Guest opinion by Mike Smith
Let’s begin by re-stating information about which we can be confident:
- The earth is warmer than it was sixty years ago. Mostly unreported is the warmer climate has, on balance, been great for humanity.
- Humans affect the climate in many ways.
- Continued increases in greenhouse gases, other factors equal, will promote additional warming. However, many processes affect climate. CO2 concentration is absolutely not a thermostat for earth’s temperature, especially since ocean heat content is more important than atmospheric heat content.
- We know far less about the processes governing earth’s climate than most climate practitioners would have you believe. In no way is the science settled. For example, we don’t even know the optimum temperature of the earth’s atmosphere.
- We have almost no ability to meaningfully forecast future climate. We can’t even make climate forecasts for a year or two ahead let alone decades ahead.
- “Consensus” has no role in science.
- We should slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas, primarily through the adoption of new-generation nuclear.
- Regardless of earth’s temperature, we should build a more resilient society.
I suspect most ordinary people and most scientists outside of the climate debate would find the above to be pretty reasonable. Unfortunately, many climate ‘scientists’ do not. I am constantly criticized (in some cases vehemently) by the global warming alarmists and advocates because I keep pointing out the occasional (large!) errors of science in general and climate ‘science’ in particular.
Saturday, I was strongly criticized by a Virginia “paleo”-climatologist because I did not agree that a perfectly accurate temperature reading was “noise.” In no way is an accurate measurement of temperature “noise” when it comes to weather, the climate debate or any other purpose. But, he fancies himself an expert even though he neither understands atmospheric processes or instrumentation.
Why do I put up with this grief?
Two reasons: The increasing despair among some about the future of our civilization and because, to the extent I can, I wish to limit the inevitable backlash against atmospheric science when these exaggerations become evident in future years. I’ve devoted my career to atmospheric science and am passionate about it. I don’t wish to see all of the good we have accomplished put under a cloud by the global warming clique.
The mainstream media has almost completely bought in to global warming alarmism which, in turn, has been spread by global warming ‘experts’ (like the below) who know nothing about climate or how the atmosphere actually works. Below, is a very recent example from the United Nations’ climate meeting that ended in Europe last week.
Why was her statement so absurd?
Let’s use the Fahrenheit scale since that is the more familiar: Absolute zero is -460°F. The earth’s current temperature is around +58°F. So, if the earth doubled its temperature, it would be over 1,000 degrees! Impossible.
Because politicians and other ‘leaders’ know nothing about the climate they believe the utter nonsense of Greta Thunberg and her ilk.
Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It makes me sad to have to write Thunberg is what Vladimir Lenin called a “useful idiot.” She is being used and exploited by the people who use climate alarmism as a tool to gain power and money. Big Climate doesn’t like people very much.
The alarmists’ work is facilitated by a media that has no interest in science other than reprinting press releases that agree with their “narrative.” They give all types of science far too much credit. My single most interesting college course was History of Science. In it, I learned history, the Scientific Method, the many wonderful things science has accomplished, and the occasional things it has botched. That knowledge has allowed me to be more discerning of scientific claims throughout my adult life.
We’ve often talked about how the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2005 was awarded to two obscure Australian physicians who discovered ulcers are caused by a bacterium rather than stress which had thought to be the cause. For decades, the medical journals would not even publish their experimental results because the “consensus” (there’s that terribly un-scientific word) said, “stress.” In desperation, one of them had to prove he didn’t have an ulcer, swallow the bacterium and give himself an ulcer to get heard! In the meantime, millions were suffering and even dying due mis-treatment.
Medical science also told us for years that eating pasta was a great way to lose weight. Wrong! And, many knew it was wrong.
Medical science also told us the Sabin polio vaccine was better than the Salk vaccine even though, in rare cases, the Sabin vaccine could give innocent children polio — the disease it was supposed to prevent! The Salk vaccine never gave anyone polio and was 100% effective. Sabin had the better PR.
For a provocative and gripping story about science’s other major errors in recent times (beyond those of medicine), go here. And, yes, the story includes how climate science got on the wrong track and still hasn’t recovered.
According to the scientific method, this should never be the case. Science is supposed to be self-correcting because it is supposed to rely on objective experimental truths. The problem is that scientists are human like the rest of us. A former science editor of a well-known publication told me, “If global warming isn’t a catastrophe, I’ve wasted my career.” What sort of incentive does he, for example, have to publish information — no matter how solid — that is skeptical of catastrophic global warming?
Global warming is, by far, the biggest financial gravy train in the history of atmospheric science. As a result, not only are individual researchers getting large grants, universities have spent and are spending millions building and staffing interdisciplinary ‘centers’ for climate research. If global warming isn’t catastrophic, that funding will dry up overnight. Think about the peer pressure to prevent the loss of jobs. What sort of institutional research is there to disprove catastrophic global warming?
To keep the money flowing, the field of climate it has its own PR flacks!
Last time I checked, focus groups and “emotions” were not tools genuine physical science.
The purpose of the Yale group and the others? To keep things stirred up (which helps keep the money flowing) after storms and other weather “opportunities” as well as to use the tools of public relations — the same tools used to sell you toothpaste — to convince the public there is a crisis.
For many reasons it makes good sense to transition, as soon as possible, to next-generation nuclear and to use it as a tool to bring electricity to remote areas (many in Africa) so as to bring them out of poverty. There is a strong correlation between inexpensive energy and prosperity. Also, it makes incredibly good sense to build a more resilient society no matter what the future weather may bring.
The warmer climate has allowed the world’s population to enjoy the most prosperity and the least privation in the entire history of the planet. The world is (relatively) at peace.
My Christmas Gift to You: Stop worrying about global warming. It is an issue but it is not a catastrophe by any measure. Allow your family to enjoy the holiday season. The earth will be here — and will be livable — in a decade, in five decades and beyond.
Originally published here, reprinted at WUWT with permission:
http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2019/12/why-i-am-so-critical-of-climate-science.html
More about Mike Smith: https://www.msecreativeconsulting.com/the-studio
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Ja. Ja.
There is no man made warming.
Click on my name.
We have pretty good CO2 concentration data not just from 1964, but the IGY 1958.
“We have pretty good CO2 concentration data”, …. yes and we have just as good geomagnetic data
so if you were a betting man, on which one would you put your money ?
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SST-GMF-CO2.htm
I accept the red and blue lines on your graph but the CO2 line is wrong. CO2 in the atmosphere has been measured since around 1850 -maybe not initially very accurately however by the 1920’s there were very accurate instruments. In the early 1940s there were three independent measurements in different countries which found CO2 levels around 400ppm. One set of measurements was carried out at least 3 times per day for 1 1/2 years. Other measurements of temperature, pressure, incoming radiation, wind speed, and wind direction and precipitation. The black line basically should have a similar curve as the sea temperature line but lag very slightly.. The lag is around 1 hr daily, maybe 7 days seasonally and about 5 yrs (from sea temperatures) over the sixty year period you show on the graph.
Best wishes and health for Christmas and New Year
Hi cement
Annual data are downloaded from NOAA
I have not yet come across reputable CO2 data matching the temperature curve, perhaps you would not mind quoting the source.
Cementafriend, …… me thinks your cited claims of pre-1958 atmospheric CO2
measurements are as bogus as bogus can be.
Like vukcevic said, …… cite proof of your claims.
Vuk,The late Ernst George Beck had a web site and wrote papers about some 90,000 CO2 analyses before 1960. Unfortunately his web site is no longer there. I have downloaded some of the papers but did not get the graph where he ( or another source) compared sea temperature with CO2. My site https://cementafriend.wordpress.com/2013/01/ has a link to a summary of a paper by Kreutz who made the measurements around 1941. I have the full paper in German. A French Professor and Beck wrote a peer reviewed paper analysing the CO2 results with wind speed and direction to refute claims that the results were not representative. In the 1940’s there were two other independent measurement series- one in India and one by a respected scientist in Norway.
Maybe someone clever with the wayback machine can get some of Beck’s web site.
I have lost some records due to computer problems but will look to see if I can upload a CO2 graph and some papers to my website (I am not all that skilled)
Vuk I did not think you believed all the fiddled and cherry picked data of the alarmists (particularly the false 280 ppm of pre-industrial CO2. There is plenty of evidence to show it was higher than the present around 400ppm in the past.
Cementafriend, ….. the funny property of atmospheric CO2 is that when the H2O vapor (humidity) ppm increases the CO2 ppm decreases, thus any CO2 sampling at near-surface areas contains the indeterminate “noise” of the H2O vapor content.
And that is exactly why Charles Keeling built his laboratory atop Mauna Loa, Hawaii, to wit:
We should slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas –NO WE NEED MORE CO2. Obviously this author does not understand the Carbon Cycle.
I’d say there is man made global warming- partly caused by city “hot spots”, partly by irrigation, turning deserts into fields, I don’t think rational people would voluntarily give up either of those.
It is warmer than 60 years ago, during the postwar cold cycle between the interwar warm cycle and the late 20th century warming.
Very little of the warm which started after the 1977 PDO shift has been caused by CO2 emitted by humans. CO2 took off after the end of WWII, and has grown steadily since then. But for the first 32 years after the war, Earth cooled dramatically. Then, following the shift, it warmed slightly for about 22 years, then, after the 1998 Super El Nino, global average temperature stayed about the same, fluctuating with the ENSO, until the 2016 Super El Nino, which warmed the planet just barely more than the 1998 Christ Child event had.
Equilibrium climate sensitivity (from doubling CO2 by 2100 v. AD 1850 level) is at its highest in the low range of Charney’s 1979 WAG, based on two primitive computer models, adopted by IPCC, of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C. ECS, if such a metric really exist, is quite likely less than 1.5 K.
So far whatever negligible global man-made warming from CO2 (plus regional effects such as urban heat islands, irrigation, deforestation, etc) has been beneficial. As to of course has been adding a fourth molecule of plant food per 10,000 dry air molecules over the past century.
There is not only no climate emergency, but indeed nothing yet about which to worry. Should the world get warmer than some might like, it would be far better to adapt than end industrial civilization to “solve” a non-existent problem.
Advanced fission reactors would however be preferable to absurdly costly, unreliable and environmentally disastrous wind and solar farms. While still awaiting commercial fusion power, which probably won’t require another 60 years to accomplish.
“It is warmer than 60 years ago, during the postwar cold cycle between the interwar warm cycle and the late 20th century warming.”
John, there is no “it”. Ssome places have warmed, some have cooled. You can’t average them and have anything meaningful.
Yes, there is a lot of regional difference, but more places have warmed than cooled, as throughout geologic time.
The Holocene Optimum, Egyptian, Minoan, Roman, Medieval and Modern Warm Periods show global signals, as do the intervening Cool Periods. Same as during glacials and prior interglacials.
We might not be globally warmer now than during the prior warm cycle, ie c. 1920-45, in the secular Modern Warming trend, which began in the mid- to late 19th century, after the LIA Cool Period.
CO2 is warming nothing.
We have a winner!
“We should slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas, primarily through the adoption of new-generation nuclear. ”
Using the climate change scare to promote your cause du jour is despicable, regardless of the cause you are pushing.
I think it’s an example of a ‘no regrets’ policy. Nuclear stands a chance of working. Windmills don’t. If people insist on doing something, it may as well be something that works.
The thing that scares me about nuclear is the possibility that terrorists can create nuclear bombs or even use the material to make dirty conventional bombs. Some reactor technologies work better than others in that regard. I also have no qualms about using rather harsh measures in response to any attempted terrorist theft of nuclear material.
The only people who would be killed by a dirty bomb would be those killed by the initial explosion.
Clean up would take a few months to a few years at most. After that, the radiation levels might be up by a barely measurable amount.
The only reason why people are scared of dirty bombs is because they have an irrational fear of low levels of radiation in general.
If you’re frightened by (very) low levels of radiation, never eat a banana!
That’s natural radiation. Only man made radiation is dangerous. /sarc
I’m with you there. The “next generation nuclear” should, IMHO, be a design that can be built in factories (thus the best quality control) and shipped/trucked to the site that needs it, even if it takes several flat beds to do it. Modular, in other words. And as you said, use a fuel least capable of conversion to weapons grade anything, and least “dirty”, if it’s going to be nuclear there will be some radioactivity in the spent fuels, but let’s look for something that can do the job with the lowest (least deadly) level of radiation in a spent fuel, with the shortest half-life (it makes no difference if it’s just barely deadly, if it’s still almost that deadly a century from now). Now is that too much to ask?
There has been non-weapons grade nuclear “residue” stored here, there and yonder since the early 60’ (60 years) and no thefts yet. Iran and North Korea don’t have to steal it.
The materials in a molten salt reactor cannot be used to make a bomb.
I don’t know if it is true or not. I am not a scientist.
All I know for sure is we can take over 90% of the CO2 out of combusted fossil fuel exhaust and turn the CO2 into good paying full time jobs and money.
https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo
they’re doing that….and then turning around and selling it to people that put it right back in the atmosphere…LOL
Is that all you have is self-advertising?
I shudder at the thought of taking tax payer money to then put into place something which makes energy production more costly. I think letting the CO2 go back to where it came, is the best place for it. Life already knows what to do with it… and we are seeing it to the world’s overall benefit.
We can also take money by force and use it to pay one group of people to dig holes and another group to fill them back in.
A bad idea remains a bad idea, even if it’s being pushed by government.
I’ve used that MarkW, digging holes analogy… Then took it a step further.
I claimed that putting up Wind Turbines was worse than the cost of putting them up – making digging holes and filling them back up a better alternative. I pressed that Wind Turbines actually forced prices of electricity to go up – while creating a less reliable grid. So, digging holes is my preferred option.
While I am not sure I am completely correct, I think the argument could be made that I might be!
Well, yes and no. This version of digging holes and filling them in caters to the middle classes of developed countries. It’s not the poor and starving who are benefitting from this forced largesse. There are thousands upon thousands, for example the 27,000 in Madrid, who are educated, middle class and who think they have careers doing this digging holes and filling them in malarkey. My question is – was this taught to the now leaders in world economics during their advanced education? Was this finding of jobs for people who can’t get real jobs planned, or did it just happen and became a good idea all on its own (with a little tweaking, of course)?
MarkW
That’s called working for the government.
Three Canadian provinces (Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan) recently made an announcement on the possible implementation of next generation nuclear. Small, modular and quick to build. Saskatchewan is one of the largest producers of uranium yellow cake on the planet, and would only make sense they would support the new generation of atomic energy. No pun intended… But in the case of Saskatchewan who built the world’s first carbon capture plant near Estevan at the Boundary Dam coal fired generator, they received no credit whatsoever from the federal government of Canada regarding the national carbon tax. Again, Saskatchewan puts in this new carbon capture tech, and get no recognition whatsoever from Ottawa. Maybe they don’t get credit for installing the next generation of nuclear, Ottawa being as corrupt as any 3rd world nation and only views the carbon tax as a revenue tool.
This is truly our future to long term energy security, and the sooner the environmental community accepts next generation nuclear as a fact compared to thinking wind and solar will be our salvation, the better off humanity will be. It takes time to implement this, so let’s get this show on the road. And it is inevitable that this is the major solution into the long term future, unless some new discovery is made, or they they can make Fusion commercial. I doubt either any new discovery or fusion anytime soon, so that leaves the next generation of small, safe modular nuclear as our ultimate solution to long term energy security.
The other is a robust next generation smart grid, that can be expanded upon anytime soon, because there is probably no better invention coming down the pipeline than electricity, and however our electricity supply will be generated, a robust high capacity smart electrical grid is the one major piece of infrastructure that we need to improve and expand on. So let’s quit arguing about politics and impeachment and get on with doing something useful that the world will adopt. All of this infrastructure development will keep us in a bull market for the next dozen years if we get on with it.
“… it is inevitable that [nuclear] is the major solution into the long term future, unless some new discovery is made, or they they can make Fusion commercial. I doubt either any new discovery or fusion anytime soon, so that leaves the next generation of small, safe modular nuclear as our ultimate solution to long term energy security.”
+1. That concise statement covers just about everything. I would add, though, that it’s for the longer term because fossil fuels can keep us growing for a few more decades.
It will take at least 10-20 years to wade through all the red tape we will have to suffer through here in the West just to get these approved for commercial use. Red Tape and Bureaucracy will probably be our downfall in the West though. These 3 Canadian provinces should demand a major fast track to this, so as they can…wait it for it….meet their Climate Change obligations.
This would be the best thing that could happen from the Trump administration… eliminate the red tape so that a nuclear plant can get approved in 90 days, similar to what states (the efficient ones) take to approve say a natural gas well. That would include, protecting that design from predatory lawsuits from the enviro-wackos, who care nothing for the environment, their only reason for existence is hindering technological development in the West. And it only requires approval once, not one approval for a design, another approval for the siting, another approval for its environmental impact, than an approval to fuel it, than an approval to operate it and put electricity onto the grid, than another approval to… does anyone know how many approvals it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running?
BTW, is that next-generation going to include co-generation? Existing nuclear plants are always identified by those humongatory cooling towers, that’s waste heat! Isn’t some engineer looking into ways to capture some of that and put it to a useful purpose?
That waste heat might one day be the entire heat generated, because the advances in thermo-electric generation are going to make steam obsolete.
The old efficiency of TEGs was 1-2% of the heat. New ones are 7%. I hear there is a development inthe pipeline that is “5 times better” but I don’t what it is 5 time better than, the 2% or the 7%.
Suppose this innovation is 35% efficient, heat to electricity, and operates at 400 C. That means a power station no longer needs to have steam and turbines and generators. All it needs is heat and cooling towers to vent the excess.
The disruptive technologies will be of a different class of generator, not increments on existing ones.
Not to mention the people who live there.
I know folks who live in New Brunswick and they all say ” Not in my backyard! ”
No one wants a nuke, small or large, as a neighbor. Especially since there is 500 years worth of coal parked underground nearby.
The federal government is a minority. They don’t have a lot of wiggle room. They have to build a pipeline and the NDP and the Bloc won’t support that. It seems to me that the Liberals have to make some kind of deal with the Conservatives. That seems unlikely but what’s the alternative?
The alternative is more heated oil rail/train cars. CN/CP have national jurisdiction over their tracks and no province or city can isolate them to not allow flow through traffic where they have existing right of ways, some which pre-date confederation. Of course, it was the promise of the railroad that is at the heart for the modern confederation of Canada in 1867 with the promise of connecting British Columbia to the new country of Canada, building the Canadian Pacific Railroad which was finally completed in 1885.
Of course it is more dangerous, and expensive, but the eco-loons from social justice a-holes to provincial premiers have no say in the matter. Even the aboriginals know better than to try and block the rail roads, as that won’t be tolerated for a New York minute. The rail roads have their own police force, and if blockage or vandalism were to occur to the rail lines, I think it would be elevated to domestic terrorism real quick. The unions almost just shut down CN with a national strike, which would have caused a recession in Canada had that happened for any length of time.
Pipe lines make a lot more sense and are a lot safer and cheaper to operate. Plus the oil that gets shipped on trains winds up competing with all the other resources trying to get to market, all trying to get to the same few deep water ports. This is the strategy of these environmental groups, as well as politico Ottawa/Quebec which is to break the backs of the fossil fuel companies. Some of them should be hauled up on extortion and sedition charges when when we find out the entire truth what has been happening.
Earthling2
“The other is a robust next generation smart grid”:
Relying on “a next generation smart grid” is relying that with 7,000,000,000 “must have smart phone” slingers not one’s able to just for fun hack said “robust next generation smart grid”.
I have seen no validated, verifiable evidence that meets the rigour of scientific theory for the phrase , Humans affect the climate in many ways.
I can see why someone might wish to believe that but there is no provable evidence. I see many people whom I respect suggesting that they can see the effects of human beings on our climate but none has been able to precisely quantify these effects or their impacts.
True.
“Humans affect the climate in many ways.” is hardly “information about which we can be confident:”.
“Possible”? OK. “Confident”? No.
Until Man’s effect can be distinguished from … nature being nature, there is no real confidence.
Roger Pielke Sr. has spent a career demonstrating that land use affects the climate, at least locally. For instance, as any glider pilot will tell you, a forest and a plowed field absorb solar energy quite differently.
@ur momisugly stephen richards
Urban Heat Islands …… are one such …. “Humans affect the climate in many ways.”
But when we’re talking about “THE climate,” we’re talking about it globally. All of the “human influences” mentioned are nothing more than LOCAL climate effects.
We may have in “many ways” affected local climate (in many places), but the human “affect” on GLOBAL climate is not even measurable, when we can’t even identify all of the forces that impact the (i.e., global) climate and quantify all their effects and interactions.
The will to believe runs strong in the Democratic Party. I saw that comment in a thread on another site and it surely fits!
simple question: would you purchase a typical ($600K+) retirement property in southern Florida, assuming that was the main legacy you would leave to your children?
My point: its easy to critique ‘models’, ‘activists’, etc. But as the Economists say, don’t predict unless you are willing to ‘put your money where your mouth is.’
Nope, don’t like Florida. Arizona, yes.
If you really thought climate change was going to cause the oceans to rise dramatically over the next few decades, would you buy a $15 million mansion in Martha’s Vineyard? You know, like Obama did?
Or a $600,000 beach house, like Bernie Sanders?
I personally wouldn’t buy a beachfront house in South Florida, not because of the silly fears of massive sea level rise, but of the very reasonable fears of having a perfectly typical Florida hurricane come on shore, flooding the place and battering it with high winds.
Harlech castle sea gate is about 4 m above present high tide. Built 1000 years ago at great expense. Do you think the King was silly?
In close agreement with Brock et al 2008 coral reef sea level research.
I will crack a rib laughing if Al Bore and O Barmy lose their sea front mansions.
And further round the Welsh coast, there’s the little village of Parkgate, Cheshire. It has a perfect seafront style (houses with ‘widow’s walks’ for example), and a road behind the sea wall. Unfortunately, on the other side of the sea wall, the sea (actually the Dee estuary) is a good mile or so away over salt marsh.
There are lots of examples of the seafront rising or retreating around just the British coast!
Given that former president Obama just purchased an estate 5 ft. above sea level, I’d say the answer is yes.
re: “Consensus” has no role in science.
well of course it does. You can’t get published if you go against the (overwhelming) consensus of science. Example: an Ohio University anthropology professor recently tried to publish a paper claiming that there are large insects living underground on Mars. (I am not making this up) The consensus of Science is that there is insufficient oxygen or water on Mars to support life.
The point of going with (strong) consensus is to avoid wasting time of journal subscribers having to read submissions that peer reviewers are almost certain are highly unlikely to be true.
[disclosure: I once has a paper describing a multi-agent adversarial planning system rejected because “Adversarial planning is so hard that it is highly unlikely this author has solved it”. I don’t really blame them. But several operational systems later I feel vindicated, but of course I can’t list the original research on my vita]
“Example: an Ohio University anthropology professor recently tried to publish a paper claiming that there are large insects living underground on Mars. ”
Choosing an extreme and obviously silly example doesn’t bolster your claim one bit. How about Plate Tectonics? Relativity? Ulcers?
Back when the idea was relatively new, I saw a roomful of medical researchers nearly lunch a doctor for saying that ulcers were caused by bacteria.
…and there are still a significant number of practicing doctors who insist that H. pylori has nothing to do with ulcers in their patients.
Also, back in the late 1980s, a friend of mine who was a doctoral candidate in paleontology got angry when I brought up the Chicxulub impact theory, since “everyone in the field knows it was slow environmental change that killed the dinosaurs.”
Consensus only matters when chris agrees with the consensus.
How about the documented CO2 rise is 1/2 natural and 1/2 from anthro burning fossil fuels?
Ever hear much anymore from the NASA OCO-2 mission? Nope. They’ve been silenced.
We’ve got as much evidence supporting the idea of giant insects on Mars as we do supporting the idea that CO2 controls temperature.
I’d give the edge to evidence for giant insects on Mars, Mark.
;o)
Or on the Earth—remember “THEM”?
YI YI YI YI YI YI YI
BRRRRAAGH!
Matt Ridley looks at the data and finds “we’ve just had the best decade in human history”. Only a delusional eco-loon would doubt the data, although this is the real planet earth and not their silly fantasy planet.
And yet we still have silly donkeys telling us that we have but a short time before the end of the world. But this is a very good article from Ridley and should give some hope to some of the more fearful among us. BTW he does list his sources, but will they ever wake up?
https://www.thegwpf.com/matt-ridley-weve-just-had-the-best-decade-in-human-history-seriously/
“Only a delusional eco-loon would doubt the data, although this is the real planet earth and not their silly fantasy planet.”
Skeptics doubt the data all the time.
Data I can live with. But when the “data” changes month to month and even minute to minute, such as the historical Average Surface Temperature data set(s), then I see every reason to reject it.
I’ve got no problem with data, heck I don’t even care if you massage the heck out of it so long as:
-The original, unadultarated data set is kept and available.
-Explain all the assumptions.
-Show your work, you know that thing all our teachers made us do in math. That way anyone can look it over to prove the author right or wrong.
-Show the error bars in graphs for publications, don’t lie by omission or bury the margin of error in small print.
Simple concept but seemingly hard to follow
“We should slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas, primarily through the adoption of new-generation nuclear.
”
Nee Gen Nuke is a good direction, but why should we slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gases??
Good essay but a few fixes needed:
– “We should slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas” should be “if it is ever shown that greenhouse gases are harmful or at dangerous levels, we could …”.
– Coal is better for Africa than nuclear (cheaper, easier).
– “many years” rather than “decades” for Warren and Marshall (there haven’t been two decades yet since 2005 – OK 1.4 decades is “decades” but …..).
My mistake re Warren and Marshall – of course their finding came decades before their Nobel prize. So “decades” is absolutely correct.
“We have almost no ability to meaningfully forecast future climate.
We can’t even make climate forecasts for a year or two ahead let alone decades ahead. ”
Should read…
We can’t even make climate forecasts for a MONTH or two ahead let alone decades ahead.
& we can only do accurate for ~ 6 – 10 days
Interesting. But I have a question for Mike Smith:
Mike: what are your related credentials and qualifications to critique scientists? I went to your consultancy web page but could find no information about your graduate degrees, scientific experience, or, well, much of anything other than opinions.
If you want to make _credible_ accusations about mistakes you think professors from MIT, Stanford, etc. or PhD researchers at national labs have made, you really should have equal standing in education, experience, track record in winning research contracts, etc.
just sayin’ 🙂
“If you want to make _credible_ accusations about mistakes you think professors from MIT, Stanford, etc. or PhD researchers at national labs have made, you really should have equal standing in education, experience, track record in winning research contracts, etc.”
Not really. Anyone can point out a math mistake (whether purposeful or not), regardless of credentials.
Yes – people with credentials and authority are the only ones permitted to have an opinion!!!! That is how dingbats think. They are incapable of weighing the thoughts and ideas presented without referencing the author’s credentials to determine if they should take notice or disregard it.
I am an authority on moonbattery.** I have many years of experience in the field.
So if I pronounce that “the Earth will end in 12 years or so because of CO2” is moonbattery you can be assured that my word as an expert moonbat is all that’s needed to end the discussion.
All of you sane, logical people, with degrees in science here should keep your opinion to yourselves. You may only comment on the science, not the moonbattery.
** References available on request… erm, that I’m a moonbat, not that CO2 sciencey stuff.
Hi Chris,
You are making the mistake the medical profession made w/r/t the 2005 Nobel Prize. Johns Hopkins, Bethesda and other ‘experts’ said that stress caused ulcers and “whoever heard of these guys in Australia?!” A scientific fact is a fact regardless of credentials or institution.
But, since you asked, I am the recently retired Sr. Vice President of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions. I just received a “Special Award for Lifetime Achievement” from the National Weather Association. I am a retired Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a board-certified consulting meteorologist (fewer than 900, worldwide, have achieved that credential since it was first offered in 1959). In addition, I have more than 40 patents in the field of atmospheric science, GIS/GPS, emergency management and search & rescue.
My company, WeatherData, Inc. (sold to AccuWeather in ’06) received the AMS Award for Outstanding Contribution to Atmospheric Science. I am the author of two books on weather and far too numerous articles and papers to list.
Mike
Now that’s what I call a troll slap.
Ha ha yeah, my friends in England call that “pissing on someone’s chips”
You really could have saved your breath. It would matter not what credentials you present, even if you present exactly what “chris” suggests you need, he would then find some other reason to discredit your post, because it disagrees with his preconceived notions which he had engraved into his brain well before he read this article. He’s playing the game all alarmists play.
I’ve lost track of the number of times they demand that only those with expertise in climate science be allowed to talk about climate science. Of course only way to recognized as having expertise in climate science is to agree with those who already call themselves climate experts.
Then there’s the “inconvenient fact” that, in reality, there ARE NO “experts” in “climate science.”
If there were, they would be able to explain completely all past changes to the climate, what cause each of them, what is currently occurring with the climate, the underlying causes of that, and make accurate, falsifiable predictions about near and distant future climate based on their complete knowledge of all the forces that impact climate.
Know anybody like that?!
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, but are you a CLIMATE scientist?
Serious nonsense. You do realize that the person who discovered the oxygen molecule was the finance minister of the French Republic. Not a single Chemistry PhD in his resume.
Lavoisier wasn’t finance minister, but a member of the tax Farmers General, who made important economic contributions.
When I see Communists in Chile idiotically spewing that, “Revolution is poetry”, I think of victims of mob violence like the Father of Chemistry, a non=practicing law student.
And then there was (from Wikipedia):
John Harrison (3 April [O.S. 24 March] 1693 – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea.
To paraphrase Richard Feynman:
If it is wrong — it is wrong, and it doesn’t matter who points that out.
That Feynman paraphrase is brilliant, and there are a couple of derivatives from it: (1) it only takes one to point out the error, and (2) it doesn’t matter how large the consensus is if it is wrong . . . larger numbers do not remove the wrongness.
It seems virtually all of the scientific community disparaged Wegner until a mechanism for continental drift was discovered.
Incidentally, I have purchased and read both of Smith’s books (I have no connection with him, commercial or otherwise), and they are both fascinating and highly readable. I cheerfully recommend them to anyone interested in the weather and who enjoys a good read.
Ah yes, the ultimate retreat of the troll.
Anyone who doesn’t have sufficient “credentials” is not permitted to question of the wisdom of those experts who agree with me.
Argument by authority, a well recognized logical fallacy. Especially when you can’t actually refute the arguments being put forward.
“Anyone who doesn’t have sufficient “credentials” is not permitted to question of the wisdom of those ignorant, arrogant so-called “experts” who agree with me.”
Fixed that for you.
One of the problems with all ‘big science’ is that young people who wish to join the endeavour get indoctrinated in whatever the concensus is right now.
I saw it in cancer research first hand, but I have seen it from the sidelines in many other scientific subjects too.
People who do not think fundamentally are better suited to joining the bottom of most ‘big science’ enterprises. Those who think radically either cause trouble, have to suppress their natural mindset or simply leave through depression, sadness, anger or calm acceptance of political reality.
This means that the people most likely to not have ties to the old ways are neutralised by the system.
Einstein was sat in a patent office, not an Ivy League University, after all.
The five most revolutionary scientists I have met in my life were all outside a traditional career in academia. They all had links to academia at some stage, but more than one do not have PhDs. What they do have is mastery of their subjects and the ability to understand- and question the validity of fundamental postulates underpinning current consensus.
So perhaps the most fundamental question that those wishing to see science advance should be: ‘how do we promote free-ranging thought and enquiry whilst enduring that recipients of funding are actuslly continuing to be worthy of it?’
If climate science wasn’t what it is but a proper science, the WUWT would be out of business and some of people in here, including myself, might be forced to help a bit more with housework instead of bashing on keyboards pretending we are doing something important.
Now you went and gave it all away!!!
No no, follow the gourd
And as we read and write parts of the south island of New Zealand are having a WHITE CHRISTMAS in mid summer for the first time in living memory. Join the dots!
Why would you want to slow the rate of growth of CO2 (to the extent that we may be able to)? There seems to be no downside to levels being very much higher, and a huge downside if we were to get a comparable rate of decrease. Here’s more grist for this mill: https://notrickszone.com/2019/12/23/study-no-discernible-link-from-co2-forcing-to-climate-for-97-of-the-last-425-million-years/
“The earth is warmer than it was sixty years ago. ”
We can’t even say that. Some places have warmed, some have cooled some have remained the same. Averaging them all together doesn’t give you a “global temperature”, it gives you a meaningless number.
OK, but how do you calculate the numbers to compare and what is their unit to state that the LIA was colder that the present?
There’s no reason whatsoever to “keep your head while all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” as Kipling advised, when massive govt. grants, media adoration, college lecture tours, fame & fortune will flow your way if only you support the Panic Industry.
Chicken Littleism pays a heckuva lot better than healthy caution. Who ever won a Pulitzer Prize by advising, “No reason to get your toga in a knot. Things aren’t really all that bad. Relax. Go out in your yard and play with the dog.”?
“It is estimated that global temperatures could more than double by the end of the century”.
I am guessing that Patricia Espinosa , if confronted by Judith Currie’s scathing response, would back off and try to explain that what she really meant was that the 2 degrees C that we are “on track” to meet by 2050 ( the famous ‘2 degree Warming’) will be 4 degree warming by century end.
But who knows what she meant by her gibberish.
Incidentally, we do not appear to be “on track” to 2 degree warming by mid-century.
The AR5 figure for 1880 to 2010 gives the Decadal warming at 0.064C +/- 0.015C. ( Source -Wikipedia citing AR5).
From 2010 to date, the decadal warming appears to be about 0.13 C per decade.
Without some considerable positive forcing in the next decades ( water vapour positive forcing ?) it seems unlikely we will get to 2 degreesC by mid- century.
Am I missing something?
Here in Australia we had the Environmental Minister for NSW “recant” and blame CO2 for the fires. But on national radio (ABC) he also said that if we didn’t **reduce** the global temperature by 2 degrees the world was doomed. Pretty obvious he, like Espinosa, doesn’t have a clue.
Anne, he is actually a ‘Green’ who has infiltrated a moderate right wing government. I know this because his constituents are predominantly ‘Greens’. I lived not too far from him for 39 years, until the politics made it unbearable. Unfortunately there are many of them in all levels of government in Australia. The Greens would never govern in their own right, but then it seems that they don’t have to. There doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite to being a member of a political party, pitty.
Everybody can relax. The planet has been saving itself for billions of years. It’s got this.
We have a winner!
I am yet to see evidence that CO2 makes any contribution to global energy increase.
Insolation on Earth will reach its annual peak on 5th January 2020 with energy flux at zenith reaching 1407W/sq.m. During January 2020 the oceans will ACCUMULATE 3.1E18Wh; not the total incoming energy but the extra STORED just for January. That amount of energy would meet the current energy needs of the entire human race for 207 years. Most of the extra energy will warm the surface of the oceans by 0.13C. A small proportion of the extra energy will lift 150,000,000,000 tonnes of additional water into the atmosphere.
Humans can influence climate but it is minuscule compared with the natural processes. Humans do have a perceptible influence on land temperature measurement because recording instruments are located near unnatural sources of heat storage and generation.
It is becoming apparent that finding alternatives to fossil fuel sourced energy is challenging. It is a pity that massive resources are being wasted on currently unsuitable energy collection technology. At best it extends the life of low cost fossil resources but the investment would be better directed at technologies that have a future; fission may be a stopgap, economic fusion remains out of reach. Solar and wind have merit in some locations but needs low cost energy storage. Existing hydro with limited perched water integrates well with current solar and wind technologies.
I have absolutely no concern about global warming. The “greenhouse gas” theory is easily proven false. The concern I have is ever growing irrational effort and investment in the war against carbon. A massive global army is supported financially to wage this war.
“More than double…”
I think I know where this is coming from: So far one degree since industrial so ‘more than double’ means more than 2 degrees.
OK I can live with that, that is not a climate crisis.
Largely reasonable. However, as Anthony Watts has pointed out, the surface station network is utterly inadequate to support the first point. The satellite data doesn’t go back quite as far as the first point calls for, and has been altered to conform to the surface monitoring data, but I believe we still have access to the unaltered satellite data. In any event, the author said nothing about how much the world has warmed over the past five decades, so no real quibble there.
The eco side is not flexible. They set up all these constraints like we can’t use nuclear, we can’t look at geo engineering, we can’t replace coal with natural gas, we can’t dam more rivers for hydro etc. If they truly thought co2 was a problem then they would be far more flexible. In any marriage compromise a key to success.