixed with healthy skepticism, for science, now there is an expectation of lies and scams. It is increasingly difficult to separate science from dogma. Now one must consider the agenda behind each scientific opinion, perhaps most importantly where is the funding coming from and who controls it.
The search for the truth has by many small deviations turned to the search for money.
It requires a complete suspension of critical thinking to find Wirth guilty of some crime or critical role in the beginnings of the AGW history. The implication is that the room temperature played a far more important role in how Congress received Hansen’s testimony than the actual charts and information he shared. The implication is “gosh, it’s a hot day – we believe you!” as opposed to “it’s overcast and cool – I don’t believe your data!”
Wirth and Hansen were relying on creating a ‘complete suspension of critical thinking’. It is called political theatre, and it is far more effective than minor props such as charts and figures.
A career politician boasting about setting up a committee room to make it hotter than it is supposed to be to push an agenda? And now, when the public perception of AGW is way down on the list of importance, he says that he was lying to attempt to give the agenda a boost? I am shocked! Shocked, I say, to believe a politician would do such a thing!!!
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” Mencken
It is likely a stretch to believe that the testimony of some obscure political operative like Hansen could give birth to the whole CAGW movement.
Let’s face it, if it wasn’t global warming it would be something else. Our politicians and media seem to require the populace to be constantly alarmed about something
The end of the cooling trend from the 1940’s to 1980 is what gave birth to the CAGW movement.
Before 1980 the rage was Human-Caused Global Cooling. When the cooling trend stopped, the climate scientists latched on to another speculation: Human-Caused Global Warming/Climate Change.
For some reason, Alarmist Climate Scientists seem to think trends go on forever.
It is amazing as to what motivate the trolls to come out. When there are certain very specific topics, like some discussion of one of the high priest in the AGW religion, the trolls seem to come out of the woodwork. While there are a couple that try to make what appear to be logical arguments others do not even pretend they just act as the most nasty of trolls. It is like some tweet or text message goes out calling the trolls together to attack and obfuscate.
Fanatics have to have some belief system that makes them feel ‘special’. When Marxism waned and its economic dogma had failed again, these fanatics moved to climate. Essentially it became the new religion of totalitarianists. The enemies of the future are always with us.