August 25th, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
An old mantra of the news business is, “if it bleeds, it leads”. If someone was murdered, it is news. That virtually no one gets murdered is not news. That, by itself, should tell you that the mainstream media cannot be relied upon as an unbiased source of climate change information.
There are lots of self-proclaimed climate experts now. They don’t need a degree in physics or atmospheric science. For credentials, they only need to care and tell others they care. They believe the Earth is being murdered by humans and want the media to spread the word.
Most people do not have the time or educational background to understand the global warming debate, and so defer to the consensus of experts on the subject. The trouble is that no one ever says exactly what the experts agree upon.
When you dig into the details, what the experts agree upon in their official pronouncements is rather unremarkable. The Earth has warmed a little since the 1950s, a date chosen because before that humans had not produced enough CO2 to really matter. Not enough warming for most people to actually feel, but enough for thermometers to pick up the signal buried in the noise of natural weather swings of many tens of degrees and spurious warming from urbanization effects. The UN consensus is that most of that warming is probably due to increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel use (but we really don’t know for sure).
For now, I tend to agree with this consensus.
And still I am widely considered a climate denier.
Why? Because I am not willing to exaggerate and make claims that cannot be supported by data.
Take researcher Roger Pielke, Jr. as another example. Roger considers himself an environmentalist. He generally agrees with the predictions of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding future warming. But as an expert in severe weather damages, he isn’t willing to support the lie that severe weather has gotten worse. Yes, storm damages have increased, but that’s because we keep building more infrastructure to get damaged.
So, he, too is considered a climate denier.
What gets reported by the media about global warming (aka climate change, the climate crisis, and now the climate emergency) is usually greatly exaggerated, half-truths, or just plain nonsense. Just like the economy and economists, it is not difficult to find an expert willing to provide a prediction of gloom and doom. That makes interesting news. But it distorts the public perception of the dangers of climate change. And because it is reported as “science”, it is equated with truth.
In the case of climate change news, the predicted effects are almost universally biased toward Armageddon-like outcomes. Severe weather events that have always occurred (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts) are now reported with at least some blame placed on your SUV.
The major media outlets have so convinced themselves of the justness, righteousness, and truthfulness of their cause that they have banded together to make sure the climate emergency is not ignored. As reported by The Guardian, “More than 60 news outlets worldwide have signed on to Covering Climate Now, a project to improve coverage of the emergency”.
The exaggerations are not limited to just science. The reporting on engineering related to proposed alternative sources of energy (e.g. wind and solar) is also biased. The reported economics are biased. Unlimited “free” energy is claimed to be all around us, just waiting to be plucked from the unicorn tree.
And for most of America (and the world), the reporting is not making us smarter, but dumber.
Why does it matter? Who cares if the science (or engineering or economics) is exaggerated, if the result is that we stop polluting?
Besides the fact that there is no such thing as a non-polluting energy source, it matters because humanity depends upon abundant, affordable energy to prosper. Just Google life expectancy and per capita energy use. Prosperous societies are healthier and enjoy longer lives. Expensive sources of energy forced upon the masses by governmental fiat kill poor people simply because expensive energy exacerbates poverty, and poverty leads to premature death. As philosopher Alex Epstein writes in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, if you believe humans have a right to thrive, then you should be supportive of fossil fuels.
We don’t use wind and solar energy because it is economically competitive. We use it because governments have decided to force taxpayers to pay the extra costs involved and allowed utilities to pass on the higher costs to consumers. Wind and solar use continue to grow, but global energy demand grows even faster. Barring some new energy technology (or a renewed embrace of nuclear power), wind and solar are unlikely to supply more than 10% of global energy demand in the coming decades. And as some European countries have learned, mandated use of solar and wind comes at a high cost to society.
Not only the media, but the public education system is complicit in this era of sloppy science reporting. I suppose most teachers and journalists believe what they are teaching and reporting on. But they still bear some responsibility for making sure what they report is relatively unbiased and factual.
I would much rather have teachers spending more time teaching students how to think and less time teaching them what to think.
Climate scientists are not without blame. They, like everyone else, are biased. Virtually all Earth scientists I know view the Earth as “fragile”. Their biases affect their analysis of uncertain data that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Most are relatively clueless about engineering and economics. I’ve had discussions with climate scientists who tell me, “Well, we need to get away from fossil fuels, anyway”.
And maybe we do, eventually. But exaggerating the threat can do more harm than good. The late Stephen Schneider infamously admitted to biased reporting by scientists. You can read his entire quote and decide for yourself whether scientists like Dr. Schneider let their worldview, politics, etc., color how they present their science to the public. The unauthorized release of the ‘ClimateGate’ emails between IPCC scientists showed how the alarmist narrative was maintained by undermining alternative views and even pressuring the editors of scientific journals. Even The Guardian seemed shocked by the misbehavior.
It’s fine to present the possibility that human-caused global warming could be very damaging, which is indeed theoretically possible. But to claim that large and damaging changes have already occurred due to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is shoddy journalism. Some reporters get around the problem by saying that the latest hurricane might not be blamed on global warming directly, but it represents what we can expect more of in a warming world. Except that, even the UN IPCC is equivocal on the subject.
Sea level rise stories in the media, as far as I can tell, never mention that sea level has been rising naturally for as long as we have had global tide gage measurements (since the 1850s). Maybe humans are responsible for a portion of the recent rise, but as is the case for essentially all climate reporting, the role of nature is seldom mentioned, and the size of the problem is almost always exaggerated. That worsening periodic tidal flooding in Miami Beach is about 50% due to sinking of reclaimed swampland is never mentioned.
There are no human fingerprints of global warming. None. Climate change is simply assumed to be mostly human-caused (which is indeed possible), while our knowledge of natural climate change is almost non-existent.
Computerized climate models are programmed based upon the assumption of human causation. The models produce human-caused climate change because they are forced to produce no warming (be in a state of ‘energy balance’) unless CO2 is added to them.
As far as we know, no one has ever been killed by human-caused climate change. Weather-related deaths have fallen dramatically — by over 90% — in the last 100 years.
Whose child has been taught that in school? What journalist has been brave enough to report that good news?
In recent years I’ve had more and more people tell me that their children, grandchildren, or young acquaintances are now thoroughly convinced we are destroying the planet with our carbon dioxide emissions from burning of fossil fuels. They’ve had this message drilled into their brains through news reporting, movies, their teachers and professors, their favorite celebrities, and a handful of outspoken scientists and politicians whose knowledge of the subject is a mile wide but only inches deep.
In contrast, few people are aware of the science papers showing satellite observations that reveal a global greening phenomenon is occurring as a result of more atmospheric CO2.
Again I ask, whose child has been taught this in school? What journalist dares to report any positive benefits of CO2, without which life on Earth would not exist?
No, if it’s climate news, it’s all bad news, all the time.
More Examples of Media Bias
Here are just a few recent (and not-so-recent) examples of media reporting which only make matters worse and degrade the public debate on the subject of climate change. Very often what is reported is actually weather-related events that have always occurred with no good evidence that they have worsened or become more frequent in the last 60+ years that humans could be at least partly blamed.
The Amazon is burning
A few days ago, The Guardian announced Large swathes of the Amazon rainforest are burning. I don’t know how this has suddenly entered the public’s consciousness, but for those of us who keep track of such things, farmland and some rainforest in Amazonia and adjacent lands has been burned by farmers for many decades during this time of year so they can plant crops. This year is not exceptional in this regard, yet someone decided to make an issue of it this year. In fact, it looks like 2019 might be one of the lowest years for biomass burning. Deforestation there has gone down dramatically in the last 20 years.
The rainforest itself does not burn in response to global warming, and in fact warming in the tropics has been so slow that it is unlikely that any tropical resident would perceive it in their lifetime. This is not a climate change issue; it’s a farming and land use issue.
Greenland Is rapidly melting
The Greenland ice sheet gains new snow every year, and gravity causes the sheet to slowly flow to the sea where ice is lost by calving of icebergs. How much ice resides in the sheet at any given time is based upon the balance between gains and losses.
During the summer months of June, July, and August there is more melting of the surface than snow accumulation. The recent (weather-related) episode of a Saharan air mass traveling through western Europe and reaching Greenland led to a few days of exceptional melt. This was widely reported as having grave consequences.
Forbes decided to push the limits of responsible journalism with a story title, Greenland’s Massive Ice Melt Wasn’t Supposed to Happen Until 2070. But the actual data show that after this very brief period (a few days) of strong melt, conditions then returned to normal.
The widely reported Greenland surface melt event around 1 August 2019 (green oval) was then followed by a recovery to normal in the following weeks (purple oval), which was not reported by the media.
Of course, only the brief period of melt was reported by the media, further feeding the steady diet of biased climate information we have all become accustomed to.
Furthermore, after all of the reports of record warmth at the summit of the ice cap, it was found that the temperature sensor readings were biased too warm, and the temperature never actually went above freezing.
Was this reported with the same fanfare as the original story? Of course not. The damage has been done, and the thousands of alarmist news stories will live on in perpetuity.
This isn’t to say that Greenland isn’t losing more ice than it is gaining, but most of that loss is due to calving of icebergs around the edge of the sheet being fed by ice flowing downhill. Not from blast-furnace heating of the surface. It could be the loss in recent decades is a delayed response to excess snow accumulation tens or hundreds of years ago (I took glaciology as a minor while working on my Ph.D. in meteorology). No one really knows because ice sheet dynamics is complicated with much uncertainty.
My point is that the public only hears about these brief weather events which are almost always used to promote an alarmist narrative.
July 2019 was the hottest month on record
The yearly, area-averaged surface temperature of the Earth is about 60 deg. F. It has been slowly and irregularly rising in recent decades at a rate of about 0.3 or 0.4 deg. F per decade.
So, let’s say the average temperature reaches 60.4 deg. F rather than a more normal 60 deg. F. Is “hottest” really the best adjective to use to inform the public about what is going on?
Here’s a geographic plot of the July 2019 departures from normal from NOAA’s Climate Forecast System model.
July 2019 surface temperature departures from normal. The global average is only 0.3 deg. C (0.5 deg. F) above the 1981-2010 average, and many areas were below normal in temperature. (Graphic courtesy WeatherBell.com).
Some areas were above normal, some below, yet the headlines of “hottest month ever” would make you think the whole Earth had become an oven of unbearable heat.
Of course, the temperature changes involved in new record warm months is so small it is usually less than the uncertainty level of the measurements. And, different global datasets give different results. Monitoring global warming is like searching for a climate needle in a haystack of weather variability.
Bait and Switch: Models replacing observations
There is an increasing trend toward passing off climate model projections as actual observations in news reports. This came up just a few days ago when I was alerted to a news story that claimed Tuscaloosa, Alabama is experiencing twice as many 100+ deg. F days as it used to. To his credit, the reporter corrected the story when it was pointed out to him that no such thing has happened, and it was a climate model projection that (erroneously) made such a “prediction”.
Another example happened last year with a news report that the 100th Meridian climate boundary in the U.S. was moving east, with gradual drying starting to invade the U.S. Midwest agricultural belt. But, once again, the truth is that no such thing has happened. It was a climate model projection, being passed off as reality. Having worked with grain-growing interests for nearly 10 years, I addressed this bit of fake climate news with actual precipitation measurements here.
Al Gore and Bill Nye’s global warming in a jar experiment
This is one of my favorites.
As part of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, Bill Nye produced a Climate 101 video of an experiment where two glass jars with thermometers in them were illuminated by lamps. One jar had air in it, the other had pure CO2. The video allegedly shows the jar with CO2 in it experiencing a larger temperature rise than the jar with just air in it.
Of course, this was meant to demonstrate how easy it is to show more CO2 causes warming. I’m sure it has inspired many school science experiments. The video has had over 500,000 views.
The problem is that this experiment cannot show such an effect. Any expert in atmospheric radiative transfer can tell you this. The jars are totally opaque to infrared radiation anyway, the amount of CO2 involved is far too small, the thermometers were cheap and inaccurate, the lamps cannot be exactly identical, the jars are not identical, and the “cold” of outer space was not included the experiment. TV meteorologist Anthony Watts demonstrated that Bill Nye had to fake the results through post-production video editing.
The warming effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 is surprisingly difficult to demonstrate. The demonstration is largely a theoretical exercise involving radiative absorption calculations and a radiative transfer model. I believe the effect exists; I’m just saying that there is no easy way to demonstrate it.
The trouble is that this fraudulent video still exists, and many thousands of people are being misled into believing that the experiment is evidence of how obvious it is to
Greta Thunberg’s sailboat trip
The new spokesperson for the world’s youth regarding concerns over global warming is 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg. Greta is travelling across the Atlantic on what CNN describes as a “zero-emissions yacht” to attend the UN Climate Action Summit on September 23 in New York City.
To begin with, there is no such thing as a zero-emissions yacht. A huge amount of energy was required to manufacture the yacht, and it transports so few people so few miles over its lifetime the yacht is a wonderful example of the energy waste typical of the lifestyles of the wealthy elite. Four (!) people will need to fly from Europe to the U.S. to support the return of the yacht to Europe after Greta is delivered there.
The trip is nothing more than a publicity stunt, and it leads to further disinformation regarding global energy use. In fact, it works much better as satire. Imagine if everyone who traveled across the ocean used yachts rather than jet airplanes. More energy would be required, not less, due to the manufacture of tens of thousands of extra yachts which inefficiently carry few passengers on relatively few, very slow trips. In contrast, the average jet aircraft will travel 50 million miles in its lifetime. Most people don’t realize that travel by jet is now more fuel efficient than travel by car.
The Greta boat trip story is in so many ways the absolute worst way to raise awareness of climate issues, unless you know knothing of science, engineering, or economics. It’s like someone who is against eating meat consuming three McDonalds cheeseburgers to show how we should change our diets. It makes zero sense.
I could give many more examples of the media helping to destroy the public’s ability to have a rational discussion about climate change, how much is caused by humans, and what can or should be done about it.
Instead, the media chooses to publish only the most headline-grabbing stories, and the climate change issue is then cast as two extremes: either you believe the “real scientists” who all agree we are destroying the planet, or you are a knuckle-dragging 8th-grade educated climate denier with guns and racist tendencies.
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To be truly a zero-emissions venture, Greta Thunberg should have made the crossing to America in a coracle made with her own hands from reeds in Lake Vänern, and sailed down the Göta canal to the sea. The large yacht that she is going over on used a huge amount of energy to manufacture the yacht itself.
Hmmm. Lake Vänern, then sailing down the Göta canal to the sea… would that be anywhere near Kneurgen? Kneurgen, that’s in the Klargen Province, near the Biburgen River. Kneurgen, near the Joergen Fjords, right?
I did a report on Sweden in the eighth grade. It was really hard, I stayed all night on it. Then the next day, in gym class I was on the minitramp and I got diarrhea. I really wish I hadn’t told you that.
– Wayne’s Word 2 (adaptation)
Thank goodness we have a President who says what this is, fake news. That terminology, which was first employed by the left by the way to “explain” HR’s election loss, has done more damage to that opposition party than any other. Why? Because it’s perfectly descriptive, everyone gets it, and the media provides daily confirmation.
“Climate Change” consistently ranks near the bottom of people’s concerns on polls–including those taken by the UN–worldwide. The shark has been jumped, and circus stunts like Thunberg and the DiCaprio coven’s recent cavortings at the Google “camp” tell us all we need to know.
The piece de resistance is the Obamas’ purchase of 27 waterfront acres and a mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. If that ain’t “FU money,” I’ve never seen it. Their actions effectively debunk their own propaganda.
Pop a beer–the next 15 months are going to be FUN!
This ought to be an op-ed piece in the New York Times.
.. ok you all can get up off the floor now.
Roy said: “I would much rather have teachers spending more time teaching students how to think and less time teaching them what to think.”
That is verboten in der Klimatariat. Nur Gruppendenken ist erlaubt.
Great article Dr. Spencer!!! Thanks!!!
A very good article, thank you Roy Spencer.
“If it bleeds, it leads!” is only partly true. If a story tends to downplay global warming hysteria, it will not get covered in the New York Times or other warmist propaganda media. If an article supports warmist hysteria, it will be published far and wide.
For example, if eight people die in a heat wave somewhere on the planet, that makes the newspapers everywhere. However, every year there are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths in the USA – that is two 9-11’s per week for 17 weeks every year – but did you ever read about that in the papers?
The Excess Winter Death Rate in the United Kingdom two winters ago was about 3 times the average rate of the USA – over 50,000 Excess Winter Deaths in just England and Wales. with a population about 1/6 that of the USA. That news did get minor coverage in some of the UK papers. Not coincidentally, energy costs in the UK are several times higher than in the USA, due to anti-fossil-fuel activism by green extremists.
The reality is that cool and cold weather kills about 20 times as many people on Earth as warm and hot weather – but everybody wants to talk about heat waves.
Moderate global warming will actually save many lives, whereas global cooling will kill millions more every decade.
Heat waves and “warmest ever” nonsense are just more great steaming piles of horse pucks churned out by the warmist propaganda machine. Nobody should believe anything the warmists say – they have been wrong about every very-scary prediction they have made to date.
.
Reference:
COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER
by Joseph d’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Agreed, the media is sensationalist but also evengelical on this issue. Like Schneider, they think they have a duty to be “effective” rather than simply doing their job and being honest.
This habit of calling an average over some arbitrary period “normal” needs to end. Climate is ever changing and it has no “normal” state. This was initially a warmist trick used to imply that a historical average was “normal” and thus any deviation ( warming ) from average was abnormal , ie. due the man. These are all cleverly crafted word games, they imply a conclusion without ever making any argument to substantiate it , therefore it is irrefutable and just slips quietly into the subconscious.
It is sad to see the usage being adopted by rational skeptics, it is an own goal.
If you refer to an average, say higher / lower than average. Do not say “normal” unless you can prove what the normal state of the climate is.
Generally a very good article from Dr Spencer, especially the reminder of Nye-the-lie’s video fraud.
The average of a chaotic system derived from short-term, incomplete measurements being used to raise the costs of economic development for the world’s poorest…
Can anyone count the number of ways that is wrong?
Yes, a great article and I especially liked this comment, to wit:
Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.:
“HA”, IMO that shur was a subtle and demeaning criticism iffen per chance ….
“consensus of experts” = “junk science agitprop”.
@ur momisugly Samuel Cogar
And yet, Dr Spencer says:” The UN consensus is that most of that warming is probably due to increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel use (but we really don’t know for sure). For now, I tend to agree with this consensus.”
You can’t in one breath criticize the “consensus of experts” and at the same time admit you go along with it. Although his article calls for reason and common sense, the mere fact that he goes along with the Co2 being responsible for additional warming is enough to label him as a warmist. It’s hard to understand how so many of the commenters here like to think of him as being on their side.
@alexei
I didn’t read that part …… cause I stopped reading after the “part” I quoted. My bad!!!
“HA”, it appears Dr Spencer wants to enjoy “eating his cake and having it too”, A “fence straddler” for sure.
As far as I’m concerned, it is utterly moronic for anyone to think, profess or believe that atmospheric CO2 quantities of less than 10,000 ppm can cause a measurable amount of near surface “warming”.
On the contrary, if anything, it would cause enhanced “cooling” of the near surface atmosphere ….. simply because the absorbed “heat” of the O2 and N2 would be conducted to the CO2 and it would radiate it into space.
The problem is that it isn’t just the media. It’s the Democrat Party, quite a few RINO Republicans and far too many publicity hound “scientists” spoon-feeding the media RCP8.5 red meat… Turning this into a climate “crisis”…
If the so-called consensus is correct, the fossil fuel industries saved the world from this…
This petroleum geologist says, “You’re welcome.”
Man, that is a spectacular find! I remember seeing an old National Geographic from that era that said in big bold letters on the cover ” The Coming Ice Age”. Its akin to the Heinlein quote, ” One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.” And thanks to the media we can now amend that by adding “or what will surely happen.” Thanks for posting that pic!
@Dale Rainwater. Spencer: thanks for proving me not crazy, Doc! Great read!
Have a look at a BBC documentary/series from the 70s called the weather machine, I had the book by Nigel Calder and did a school project on the climate in primary school. The series predicted a new Ice age so anyone denying that this was the general thinking in media and scientific communities in the 70s is,well, a denier!
David, the neoglaciation that started 5000 years ago seems to be over. Many glaciers have retreated towards the minima that existed at the holocene optimum. Particularly in the N. Hemisphere. I live in the South and have travelled to NZ and Chile to see for myself what is happening. Google earth is your friend.
Dr Roy is an atmospheric physicist and he is contributing in his area. You need to help with knowledge from your area of expertise. (or am I missing some humour?)
You’re absolutely right… And you are probably also missing some humor. I can’t type without being at least a little sarcastic.
I have numerous posts dealing with Neoglaciation. Glaciers are always advancing or retreating. Advancing is always bad.
The Holocene Sea Level Highstand
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/06/the-holocene-sea-level-highstand/
A Geological Perspective on Arctic Sea Ice Extent (AKA PIP25: “Miracle on Ice”)
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/08/206154/
A Geological Perspective of the Greenland Ice Sheet
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/22/a-geological-perspective-of-the-greenland-ice-sheet/
President Trump says our climate is “fabulous” and that “the climate, the hottest in modern human history, can change back on its own.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/07/president-trump-says-our-climate-is-fabulous-and-the-climate-the-hottest-in-modern-human-history-can-change-back-on-its-own/
“Terrifying Sea-Level Prediction Now Looks Far Less Likely”… But “marine ice-cliff instability” is “just common sense”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/05/terrifying-sea-level-prediction-now-looks-far-less-likely-but-marine-ice-cliff-instability-is-just-common-sense/
“The end for small glaciers” or anthropogenic circular reasoning?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/19/the-end-for-small-glaciers-or-anthropogenic-circular-reasoning/
Your labels are in need of revision….
Which labels?
Dr. Middleton has done QUITE a bit himself in correcting this atrocious state of affairs. We are all so very grateful to Dr Spencer and Dr Middleton. Thank you, gentlemen.
I’m about 4 years of college short of a PhD… just a BS in Earth Science.
Working in private industry is usually far more instructive and educational than post-graduate work in academia. And you get paid for it…..
I wouldn’t describe a Hockey Stick chart as “observations”. It should be described as “fraudulent manipulations”.
Please Dr Spencer, contact Tucker Carlson and get this message on at least Fox News! What is wrong with our president that he doesn’t put you and Drs Curry, Happer, Pielke, Christy and a few others in the national spolight to present the balance of vital information needed so badly by the populace to prevent the fall of the free western world?
Brilliant idea!!
At the sake of sounding like a conspiracy theorist I say “you didn’t see this coming”? There is no “dialogue”. It’s not allowed. And it has all been bought and paid for. That’s how propaganda works.
Dr. Spencer is being awfully charitable to the media when he describes their motivation (for producing fake science and weather news) as just sensationalizing the news to boost audience numbers. The vast majority of the dying profession of journalism are far left activists. (Ditto for Academia.)
These Activists/Alarmists deliver fake political and science news (with the aid of academics) daily. They often use THE SAME CATCH PHRASES ACROSS THE ENTIRE Industry during any given news cycle. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, BBC, MSNBC, CNN, NYT, LAT….etc…etc…report the same concocted and biased stories using the same emotionally loaded words. This is a unified propaganda machine at work for the purpose of moving political momentum strongly leftward. The end goal being a Centralized International Governing Authority whose powers supersede the powers of individual nations. This is a grave threat to individual liberty and the US Constitution.
These “smarter people” in Media and Academia would, of course be the Voice and the Brains of the new Socialist Utopia. They are all on-board traveling together into that future.
Consider the Green New Deal. It does nothing at extremely great cost that will have a measurable effect on the climate (using even the IPCC’s most unlikely projections). But the GND would totally remake the economy and certainly bankrupt the nation and trample individual liberties.
It is pretty obvious to anyone who has studied the Alarmist claims and the Alarmist plans (to reduce emissions) that the Climate Crisis is just a clever tool for the advance of Statist Authoritarian Socialism.
The Alarmust prophecies are ridiculously unlikely and their plans for remediation would have little effect (in reversing their unlikely warming scenario trends) . If the Activist crowd were really true believers, they would be targeting the rapid fossil fuel utilization GROWTH in Asia with grand fervor…and they would be eagerly embracing building one of Roger Pielke’s 1.5 Gigawatt Nuclear Plants EVERY DAY between now and 2050 (just to cut emissions in half). The fact that they don’t means that they aren’t really worried that much about the climate (it’s just another political tool). OR they don’t in the least understand the scope of the problem AS THEY HAVE DEFINED IT in their very uncertain and poorly performing models. They haven’t calculated how big their lie is.
The Climate Activist crusade is guaranteed to do an enormous amount of damage to freedom, prosperity, security and even survival (to the poor of the world) if they are not stopped. $Trillions have already been squandered.
Outstanding.
”The UN consensus is that most of that warming is probably due to increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel use (but we really don’t know for sure).
For now, I tend to agree with this consensus.
And still I am widely considered a climate denier.
Why? Because I am not willing to exaggerate and make claims that cannot be supported by data.
So what is the data that supports ….. ”The UN consensus is that most of that warming is probably due to increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel use (but we really don’t know for sure)”.
An explanation (hypothesis) is not support in my world.
It’s irrelevant, anyway. If the temperature had continued to drop, they’d have continued the ‘OMG New Ice Age!’ Narrative, which required paying more taxes and reducing fossil fuel usage. Because the temperature started to rise, they switched seamlessly to the ‘Global Warming’ Narrative–which also requires paying more taxes and reducing fossil fuel usage–and memory-holed the ‘New Ice Age’.
We’re just trying to find explicable patterns in pseudorandom fluctuations of temperature. There’s always some pattern you can find that ‘explains’ the fluctuations, but it’s still entirely meaningless because they’re pseudorandom with too many inputs to actually predict.
Why are you conceding any of the Junk Science assertions of the RGHE model? It violates all laws of Thermodynamics and is the template for a Perpetual Motion Machine….not to mention that it is based on a FLAT EARTH Solar irradiance model.
Unfortunately none of this will ever matter. They will lie to the public and the public will continue to be misled about the nature of the problem. If the AMO goes into its cool phase or if the Grand Solar Minimum is actually a thing – the lack of actual impact from the CO2 heating might make itself known in the form of brutal winters and shorter growing seasons for a decade or two. How will the plebs deal with the colder than normal winters in the northern hemisphere? I suppose it will all just be climate change.
The sad fact that the media is selling a 300 year problem as a 10 year problem is really something that shakes my faith in every institution we are forced to support. This level of dishonesty is just disgusting to me. How can they look people in the face and lie to them about the nature of the problem the way they do?
Xenomoly,
Exactly a 300 year problem as a 10 year problem. Does any rational person believe we will not be mostly dependent on nuclear energy for power in 2319? Windmills and lithium battery storage…are you kidding?
J’m probably too gracious but I don’t think it’s dishonesty. Willfully ignorant is a possibility, but lately I’m more inclined to agree with George Catlin:
“… Think about this: think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of ’em are stupider than that”.
George Carlin ?
And, again, so many people don’t know the meaning of “average”.
Apologies for yelling, (and I hope I closed all the formatting tags) but that seems to be the only way to get attention to emphasize important points.
Ah, are you ready to check out? OK, let’s scan your items…….$100.00 even….but now we have to divide that number by FOUR (4) to get some sort of “average” purchase since you have items from all FOUR corners of the store….$25.00, please….oh, and pay the “doorkeeper” the other $75.00 on your way out so the “books” will “balance”…..well, if it works for using the FLAT EARTH Radiative Greenhouse model to calculate incoming flux from the SUN distributed over the ENTIRE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH AT ONCE and then adding in THREE TIMES AS MUCH from the “magic” CO2 “back-radiation perpetual motion engine — call it something meaningless like an “average flux” if you want — to make the HIGH FREQUENCY, HIGH INTENSITY “incoming flux” from the SUN and actually striking ONLY one hemisphere at a time equal “outgoing” flux from the ENTIRE GLOBE, it only seems fair to apply that same math to calculating the total price and distribution of my purchase, right?
Expect more of the propaganda. According to Radio New Zealand, there was a recent meeting of a large number of major news providers/publishers where agreement was reached to mount an all out climate emergency campaign leading up to the forthcoming conferences, I suppose with the aim of scaring the world into precipitate action.
The headline written by a rational scientists reads:
“How the Media Help to Destroy Rational Climate Debate”
YAWN
Now let’s use the journalistic standards and methods of the leftist media to generate a headline for the same article. It might read something like this:
Wealthy Global Media Elites use Climate Scare to Ravage Freedom and Murder the Poor!
Both headlines fit the story, but which one will have the most impact? Which one will get more people to read the article and think about what is actually happening?
Dr. Spencer is a hero of mine. I have a great deal of respect for his intelligence, wisdom and principles. I would probably be disappointed if he attached such a provocative headline to this excellent article. Furthermore, the comments section here on WUWT would likely take him to task for being incendiary, because we hate that the other side does this all the time. Yet, in the world of persuasion, we continue to show up with our Marquess of Queensberry rules to the MMA Cage Match.
Am I making the same morally weak argument that the late Stephen Schneider made when he said: “This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both”? Yes, I guess I am thinking hard about that argument.
After all this time, it is crystal clear that the other side made the choice to try and be effective, with apparently little concern for the truth. That’s not surprising as the choice for effectiveness over truth was already being practiced by the time Mr. Schneider formalized it as a question.
The choice of the warmists to sacrifice truth for effectiveness allows us to feel somewhat superior in our relative obscurity, yet the threat that climate alarmists pose to society is much more real and immediate than the threat of another degree of warming. When we talk about that, would it be alright if we appealed to the emotions as well as the mind?
“Four (!) people will need to fly from Europe to the U.S. to support the return of the yacht to Europe after Greta is delivered there.”
Early in my engineering career a supervisor told me, “Whenever you’re thinking of pointing the finger, count how many will be pointing back at you.” Probably nothing new to readers here, but always worth reflecting on before playing any blame games.
That was a conversation instantly remembered after 35 years, as soon as I saw the picture of Greta pointing her finger, and I read how adhering to her “principles” will result in several more flights and considerably greater emissions than if she had simply got on a plane.
If Greta’s message to me is, “To do your best is no longer good enough,” then my response is, “Take a good look at your fingers, because so far your best is worse than my worst.”
“Computerized climate models are programmed based upon the assumption of human causation.”
This post is a long ramble, but I’ll take issue with this one, because it isn’t true, and Roy should know better. GCM’s are just fluid dynamics (CFD) programs. They describe physical relationships. They don’t assume human, or any other causation. They respond to forcings. People supply scenarios of human caused changes in GHGs, and the models tell what will happen in response. That is compared with a no-forcing scenario. The model does both equally. They will even do glaciation.
Nick Stokes ..
“They don’t assume human, or any other causation.”
All models (computer programs) run on certain ‘assumptions.’ And one of those assumptions is that for any increase in GHGs, x will happen .. presumably temperatures will increase, which in turn will cause certain other effects. But there ARE assumptions (human assumptions) programmed into it. My( and I’m pretty sure many others) contention is, that the assumptions includes a higher sensitivity to GHG than actually exists.
“They describe physical relationships.”
As YOU understand them, but perhaps you understand incorrectly.
“that the assumptions includes a higher sensitivity to GHG than actually exists”
They don’t assume a sensitivity. One can be inferred from their results. But that has nothing to do with humans. It would be the same sensitivity, high or not, to a rise in CO2 from volcanoes, say.
Nick Stokes
CFD itself is still itself under scrutiny.
It’s used all the time in F1 and many other forms of motorsport. Results are checked in wind tunnels before sending the car out onto the track to empirically understand whether the theory works or not.
And frequently, it doesn’t.
“It’s used all the time in F1 and many other forms of motorsport.”
“And frequently, it doesn’t.”
So why is it used all the time?
HotScot
Having described what I have, you have a guess.
And if you can’t figure it out you can go to the bottom of the class as a dunce.
Nick Stokes August 26, 2019 at 6:06 pm
“It’s used all the time in F1 and many other forms of motorsport.”
“And frequently, it doesn’t.”
So why is it used all the time?
____________________________________
Nick, obviously you’re ignorant of the fact that all 20 racing cares in a formula 1 competition are sporting plugged in hybrids for energy retention.
That’s the new rules in a climatological emergency challenged world.
Nick is correct-ish.
The radiative forcing of CO2 is just basic physics. It works out to about 1 °C per doubling. The feedback mechanisms that yield the net sensitivity are the result of the structure of the models.
The “consensus” ECS estimate of 3 °C per doubling (+/-1.5 °C) is the result of 30+ years of climate modeling.
However, most satellite era observation-derived estimates support a transient climate response of 0.6 to 1.5 °C (ECS~0.8-2.0 °C).
” is the result of 30+ years of climate modeling”
Well, it started with Arrhenius in 1896.
Modeling, not guessing…😎
When one starts with a false premise, everything following is also false. Fourier (1824, 1827) does not even allude to any backradiation mechanism that is claimed to drive the so called “Radiative Greenhouse Effect”. He DOES acknowledge that his “hotboxes” (and by extension greenhouses) function primarily by preventing mixing with the cooler convecting atmosphere, and secondarily by insulation of heat, deposited by incoming solar radiation, from that cooler convecting atmosphere.
And every alarmist misunderstands Tyndall (1861). Tyndall did, at no time during his research, measure any radiative absorption. Tyndall’s “absorption” measurements are revealed, by his method, to actually be measurements of opacity. Nowhere in his article does Tyndall account for the proportion of opacity due to reflection, nor is any attempt made to simultaneously measure both opacity and emission in order to determine what proportion of opacity is due to absorption, in spite of the significant reflection of visible radiation by chlorine gas, which Tyndall actually was measuring….and Foote was a nobody !
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161.pdf
Abstract:
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.
Disproving the greenhouse effect
https://www.conservapedia.com/Global_warming#Disproving_the_greenhouse_effect
Finally performing the experiment Fourier had recommended a century earlier, Robert Wood showed in 1909 that energy is transferred from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere primarily through convection currents. In Wood’s experiment, the temperature in a glass box was compared to that in a box with a top made of halite (rock salt). Halite allows sunlight to enter, but blocks infrared. Infrared re-radiation and the greenhouse effect play “a very small part,” both in the atmosphere and in literal greenhouses, Wood concluded. A greenhouse is warmer than the air outside because the roof limits convection and the walls restrict wind. “The acquired heat is concentrated, because it is not dissipated immediately by renewing the air,” as Fourier himself explained.
From 1909 until the 1960s, only a few additional papers on AGW were published. Research went forward as the lonely project of English scientist Guy Callendar. Callendar collected historical temperature readings and CO2 measurements and published the results in 1938….click the link above for the full article.
The greenhouse effect doesn’t violate any laws of thermodynamics and it’s easily demonstrated, if not so easily quantified.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-the-greenhouse-effect/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/direct-evidence-of-earths-greenhouse-effect/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/08/suggested-backyard-experiment-to-measure-the-greenhouse-effect-of-more-carbon-dioxide/
DMiddleton,
“The radiative forcing of CO2 is just basic physics. It works out to about 1 °C per doubling.”
Please stop saying that. It sounds like you believe it. It is not true.
Basic physics has been completely unable to quantify this effect from First Principles, and you know this. Billions have been spent, and 30 years later IPCC still estimates ECS at “1.5 to 4.5 degrees C,” or did they drop the upper end to 4.0 last time?
Please stop saying that. And, NStokes, show me the physics behind the CO2 “forcing” not based on any assumptions about the cause of a change in thermometer readings from 1880, or 1950, or some year, but rather, based on First Principles. You cannot, no one can.
The radiative flux changes have been directly measured; as have the spectral absorption of atmospheric gases. The net balance is simple subtraction of outgoing radiation minus incoming radiation. A doubling of CO2 equates to about 3.7 Wm-2 of radiative forcing at the Earth’s surface. Although, there is some level of uncertainty.
The only assumptions are in how this affects temperature. With no feedback mechanisms, the radiative forcing of a doubling of CO2 works out to about 1 °C… But, that’s just an estimate because there is no direct translation from forcing to temperature.
If you want to argue that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist, you’re on the wrong blog.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/policy/
DMiddleton,
“Directly measured” my hind-quarters. You like the CERES satellites? How about those non-existent error bars?
I know that CO2 restricts the Atmosphere’s ability to freely radiate to space, and increasing CO2 increases this effect. What I do NOT know, and you don’t either, and no one can calculate, is HOW MUCH.
That’s why I wrote, “the radiative forcing of a doubling of CO2 works out to about 1 °C”. With a few hundred years of satellite radiation balance and temperature measurements, it might be possible to calculate how much.
David, I think we are talking past each other, and that includes how you are addressing Mr. Moon’s concerns, which I share. No matter how it is couched, the ASSUMPTION that “the radiative forcing of a doubling of CO2 works out to about 1 °C” has no empirical support, it is PURE SPECULATION, and accepting that assertion without support of any kind just moves the goalposts in favor of the Warmists.
Not trying to be ridiculous or provocative, one could argue that the 1 °C is caused by the increase in (pick anything OTHER THAN CO2 that is changing) with just as much certainty. Is it geothermal? Is it some extra-terrestrial energy source changing or some other factor? Are there other dynamics that are not being properly assessed? There are LEGITIMATE concerns about the current Radiative Greenhouse Effect and how it is modeled and how it actually works and whether it actually produces a NET COOLING. Until I see empirical evidence that adding CO2 to the atmosphere, including doubling or tripling it, has any NET heating effect, I must challenge the current “consensus” on its true effects.
Every graph of data where increasing CO2 has been measured that I have seen shows no or very little effect one way or the other. Is China or India significantly warmer than the rest of the world? Their annual contribution of CO2 to their overlaying atmosphere is significantly higher than ours, so they should be several degrees hotter on average. I haven’t seen any reports confirming that difference, so although it is only one data point, it is empirical evidence that huge increases in CO2 in the atmosphere have virtually no heating effect, even if it is just locally.
It’s not “pure speculation.”
The radiative effect is fairly well-quantified. However, it is an approximation based on the spectral absorption properties of atmospheric gases and the Stefan–Boltzmann Law. It’s an approximation because planets are not idealized black bodies.
Lindzen & Choi, 2011
The feedback mechanisms are relatively unknown, possibly unknowable.
Climate, etc. on Spencer & Braswell. 2011
How is that NOT pure speculation, given that there is no empirical evidence of any kind to support it? Is that the position of the 97% Consensus?
It isn’t worth continuing to split hairs, we simply disagree that there is empirical support or any convincing argument for the assertion that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is causing Global Warming. The argument that CO2 concentration FOLLOWS temperature changes seems to have better support based on actual trends from the past. Time will tell.
All scientific theories are “generally accepted” because their hypotheses haven’t been falsified. That’s how hypotheses become theories.
…that is true, and that is also how Junk Science finds its way into textbooks and laws and becomes entrenched until a Di Vinci or Copernicus or Einstein or Planc comes along. AGW is the generally accepted hypothesis, yet it can be falsified. Another example is the theory that CO2 is a pollutant. It is now generally accepted that CO2 is a pollutant even though it is a basic requirement for life…that is a PARADOX, not a valid theory. Can that outrageous theory be falsified? Geocentricity hasn’t actually been falsified, you just have to set up your coordinate system on Earth and include all the calculations for retrograde motion of everythng else in the solar system. Obviously it is no longer used because it is too arcain and too cumbersome to use and Heliocentricity is much simplier and easier to explain, not because it was actually falsified…everything is relative.
The Radiative Greenhouse Effect (RGHE) model is based on a misunderstanding of how CO2 accepts energy, transforms it, and passes it on under different conditions, and different conditions occur at different temperatures and different points in the atmosphere. There is some heating, but only under specific conditions. The more-often-occurring conditions result in cooling. A three-atom molecule like CO2 has six degrees of freedom, and a two-atom molecule like N2 or O2 has five. The RGHE model incorrectly handles energy transfers. The conversion of translational mode energy, sensed as temperature, to vibrational mode energy is, by definition, a cooling process. The emission of the resultant radiation to space is, by definition, a cooling process. An increased atmospheric CO2 concentration will increase the likelihood of other atmospheric molecular collisions with CO2, thereby increasing the likelihood of CO2 radiatively emitting, thereby increasing the radiative cooling effect. The RGHE model simply does not account for how these interactions actually occur…oh, and then there is the problem of how to handle water vapor.
Applying accepted laws of physics, CAGW based on the RGHE is a physical impossibility by the above interactions alone, but any challenge to the “generally accepted” RGHE Emperor (even though he has no clothes) is Kryptonite, so I will not press the issue any further lest I commit a commenting taboo. To butcher a phrase from “Star Wars,” Let the “Consensus” be with us…all!
There is no scientific theory that CO2 is a pollutant.
Fine, then on what basis did the EPA declare CO2 a pollutant and get the Supreme Court to agree that it had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate it as a pollutant? Whether it is called a “theory” or just an “assertion” is a distinction without a difference. It is an unsupported hypothesis, call it whatever you wish, but it is the prevalent position of “Climate Scientists” and accepted by the Alarmists and by more and more gullible lay people…and it is the LAW. We keep losing ground.
In Massachusetts vs EPA SCOTUS, by a 5-4 margin, determined that the EPA was required to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,if the EPA decided that greenhouse gas emissions were hazardous… So the Obama EPA issued an endangerment finding that is almost impossible to rescind.
Science played virtually no role in the endangerment finding.
If the EPA reversed the endangerment finding, it would actually give the total fracking retard lawsuits against the oil & gas and coal industries more traction.
In and of itself, the endangerment finding is actually a good thing, so long as the people running the EPA work for Donald Trump.
The best solution would be to amend the Clean Air Act and specifically define air pollution as actual pollution.
Nick writes <blockquote<They don’t assume a sensitivity.
Nothing can shake your belief in this. You’re wrong in multiple ways.
Firstly the TOA balance which determines sensitivity is set in the models as per Maritsen
“2.1. The Tuning Process
[14] We tune the radiation balance with the main target to control the pre‐industrial global mean temperature by balancing the TOA net longwave flux via the greenhouse effect and the TOA net shortwave flux via the albedo affect. ”
Secondly GCM’s are NOT just fluid dynamics (CFD) programs. They involve parameterised values which feed into the calculation at each time step.
I’ve no doubt that despite these facts, sometime in the near future you’ll make the claim yet again…
Bravo.
And, unless I have missed something, temperatures and radiation being used in fluid dynamic equations doesn’t make sense without some huge, huge assumptions.
“Nothing can shake your belief in this”
Well, what would shake my “belief” is if someone could point to where, in any code, a sensitivity was assumed. No-one ever has. I’m fairly familiar with the CAM code, and have looked through GISS. They have a regular CFD structure, into which it would be very difficult to insert a global sensitivity requirement.
“Firstly the TOA balance which determines sensitivity is set in the models”
The TOA balance doesn’t determine equilibrium sensitivity. COA simply requires that it does balance in the long term, whatever GHGs are doing. Mauritsen is describing how that is checked in the models. You’ll notice that he is talking about controlling pre-industrial TOA balance – ie before added GHGs. It’s a calibration.
“They involve parameterised values”
All practical CFD programs involve parameterised values, most notably for turbulence. It’s actually a universal requirement in PDE solution. You set a scale that you can resolve with cell calculations, and everything subgrid is parameterised. It’s even there in basic physics. In a gas, the effect of multiple impulses of molecules colliding with the walls is parameterised as a pressure. etc.
Nick writes
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. But then we seem to differ in understanding of AGW which I think is caused by the gradual accumulation of energy on the earth due to the radiative imbalance at the TOA …and you think its something immediate due to CO2 but I’m not sure what process you have in mind.
Nick writes
And you can “calibrate” in that fashion if you’re doing weather but not if you’re interested in how the atmosphere changes over the long terms during a climate forecast. But that comes back to our difference in understanding of what AGW actually is.
Nick writes
The parametisations influence energy flows in the GCMs. They cant evolve correctly because the model isn’t capable of reflecting unknown future conditions. You’re talking about an immediate solution for which PDE solutions are ok.
Its the same flawed argument that says because we can model airflow over a wing, we can model the atmosphere evolving over a hundred years. It just doesn’t follow.
About 2/3 of the effect is instantaneous: Transient Climate Response (TCR).
About 1/3 of the effect occurs slowly over several hundred years as the oceans give up excess heat to the atmosphere. The total effect is the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS).
The delta between TCR and ECS would be indistinguishable from background noise.
Most recent observation-based estimates put the TCR below 1.5 °C and the ECS below 2.0 °C. Well below the Alfred E. Neuman line.
Higher estimates are based on models and paleoclimate data. The models are demonstrably wrong and the paleoclimate data almost always rely on higher frequency temperature data and lower frequency CO2 data.
When you lump the systematically wrong estimates in with the instrumental (observation-based) estimates you get a “climate crisis”…
I digitized the instrumental (observation-derived) ECS estimates…
The “climate crisis” suddenly becomes a climate nothing burger.
“I think is caused by the gradual accumulation of energy on the earth due to the radiative imbalance at the TOA”
No, it isn’t due to radiative imbalance. We usually speak of equilibrium sensitivity, and at equilibrium, TOA has to balance.
It’s just like a blanket. If you are generating 100W, an extra blanket will keep you warmer, but the flux reaching the air is still 100W. The temperature rises because you have put thermal resistance in the way.
“because we can model airflow over a wing, we can model the atmosphere evolving over a hundred years. It just doesn’t follow.”
The converse doesn’t follow. That wing might be flying for decades. The lift calculation is still valid.
Nick writes
Its nothing like a blanket. We have a major difference of understanding on this.
Nick writes
Ah but the lift calculation is only valid in the immediate – the equivalent analogy would be asking how high the wing lifted the aircraft after 100 years without understanding the atmospheric conditions expected during that time and not really understanding how the wing operates in lower pressures found higher up either.
THIS is how the typical climate model works.
?x12869
THIS is how the typical climate model works.
should read:
THIS is WHY the typical climate model DOESN’T work.
Nick,
Are you putting that comment out there as a joke, or do you genuinely think what you have said is correct?
They respond to forcings.
BULSH*T. They respond in the manner in which their programmers believe forcings work. They put emphasis on the forcings and feedbacks that the programmers focus on as being the most important. They leave out or de-emphasize things that the programmers don’t think are important. They are not inanimate objects responding to the laws of physics, they are programs that reflect how human beings who create them think the laws of physics work.
The fact that the models run hot shows that the programmers are wrong. The fact is also that you should no better than to claim the models simply describe physical laws as if they were independent of human influence. But you already shattered your credibility over the last few threads, I guess you may as well throw what shreds you have left to the wind.
“They put emphasis on the forcings and feedbacks that the programmers focus on as being the most important” climate
No, there is nothing in the programs specifying forcings or feedbacks. Those are inferred from the results.
“The fact that the models run hot shows that the programmers are wrong”
The fact is exaggerated. But the Earth has natural short term variation which the models do not attempt to emulate. Sometimes it will run cooler than the models.
“They leave out or de-emphasize things that the programmers don’t think are important.”
Never said with any evidence, and usually with total ignorance of how the programs work.
REALLY? Show us some of the models that DON’T over-predict higher temperatures than the observed.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/12/new-paper-no-experimental-evidence-for-the-significant-anthropogenic-climate-change/
New Paper–NO EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR THE SIGNIFICANT ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE
charles the moderator / July 12, 2019
I didn’t vet this before posting and have no idea as to its real strengths or weaknesses. Have at it.~ctm
J. KAUPPINEN AND P. MALMI
Abstract. In this paper we will prove that General Circulation Models (GCMs) used in IPCC report AR5 fail to calculate the influences of the low cloud cover changes on the global temperature. That is why those models give a very small natural temperature change leaving a very large change for the contribution of the green house gases in the observed temperature. This is the reason why IPCC has to use a very large sensitivity to compensate a too small natural component. Further they have to leave out the strong negative feedback due to the clouds in order to magnify the sensitivity. In addition, this paper proves that the changes in the low cloud cover fraction practically control the global temperature.
There’s one CMIP-5 model that doesn’t over-predict warming and more or less matches UAH. It’s a Russian model.
See ! It’s a Russian Conspiracy…lol
hmmmmm…..carry the 3 (for the Nephews)….divide by Donald Duck’s birthday…2+2=22……AHA!, so a “CONSENSUS of 97%” of (pick a number -1)/(the number you picked) shows conclusively that >97% of the models OVER-predict. See how easy it is to generate a 97% Consensus?….Where’s my Nobel Prize?
Seriously, given the assertion I made, only ONE model NOT over-predicting vs. ALL of the ones that DO over-predict is …a distinction without a difference.
David, with all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for you and for all the others trying to stop this worldwide suicide pact from being implemented, we are destroying civilization based on the regurgitations of the Oracles of Microsoft/Apple/whatever software they use as an operating system for these VIDEO GAMES!
TEWS_Pilot
For what it’s worth, this layman admires your tenacity.
Thank you. We “skeptics” are all supposed to be on the same side, but I see one of the fundamental disagreements with the Alarmists differently from the Skeptic “Consensus”, which has “generally accepted” the Flat Earth irradiance on a disc divide by 4 back-radiation from a Cold atmosphere to a WARM surface Junk Science model. I have tried to visualize that paradox some way — ANY way — that the RGHE works in a REAL world, but all I see is a Flat Earth irradiance model, sleight of hand in dividing by 4 to reduce the INCOMING flux to the same as the OUTGOING flux as if it impinges on a Flat Disc instead of a hemisphere, and then saying an atmosphere that somehow creates itself from magic CO2 “back radiation” makes up the difference…and other basic errors in First Principles, but I will not succeed in changing anyone’s mind. Eventually the “consensus” will discover how the fluxes actually heat and cool the Earth, but I doubt it will be soon. There is too much pressure to go along to get along and not be blacklisted. Nobody dares point out that the RGHE Emperor has no clothes.
TEWS,
Have a look at David Middleton’s plot in this thread as well as the figure from
Judith Curry’s latest report “https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/worst-case-paper-final-1.docx”. Both show the model outputs falling below the measured temperatures.
Izaak, learn to read..That graph shows what the models “think” is natural forcings only..
Yes, David pointed that one out. A cynic would say they are only now trying to save face by tossing us a few crumbs of actual matching predictions or maybe letting their guard down now that they have the world convinced that we are heading for a “cook-out” with Earth as the main Entré….but I wouldn’t DARE insinuate that as their reason…no, sir, not me….(in my best John Wayne impersonation from the 1963 Western “McLintock!”…”THE HELL I WON’T!”
They’re different versions of the CMIP-5 model ensemble run by different entities. I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the models to understand why INM-CM4 matches the observations. However, if I had one geophysical model that accurately predicted hydrocarbon accumulations and 99 that didn’t, I’d sure as Hell focus my efforts on figuring out why the one model was accurate, rather than proclaiming that the observations must be wrong because 99% of the models say so.
There’s a big difference between government/academic science and oil & gas industry science. Dan Ackroyd explained it in Ghostbusters.
Nick Stokes
“Never said with any evidence, and usually with total ignorance of how the programs work.”
How about clouds Nick? 100% of scientists agree they don’t understand how clouds work. So how can clouds be included in a climate model without ‘guessing’ what their effects are?
Frankly, that simple fact alone invalidates every computer generated climate model ever concocted.
“100% of scientists agree they don’t understand how clouds work.”
Well, I don’t agree. And Willis seems to understand. So it can’t exceed 99.999998%. But in fact, a lot is understood. The problem is that they are sub-grid; the GCM grid can’t resolve them, so some separate model is required. That is harder, but feasible.
Nick writes <blockquote<The problem is that they are sub-grid; the GCM grid can’t resolve them, so some separate model is required. That is harder, but feasible.
No its not. Cloud formation isn’t understood in a way that can be modeled. It can only be approximated. At grid scales its a coarse approximation.
The point is that the GCM’s can’t properly simulate clouds very well.
The models have taken direct CO2 effects, then exaggerated them with feedback multipliers, esp related to proposed H2O effects. The magnitude of the multipliers was back-fitted to “explain” the temp increase in the 1979-1990’s period, with the assumption that one variable was driving that increase: anthropogenic CO2.
The models were so simplistic they did not include terms for heat sink effects of the oceans nor transport of heat energy above much of the accumulating CO2 via thunderstorm-related convection. Nor did the models include cloud effects, which may be large.
My point is, the models were premised on human causation and were infantile in their climate science…not ready for consumption, but forced down our throats for political and rent-seeking reasons.
Nick Stokes
So on two subjects, CFD’s and clouds, you’ve had your backside handed to you on a plate by a layman.
No, there is nothing in the programs specifying forcings or feedbacks. Those are inferred from the results.
Apparently you missed my point. The feedbacks very well be inferred from the results, but they are inferred from results based on how the programmers THINK the physics works. The programmers are wrong.
polarportal.org appears to be a parked domain now, could someone provide an updated reference to the Greenland chart?
There is of course a huge make-weight out there in the shape of billions of people who know nothing of the westernised middle class obsessions and are building coal fired power stations to lift themselves out of poverty. The CO2 number will go on increasing and Paris will be seen to be futile. This wearisome obsession will die eventually. Particularly if the planet continues not warming.
Coeur de Lion
Absolutely true.
The problem is the real damage mankind can do to itself in the meantime.
The futility of the Paris Accord to significantly impact climate was always known by nearly everyone involved. But that was never the purpose of the Paris Accord. The Paris accord was virtue signalling for the West and a money-grab for the rest of the world. It was moderately successful as a massive virtue signal, but I do not know if the rest of the world has received much of their extorsion funds yet.
GREENLAND
“Furthermore, after all of the reports of record warmth at the summit of the ice cap, it was found that the temperature sensor readings were biased too warm, and the temperature never actually went above freezing.”
Yet, there was STILL a massive ice melt? If the temp never went above freezing, how did all that ice melt?
…at the faulty reporting station .
Now from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), via the news website The Local, the cooler reality:
Danish climate body wrongly reported Greenland heat “record”….
The Danish Meteorological Institute, which has a key role in monitoring Greenland’s climate, last week reported a shocking August temperature of between 2.7C and 4.7C at the Summit weather station, which is located 3,202m above sea level at the the centre of the Greenland ice sheet, generating a spate of global headlines.
But on Wednesday it posted a tweet saying that a closer look had shown that monitoring equipment had been giving erroneous results….Oh, noes!!! THERE GOES the “ALL MONITORING STATIONS REPORT ACCURATELY AT ALL TIMES” argument!
“Was there record-level warmth on the inland ice on Friday?” it said. “No! A quality check has confirmed our suspicion that the measurement was too high.”
By combining measurements with observations from other weather stations, the DMI has now estimated that the temperature was closer to -2C….THAT IS MINUS TWO, NEGATIVE TWO, TWO DEGREES BELOW ZERO C.
The record temperature ever recorded at Summit is 2.2C, which was reached in both 2012 and 2017. But -2C is still unusual at the station.
Shoot out the headlines first, ask questions later.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/12/greenlands-record-temperature-denied-the-data-was-wrong/
I’m not asking about the temperature. I accept that the original readings were wrong and the the temperature never got above freezing.
I’m asking about the reported massive ice melt. If the temperature, indeed, never got about freezing, how can the report of a massive ice melt still stand?
Nobody is correcting the report of a massive ice melt. Isn’t that a contradiction .. that the temp never got above freezing AND there was a massive ice melt?
I didn’t make my reply clear. The temperature never got above freezing AT THAT STATION, but it did in other locations. Joe Bastardi has an excellent article at CFACT that might help. I have excerpted some of it and tried to simplify the phenomenon…it may be a little too simplified, but I was trying to reduce it to the double-IQ level of the TROLL with whom I was conversing in the comments.
https://www.cfact.org/2019/08/24/rain-forest-fires-are-not-climate/#comment-4590797116
You had a legitimate point of confusion, so see if this helps explain the point Joe was making about melting ice acting as a thermostat for polar ice in Summer. The Le Chatelier Principle of Equilibrium for gases states that if a constraint (such as a change in pressure, or temperature, or concentration of a gas) is applied to a system in equilibrium, the equilibrium will shift so as to tend to counteract the effect of the constraint. Stated another way, it says, “If a system has a change in quantity, temperature or pressure, it re-balances to minimize the change.” It causes a self-correcting reaction.
The red line on his graph is for the summer mean temperature where the mean temperature is a bit above freezing. Summer temperatures are controlled by a built in thermostat called melting ice. Melting the ice requires energy, which it takes out of the air, so the air above the ice that just lost energy to cause the ice below it to melt is now cooler for having lost that heat energy. It now causes less melting. Warming is capped at the amount of energy that is left after that energy loss by this feedback loop. It acts in a manner analogous to a governor on, say the carburetor on a lawn mower engine, which opens and closes the butterfly as the speed of the engine slows or increases to prevent stalling and runaway. With the initial heat causing melting and then the loss of that amount of heat reducing the temperature of the air above the ice, it is acting as a governor/feedback loop controlling the temperature of the atmosphere above the ice. It now provides empirical evidence of a natural forcing with a “governor” on it, which provides a counter argument to the alarmist claim that the arctic will melt completely away. Not with the summer season barely above freezing and the temperature of the air above the ice being held to a range of temperatures just above freezing by the feedback loop I just described.
With the summer sun high in the sky, radiating a lot of energy, snow can (and does) melt below 0°C
Here in Calgary, it can be sunny and above 0°C in January, with no melting (Likely the snow is warming up from something much lower than 0°C from the colder overnight low or colder previous day), while in April, it can be below 0°C, with snow melting rapidly under the much more energetic spring sunlight.
“generating a spate of global headlines”
But nobody could ever quote the global headlines that were supposed to be generated by that event.
AH! So you must be a DENIER!…anyone who denies anything is technically a “denier.”
You denied an easily proved assertion, also without any evidence, that the “spate of headlines” generated by that event could not be found…a search on a few key words from that assertion finds page after page of references. Naturally the live TV news broadcasts and conversations on talking-heads programs are lost in cyberspace unless they were archived, so they won’t show up. You and Michael Mann must have studied “double-speak” and obfuscation from the same textbook.
Well, quote an actual headline? What did it say about that Summit camp measurement?
It does get above freezing a lot of times at Greenland, but not really at the center. The melt from warm weather is around the edges. Most snow also falls around the edges. You could argue that a snowstorm that falls further inland is the best snow(if you want Greenlands icecap to grow).
Hope this answered you question. I am not an expert, but am certain of things said.
“If the temp never went above freezing, how did all that ice melt?”
The report quoted relates to that one place, the highest point in Greenland, on just one day, August 2, 2019. But still, there is melting there, so it would be a valid question, but in fact it does seem to have exceeded freezing on occasions.
So is the Arctic sea ice melt season about to come to a very early end? … http://data.meereisportal.de/maps/latest/extent_n_en.png
“Climate scientists are not without blame. They, like everyone else, are biased. Virtually all Earth scientists I know view the Earth as “fragile””
I would be a little careful over this. Earth Science is an established general study program that includes most of the disciplines used in authentic study of the climate. This includes geology which has probably the highest percentage of skeptics of any discipline (aside from statisticians) e.g. my degree is a MSc in earth science with my graduate research focused on sedimentary geology. You wont find many of my kind saying that Earth is fragile. We have seen the rock record.
Don’t confuse earth science with climate science which is a modern concoction and no doubt includes social science – if you can call it science. I don’t.
M
“Virtually all Earth scientists I know view the Earth as “fragile”. ”
This is the root of the alarmism, not leftism or globalism. It’s anti-industrialism driven by too-deep—actually too shallow—environmentalism.
July was likely only hottest at night, not in the day,. IOW, a rise in the minimum temperature likely accounted for it, not in the maximum. Another thing They Don’t Tell Us.
I am increasingly concerned about the clandestine nature of global warming. It seems to be constantly advancing under cover of darkness.
Perhaps we should call it, the mushrooms movement….?
Remember Kon Tiki expedition?
Back in 1947 an expedition on a raft made out of timber set of from Peru.
One of its crew was Bengt Danielsson. He wrote a story about Villervalle in the pacific.
In fact Greats grandfather was staging as a doctor who went to visit the Tahiti island in the TV movie.
So there is a connection between travelling with or without fossil fules.
But the doctor came with a long flight!