Guest “They also contradicted their own defamatory headline” by David Middleton
Patrick Michaels, influential climate denier, dies at 72
By Scott Waldman | 07/19/2022One of the most influential climate deniers in American history has died.
Patrick J. Michaels, who died Saturday at 72, created the modern concept of “lukewarmism,” which holds that humans are warming the planet but rejects the notion it will have severe consequences. That idea has become dominant in today’s Republican Party, which rejects significant restrictions on fossil fuels and has ignored the warnings of climate scientists who have said that unabated warming will be devastating for humanity.
Michaels was not a denier but a true skeptic who never stopped questioning scientific research, said Ryan Maue, who was tapped by former President Donald Trump to be NOAA’s chief scientist.
[…]
E&E News ClimateWire
It’s one thing to defame someone in the headline and then contradict the defamatory remarks in the second and third paragraphs… It’s another thing to defame someone by accusing them of being something that is neither physically, nor grammatically possible. No one denies the climate. It’s not even possible to deny the climate… Physically or grammatically. “Lukewarmism” denies nothing. It doesn’t even reject economically viable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. I will give E&E News some credit for quoting Dr. Ryan Maue, who very accurately and eloquently described Dr. Michaels as “a true skeptic… However, why continue with the use of the denier pejorative, if not for defamatory purposes? Nothing in the article supports the “denier” moniker.
Pat Michaels was a “lukewarmer,” as am I… As are many, if not most, scientists reasonably familiar with the subject matter. Anyone who has ever read any of Dr. Michaels’ books, particularly Climate of Extremes, would know that his view was that the observed warming over the past 50 years, or so, was consistent with an enhanced greenhouse effect and that this was, at least in part, due to greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Here’s a excerpt from his October 2018, interview on Mark Levin’s Life, Liberty & Levin…
LIFE LIBERTY & LEVIN TRANSCRIPT Published October 22, 2018
Dr. Patrick Michaels on the truth about global warming[…]
LEVIN: It’s a great honor to see you, Patrick Michaels, doctor. Expert on all things climate and environment, as far as I’m concerned. A little bit of your background. You’re the Director of the Center for Study of Science at the Cato Institute. You hold an AB and SM, you hold those degrees in Biology, Sciences and Plant Ecology from the University of Chicago – pretty good school. PhD in Ecological Climatology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, 1979. You’re past President of the American Association of State Climatologists. You were Program Chairman for the Committee on Applied Climatology at the American Meteorological Society. Say that fast five times.
MICHAELS: Yes.
LEVIN: You were a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for 30 years, and I’m giving an extensive background that you have. I’m giving that to the public so they that you know you really know what you’re talking about. You’re a contributing author and a reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
All right, let’s get started. Climate change, global warming, global cooling – we’ve heard it all. What’s going on out there?
MICHAELS: Well, surface temperature of the planet is warmer than it was a hundred years ago about 9/10th of a degree Celsius.
LEVIN: Nine-tenth degree of a degree Celsius.
MICHAELS: That’s all.
LEVIN: Is that a lot?
MICHAELS: No. It’s not a lot. There are two periods of warning, one in the early 20th Century that could not have been caused by human beings because we hadn’t put enough CO2 in the air, and one in the later part of the 20th Century that either slows down or ends depending upon whose data you use somewhere in the late 1990s, only to resume with the big El Nino that covered the news the last couple of years.
So that means that probably about half, maybe half of that nine-tenths of the degree might be caused by greenhouse gases because when the planet warmed beginning in 1976, the temperature of the stratosphere started to drop and that’s the prediction of greenhouse theory that’s not intuitive. The great philosopher of science Karl Popper said, if you can meet a difficult prediction with your theory, you can continue to entertain your theory.
So the theory is right, but the application of it is wrong. It is nowhere near as warm as it’s supposed to be. The computer models are making systematic, dramatic errors over the entire tropics which is 40 percent of the earth, and it’s where all our moisture comes from or almost all of it.
[…]
Life, Liberty & Levin
Dr. Michaels was skeptical of the alarmist, catastrophic projections of climate models and didn’t agree with destroying our energy infrastructure in a Quixotic effort to control the weather 100 years from now. Every sane scientist familiar with the subject matter should at least accept that as a reasonable position, if not agree with it. It’s not a denial of anything.
Let’s look at the 2016 survey of the American Meteorological Society. One third of atmospheric scientists surveyed didn’t think that human activities were the primary driver of climate change over the past 50 years.
The same survey found that 50% of scientists can’t say that the warming of the planet is necessarily bad…
It also found that atmospheric scientists were very divided on the efficacy of mitigation measures.
Stenhouse et al., 2017 also failed to find a robust consensus among atmospheric scientists on the subject of climate change.
This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists.
Stenhouse et al., 2017
While the vast majority of atmospheric scientists would agree with Dr. Michaels on the underlying science, there clearly is a wide divergence of opinions on the nature of the problem and what, if anything, to do about it. Disagreeing with the most catastrophic model projections is not a denial of the science or anything else. E&E’s use of the word “denier” is clearly defamatory and “has the pejorative ring of Holocaust denier.” It is simply a fact that many models and model scenarios have predicted significantly more warming than has actually occurred.
Use of ‘too hot’ climate models exaggerates impacts of global warming
U.N. report authors say researchers should avoid suspect models
4 MAY 2022 11:00 AM BYPAUL VOOSENOne study suggests Arctic rainfall will become dominant in the 2060s, decades earlier than expected. Another claims air pollution from forest fires in the western United States could triple by 2100. A third says a mass ocean extinction could arrive in just a few centuries.
All three studies, published in the past year, rely on projections of the future produced by some of the world’s next-generation climate models. But even the modelmakers acknowledge that many of these models have a glaring problem: predicting a future that gets too hot too fast. Although modelmakers are adapting to this reality, researchers who use the model projections to gauge the impacts of climate change have yet to follow suit. That has resulted in a parade of “faster than expected” results that threatens to undermine the credibility of climate science, some researchers fear.
Scientists need to get much choosier in how they use model results, a group of climate scientists argues in a commentary published today in Nature. Researchers should no longer simply use the average of all the climate model projections, which can result in global temperatures by 2100 up to 0.7°C warmer than an estimate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “We need to use a slightly different approach,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at payment services company Stripe and lead author of the commentary. “We must move away from the naïve idea of model democracy.” Instead, he and his colleagues call for a model meritocracy, prioritizing, at times, results from models known to have more realistic warming rates.
[…]
Science!
Dr. Michaels never rejected all models…
[…]
MICHAELS: Yes, because one model works and you know what it is? It’s the Russian model.
LEVIN: So let me get this straight. So all the government models are like this?
MICHAELS: Yes.
LEVIN: The Russian model like this.
MICHAELS: Yes, the Russian model has the least warming in it.
LEVIN: And the Russian model has the least warming and the Russia model, pretty much follows reality that’s been tested over a few decades.
MICHAELS: Yes, correct. If we were rational about this, think about the daily weather forecast. You watch the Weather Channel, they go, “Oh, this model says that, that model says that. We think this one is working the best, so we’re going to rely on that.” Well, for climate forecast, we should be using the Russian model, but we’re not. We use this big spate of all the other models that have this warming in them that’s not occurring.
[…]
Life, Liberty & Levin
He clearly laid it out in this article:
Climate Predictions “Worse Than We Thought”
By Patrick J. Michaels
July 14, 2020As the temperature of the eastern U.S. normally reaches its summer maximum around the last week of July, every year at this time we are bombarded with tired “climate change is worse than we thought” (WTWT) stories. These stories take time to produce, from imagination to final copy to editing to publication, so they have usually been submitted well in advance of the summer peak. Hence, orchestrated fear.
For once, I’m in agreement about the WTWT meme, but it’s about the climate models, not the climate itself.
[…]
Real Clear Energy
Dr. Michaels went on to discuss John Christy’s analysis of the CMIP5 models which showed that only the Russian INM-CM4 model, and its low sensitivity (~2 °C per doubling), was close to reality. This is from Andy May’s November 2018 post:
Then he noted that the new CMIP6 models were even worse than CMIP5:
You’d think that, in the seven-year period between CMIP5 and CMIP6, the modeling community would address the critical errors that all the other models were making. But CMIP6 models are out and are indeed “worse than we thought.” While their error in the tropical atmosphere is very close to the same as it was in CMIP5 (which isn’t good), the range of global predictions is even larger than before. This is also not a good sign, especially because it has been documented that the models are “tuned” to give an answer that the modeling team wants.
Real Clear Energy
Dr. Michaels cited a Carbon Brief article by Zeke Hausfather. This plot is from the article:
Mr. Hausfather noted that high sensitivity models often don’t even get the past right:
Many high sensitivity models have poor hindcasts
Climate models provide both projections of future warming and “hindcasts” of past temperatures. These hindcasts can be used as a tool to evaluate the performance of models, though historical temperatures are only one of many hundreds of different variables that climate models generate.
A number of the higher sensitivity models in CMIP6 have had trouble accurately “hindcasting” historical temperatures. Some show almost no warming over the 20th century — with cooling effects from aerosols almost completely counterbalancing rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations — followed by a massive warming spike in recent decades. Others show too much warming over the past 150 years.
Carbon Brief
The article included this excellent comparison of climate sensitivities derived from various different methods.
Climate sensitivities derived from the closest thing to direct actual observational measurements (instrumental) yield climate sensitivities ranging from innocuous to mildly concerning. It’s also important to note that equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is not the key parameter. The transient climate response (TCR) is what matters. It is the warming that occurs concurrent with the rise in atmospheric CO2 and it’s generally only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the ECS. So a 2 °C ECS would probably equate to a 1.0 to 1.3 °C rise in temperature as the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles. The remainder of the ECS warming theoretically occurs over the subsequent 500 years, or so, as Trenberth’s missing heat returns from the depths of the oceans.
So… What exactly did Dr. Patrick Michaels deny?
He denied nothing. Maybe the only thing he denied was that he denied to get down in the gutter those who called him a denier. I never had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Michaels in person, but I have read several of his books. He was perhaps the best communicator of the strengths and weaknesses of modern climate science. I can honestly say that he was one of a handful of skeptical climate scientists who inspired me to become actively involved in this debate. Without what I learned from Shattered Consensus, The Satanic Gasses and Climate of Extremes, I would have never found my way to Watts Up With That. Rest in peace, Dr. Michaels, we will carry the on fight here on Earth.
References
Christy, John. 2016. Testimony of John R. Christy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, 23. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY00/20160202/104399/HHRG-114-SY00-Wstate-ChristyJ-20160202.pdf
Maibach, E., Perkins, D., Francis, Z., Myers, T., Englbom, A., et al. (2016). A 2016 National Survey of American Meteorological Society Member Views on Climate Change: Initial Findings. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication.
Stenhouse, N., A. Harper, X. Cai, S. Cobb, A. Nicotera, and E. Maibach, 2017: Conflict about Climate Change at the American Meteorological Society: Meteorologists’ Views on a Scientific and Organizational Controversy. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 98, 219–223, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00265.1
He was a “denier” as he was not an active cheering section for panicmongers.
What’s really been needed for the past 10-15 yrs is satellites that can record higher
resolution data to get a better understanding of thunderstorms, clouds & water vapor. While
that much extra data may not be able to used immediately in global climate models because
of the limitations of current super computers, at least it’s being recorded for future use
& may be useful in more localized analysis. It’s the one thing that could move climate
science forward & something all scientists would approve of.
I think that the geostationary weather satellites are probably doing an adequate job. The question is whether funding has been allocated to properly archive the huge amount of data being recorded. So far, NASA doesn’t have a good track record of properly archiving the Apollo Mission data and physical artifacts.
The truth is corruption, more often than not. Some NASA employees probably SOLD those moon rocks. I’ve heard the story: hmmm, “they just disappeared, can’t explain it…check out my new BMW.”
I am not a scientist but from what I have read, clouds are an enormous problem for climate modelers and we need to know far more about the effects of the sun on clouds and clouds effects on earth’s climate and temperatures to even begin to understand the forces effecting earth’s temperatures.
‘No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic climate change’
Finnish study finds ‘practically no’ evidence for man-made climate change
12 Jul, 2019
(Submitted on 29 Jun 2019)
Abstract
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.00165TWITTER
In this paper we will prove that GCM-models 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.
A study from Japan and the Finnish study come to the same conclusions regarding the sun and clouds.
Winter monsoons became stronger during geomagnetic reversal: Revealing the impact of cosmic rays on the Earth’s climate
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190703121407.htm
The Thermostat Hypothesis
http://bit.ly/335zEl9
Abstract
The Thermostat Hypothesis is that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth. This keeps the earth at a equilibrium temperature.
Several kinds of evidence are presented to establish and elucidate the Thermostat Hypothesis – historical temperature stability of the Earth, theoretical considerations, satellite photos, and a description of the equilibrium mechanism.
Clouds form and rain starts during a day near the equator.
Thermostat regulate the suns effect.
…Finally, the equilibrium variations may relate to the sun. The variation in magnetic and charged particle numbers may be large enough to make a difference. There are strong suggestions that cloud cover is influenced by the 22-year solar Hale magnetic cycle, and this 14-year record only covers part of a single Hale cycle…
HAPPER EXCERPTS FROM BEST SCHOOLS INTERVIEW
FOCUSED CIVIL DIALOGUE ON GLOBAL WARMING
Happer: excerpt on clouds
William Happer
http://bit.ly/2nGA8zc
https://thebestschools.org/special/karoly-happer-dialogue-global-warming/william-happer-interview/
From inspection of the temperature record (Fig. 11), sunspot activity (Fig. 14), and the 14C production rate (Fig. 15), one can see that the earth’s temperature is very strongly correlated with solar activity, as indicated by sunspot numbers. At times of high solar activity, temperatures are high and 14C production rates are low.
The Danish physicist, Henrik Svensmark (“Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate,” Phys. Rev. Letters, 1998, 81: 5027), and the Israeli astrophysicist, Nir J. Shaviv (with J. Veizer, “Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate [PDF],” GSA Today, July 2003, 13: 1–10), have suggested that the physics involves cloud nucleation. Times of high 14C production and few sunspots may well have been more cloudy, since the high background of cosmic rays led to more low cloud cover, reflecting more sunlight back to space and thus cooling the earth.
No 1 (2019) > Cloud Changes in the Period of Global Warming: the Results of the International Satellite Project
https://journals.eco-vector.com/0205-9614/article/view/11444
Abstract
The results of analysis of climatic series of global and regional cloudiness for 1983–2009. Data were obtained in the framework of the international satellite project ISCCP. The technology of statistical time series analysis including smoothing algorithm and wavelet analysis is described. Both methods are intended for the analysis of non-stationary series. The results of the analysis show that both global and regional cloudiness show a decrease of 2–6%. The greatest decrease is observed in the tropics and over the oceans. Over land, the decrease is minimal. The correlation coefficient between the global cloud series on the one hand and the global air and ocean surface temperature series on the other hand reaches values (–0.84) — (–0.86). The coefficient of determination that characterizes the accuracy of the regression for the prediction of global temperature changes based on data on changes in the lower cloud, in this case is 0.316.
Exactly! Great examples!
Could recording such detailed data (assuming it could be measured) be akin to storing excess electricity for future use?
Not really. It’s a lot easier to increase computing power than it is battery storage capacity.
In any case, it will take many yrs of data to gain insight into the effect of clouds on climate
so there’s no harm done by starting ASAP. The data may also be used in localized areas-
studying thunderstorms, for example- where the full data set wouldn’t be used.
Lets see the EE Obit says Michaels was: climate denier, Koch brothers employee, coal industry shill, Fox News commentator, research (model) denier, and James Hansen’s opinions.
Couldn’t get much slimier than that. Its all the warmunists Ad Homs from the last 30 years. Not a single mention about Climategate anywhere though. Michaels was active in that too, but warmunists don’t like to mention it ever.
The BBC did a program on Climategate. In typical BBC biased fashion, they didn’t bother to interview the sceptic side. Steve barely got a mention and even then the BBC falsified a screen grab of the email release.
How was Michaels active in Climategate, please? I don’t recall seeing his name but there were quite a few involved in it, so my missing his name doesn’t mean much. I am very curious about his involvement, though.
The ClimateGate email scandal involved correspondences among almost entirely the scientists on the IPCC side of the issue, they didn’t exchange many emails with guys like Dr Michaels. One of the more famous examples of the bad behavior was this one, second paragraph, where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Dr Ben Santer was griping to the U of East Anglia’s Phil Jones about Dr Michaels:
I do forget if other emails described trying to find ways to prevent Dr Michaels’ papers from being published in peer-reviewed journals, or if it was some other skeptic scientist’s papers.
From E & E, gossip and innuendo, reminds me of the old show about “who knows, The Shadow Knows!” “He made those claims even as he, or the institutions that employed him, were funded by the Koch brothers network, the Mercer Family Foundation, Exxon Mobil Corp., the coal industry and shadowy conservative foundations that oppose regulations, among others.” Gossip is nothing new, sometimes true, sometimes ahead of the experts. Journalism, like science and law, is supposed to be verified and validated.
Unfortunately, how many major organizations supposedly representing their constituents are dealing to varying degrees in gossip and innuendo?
“NA4 and the accompanying Climate Science Special Report repeatedly state that models show anthropogenic emissions are responsible for almost all 20th century warming …
… Tuning the models to mimic the historical record and then claiming that anthropogenic
emissions explain the early warming is circular reasoning at its finest” (Prof Michaels: COMMENTS ON THE FOURTH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT).
I bookmarked his concise critique at the time.
I have seen the spaghetti graph comparing the results of the models to the observation of balloons and satellites many times. I notice that we know who is responsible for each graph. Wouldn’t it make sense to publicly show how far off each graph is compared to observations, display the graph and ask those responsible for the graph to explain the difference between their result and observations. All in the simplest most straightforward language possible so everyone can easily understand it. And explain that most all of the justification for combating CAGW is these outrageously misleading models.
I would add that each modeling team must clearly and publicly show its temperatures, as opposed to anomalies alone. None of them are modeling the real world temperatures.
Speaking of spaghetti…
Quite strange and weird. NASA’s explanations, so far, don’t really seem to explain the phenomenon Rover photographed.
Mysterious bundle of String on Mars Surface Found By NASA’s Perseverance… https://youtu.be/M23SQuGbdaM via @YouTube
Here is a picture of what Rover saw. Forgot to include it above.
It’s probably from the parachute.
https://www.universetoday.com/156775/weird-string-like-object-found-on-mars-probably-dropped-by-the-rover/
It’s windy on Mars.
Sol 495 15:41:43 – The string is still between the two rocks.
Sol 499 15:46:25 – The wind has blown the string on down the road.
Dave ==> Thanks for not posting this way-too-serious comment at my post on the String Pollution Crisis!
I don’t see how the fact that the string ball has blown away helps to explain its origin. Quoting the NASA/JPL attempt to explain it away is not really insightful.
It is certainly not a bit from a broken piece of paracord. They already found the parachute….there was no explosion that would have shredded cords….
Still very unexplained, and likely to remain that way.
…today’s Republican Party… has ignored the warnings of climate scientists who have said that unabated warming will be devastating for humanity.
um, isn’t that statement worth ignoring?
The statement is definitely not science.
Please don’t be too hard on notorious warmunist propagater SCOTT WALDMAN of the E&E News. He has Oil Cancer from scraping his mom’s windshield, and it’s rotted his brain to mush. He’s existential, man, but not for long.We can all get our digs in on two-bit sleaze merchant SCOTT WALDMAN after he’s cashed in his chips.
I’m a Luke Skywarmer
The CAGW farce is with me
I have the impression that the author is overreacting to a stupid article .. published by stupid people, or at least people who just think about earning money with disinformation and “getting more clicks.” Unfortunately, the passing away of Dr. Michaels is part of an ongoing phenomenon: the generation of “honest” scientists, who strictly adhere to the scientific method is slowly but surely dwindling away.. Young scientists coming out of universities cannot go against the flow, or they will ruin their careers, and since the quality of education itself is getting worse the total number of scientists is probably also dropping. It’s the new political word we live in: one needs people who believe, not people who question.
How can anyone think of only using well performing climate models? How inclusive is that? How would the large majority of climate modelers survive? They might not be able to pull down enough government grants.Their their loans could be foreclosed. Their children could starve.
On the serious side… They shouldn’t only run the models that work. Models are simulations. As such, it’s important to run a broad enough distribution of models & scenarios to cover a broad range of outcomes. Then you compare the real world results against the distribution.
If the real world plots near the middle of the distribution (p50), the underlying parameters and assumptions of the models are probably realistic. If the real world plots near the bottom (p90) or the top (p10) of the distribution, there’s serious problem with the underlying parameters and assumptions.
The actual temperature data keep dropping to the p90 to p95 range (90-95% of the models run hotter) shortly after starting the predictive runs. They never address this.
Here’s an example:
https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/comparing-cmip5-observations/
I graphically removed the 2006-2012 reference period, highlighted to 95% band of the 1986-2005 reference period and eyeballed in a p50 line:
The only time that the observed temperatures were warmer than the p50 line was when we were in a strong El Niño. Otherwise, the temperatures tracked below p50, mostly in the p75-p95 range. Strong El Niño and La Niña events should respectively plot around p10 and p90 if the models reflected realistic climate sensitivities.
A good article, briefly reflecting on the man, Mr. Michaels, and equally important, the models his studies were concerned about.
The models and the accuracy of such, is where the “rubber meets the road.”
I appreciate noting one model seems to have had the most accurate results..
I had learned about the Russian model from a fellow commenter, here, on this website, in the comment section, but this article provides more detail.
It’s quite clear, there are many in AGW world who don’t want to debate in good faith… That’s where all the “denier” labeling comes into play.
I’m glad for Mr. Michaels’ contribution to the debate and my increased understanding of the relevant issues.
Thank you, Mr. Michaels, and the present author — we can’t get enough discussion on the general failure of the models with one notable exception.
Pat Michaels was my decades-long friend. The planet was a better place because of him. Nobody will say ill of him in my presence. The left will lie about him because that’s what they do – that is probably their only real skill set – it’s certainly not climate modelling.
Let’s look at the big picture:
My friend, online broadcaster Michael Martinz texted a comment to me yesterday:
MM: “Seems the climate alarmists are ramping up their ambitions significantly.“
I replied (dictated – pls excuse any typos):
The entire net zero climate show is in disarray now because of the Russian energy situation. Every day the headlines in NetZeroWatch describe a retreat from green energy and a move to coal and natural gas electricity generation. Britain and Germany are in a
severe energy crisis because of over-investment in wind power. Boris Johnson
has stepped down. Dutch farmers are in revolt and Holland is a big food
exporter.
On the reality front, the world has been cooling since either 2016 or 2020, there was a major crop failure across the Great Plains of North America in 2019, and extreme cold events all over the world are threatening crops this year. See electroverse.net for thousands of such
cold events.
As you know, the climate scam is about 50 years old now and it was always a pure propaganda play with no scientific support from honest, competent experts. The propagandists are panicking and their only play is to ramp up the propaganda to hysterical levels and scream that “we’re all gonna die from global warming”.
MM: “The alarmists were bleating in the 1980’s that we’d all be dead by year 2000 unless something changed.”
Me: “In my latest paper, I again describe the 48 consecutive failed very scary extreme global warming events that the greens have predicted, all of which have failed to happen and all of which have passed their due date. At 50:50 odds for each prediction, the probability of that
being random stupidity by climate scientists is one into 281 trillion. But nobody makes a 50:50 prediction. At 60:40, the probability is one is 13 quintillion, and at 70:30 it is what it is 13 septillion. It is not just global warming scientists being randomly stupid – they have known for decades that they were not telling the truth. I’m sending you the paper by email.”
“So let’s put ourselves in their shoes: they have a climate scam that has relied for 50 years entirely upon false propaganda. What do they do when their scam is obviously failing? They ramp up the propaganda because it’s the only tool they’ve got. They emphasize a heat wave in western Europe and don’t mention the cold wave next door to the east. They scream louder and louder, because they know that this winter Britain and Germany are going to freeze and its their fault.
So lukewarmism is a concept?
So is CAGW.
Any evidence for either concept?
CAGW? None.
Lukewarmerism? Almost all of it.
Hi David, this thread is about my friend Pat Michaels, but I never had this conversation with him, so maybe you can stand in.
Would you agree that “lukewarmists” tend to assume that ECS ~= 1C/2xCO2?
If not, what approximate number would you choose?
t would say that ~1C/doubling is close enough for an estimated probable MAXIMUM UPPER BOUND of the parameter, so ECS is highly unlikely to be much greater than 1C. If you say 1.7C that’s all the same to me.
However, since atmospheric CO2 changes LAG atmospheric temperature changes by ~9 months in the modern data record (Kuo 1990, MacRae 2008, Humlum 2013), ECS may in fact be non-existent.
The above difference I attribute to phenomena associated with scale-up, from molecular scale to Earth scale, which is one very large scale-up, during which a lot of unexpected things can happen.
A further argument for ECS~= 0 is the observation that Earth has cooled several times in recent past even as fossil-fuel emissions increased – for example from ~1940 to 1977 and from ~2016 to present.
I would agree that practically, it doesn’t matter whether ECS~= 1 or 0, because either way the alleged global warming crisis does not exist -> end of climate crisis, end of all the green nonsense, and maybe we can get back to a semblance of political sanity on environmental subjects that have been hijacked by fraudsters for ~50 years. That would be nice. But it would also be nice to get the science correct.
References:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/06/a-wuwt-comment-rebuke/#comment-3263875
These authors both used full-Earth-scale observations to calculate their upper-bound CS. Repeating, see underlined below:
Both Christy & McNider (2017) and Lewis & Curry (2018) proved that climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 is too low to cause dangerous warming. To calculate an upper-‐bound on climate sensitivity to CO2, both papers made the same very conservative assumption:
Both papers assumed that ALL the observed global warming is ascribed to increasing atmospheric CO2, and then calculated the maximum climate sensitivity to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric CO2 of only about 1 degree C, which is too low to cause dangerous global warming.
1. Christy and McNider (2017) analysed UAH Lower Troposphere data since 1979:
“Satellite Bulk Tropospheric Temperatures As A Metric For Climate Sensitivity”
By John R. Christy and Richard T. McNider
Asia-‐Pac. J. Atmos. Sci., 53(4), 511-‐518, 2017
2. Lewis and Curry (2018) analysed HadCRUT4v5 Surface Temperature data since 1859:
“The Impact of Recent Forcing and Ocean Heat Uptake Data on Estimates of Climate Sensitivity”
By Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry
Climate computer models used by the IPCC and other global warming alarmists employ climate sensitivity values much higher than 1C/doubling, in order to create false fears of catastrophic global warming.
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Without feedbacks, the TCR is probably ~1°C. Most of the observation-based estimates put it between 1.3 and 1.6°C.
I don’t recall if Dr. Michaels published an estimate. If he did, it’s probably in Climate of Extremes (his best book IMHO).
“Without feedbacks, the TCR is probably ~1°C. Most of the observation-based estimates put it between 1.3 and 1.6°C.”
Understood David, but that has to be an Upper Bound, a maximum estimate of CS, because it ASSUMES (see my two above references) that ALL the observed warming is attributed to increasing CO2, which is highly improbable. There must be a natural component of warming and cooling.
A similar assumption for the above cooling periods yields a Lower Bound of CS of about Minus 1C/doubling. I ran the numbers years ago.
And recognizing that CO2 changes LAG temperature changes by ~9 months leads to an inferred Climate Sensitivity of essentially zero.
So, practically, I say CS is so close to Zero as to be inconsequential, and it may not even exist – maybe we instead should be talking about CO2 sensitivity to temperature.
Rational analysis concludes that climate is INsensitive to recent observed increases in atmospheric CO2. The false assumption of high climate sensitivities to CO2 is essential to the IPCC’s bogus modelling of catastrophic human-made global warming (CAGW), a decades-old fraud that is clearly NOT happening, and the false and disastrous demonization of fossil fuels.
This paper by Ed Berry is the leading edge of the science. Unlike the IPCC’s models, it is consistent with the observation that CO2 changes lag temperature changes (Kuo 1990, MacRae 2008, Humlum 2013). Ed concludes that the majority of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is in fact natural, not human-made – another argument against the IPCC’s blatant climate fraud.
The smartest people I know believe that Ed Berry is essentially correct. I am confident that “The future cannot cause the past” (MacRae, 2008).
The IPCC’s climate fraud has cost trillions of squandered dollars and millions of wasted lives.
Four barrels of oil is energy-equivalent to a lifetime of hard labor. That is what modern primary energy does for us, and ~85% of modern primary energy is fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas. Most of the rest is hydro and nuclear, and only a few percent is wind and solar, despite trillions of dollars of squandered subsidies. Green energy schemes and the alleged fossil-fuel-driven global warming crisis are scientific and technical frauds. See https://correctpredictions.ca/
The promotion of green energy in the developed world has hugely driven up costs and destabilized electrical grids – it is a proven energy debacle, as we correctly predicted 20 years ago, Germany, Britain and others are now paying the price for their climate-and-energy foolishness. The deliberate curtailment of fossil fuels in the developing nations was even more criminal, denying modern energy to poor nations and thus keeping them poor. The greens are guilty of deliberate crimes against humanity.
The impact of human CO2 on atmospheric CO2 – SCC (klimarealistene.com)
Dr Edwin X Berry, December 14, 2021
AbstractA basic assumption of climate change made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is natural CO2 stayed constant after 1750 and human CO2 dominated the CO2 increase. IPCC’s basic assumption requires human CO2 to stay in the atmosphere longer than natural CO2. But human CO2 and natural CO2 molecules are identical. So, human CO2 and natural CO2 must flow out of the atmosphere at the same rate, or e-time. The 14CO2 e-time, derived from δ14C data, is 10.0 years, making the 12CO2 e-time less than 10 years. The IPCC says the 12CO2 e-time is about 4 years and IPCC’s carbon cycle uses 3.5 years. A new physics carbon cycle model replicates IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. Then, using IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data, it calculates human carbon has added only 33 [24-48] ppmv to the atmosphere as of 2020, which means natural carbon has added 100 ppmv. The physics model calculates if human CO2 emissions had stopped at the end of 2020, the human CO2 level of 33 ppmv would fall to 10 ppmv in 2100. After the bomb tests, δ14C returned to its original balance level of zero even as 12CO2 increased, which suggests a natural source dominates the 12CO2 increase.
With all due respect, the atmosphere is not univariate. CO2 is not the only driver of state. Cloud fraction may have a greater influence on state than CO2, is poorly understood and even more poorly modeled.
Lukewarmerism? Almost all of it.
But you can’t quote any evidence at this point in time?
Glad to see comment by “leitmotif” but why hide behind that label?
I would applaud Dr Michaels more loudly if he could have shown me the data on which he concluded that there was a human factor. It seems fairly obvious that the earth has become somewhat warmer since the LIA but is there any quantitative indication that ANY of that warming has a human cause? The null hypothesis in this arena should be the natural trend.
If there is no perceptible “hockey stick” jump in the longitudinal graph, then there is no evidence.
I challenge the” lukewarmers” to show me anything that looks like a human contribution.
To get my PhD in psych from BU, I had to take courses in scientific method and was taught to be skeptical of any claims that did not have a scientific basis. Anecdotal “evidence” is not evidence in science. The corruption of science by environmental ideologues should be the big story of our times.
I have to admit that I was more of a lukewarmer until I saw the COVID lockdown charts for atmospheric CO2 and estimated emissions. When there was absolutely no indication of even the slightest dip in atmospheric CO2 concentrations during that time, despite a dip in estimated emissions, I was convinced that human emissions have as close to zero effect on atmospheric CO2 as makes no difference. I was already of the opinion that atmospheric CO2 had little or no influence on temperatures already, rather the opposite in fact.
Thank you Richard and Ronald.
My point above is that even the assumption of a Climate Sensitivity CS of approx 1C/2xCO2 has a warmist bias. It is clearly an Upper Bound estimate, not an average estimate, because it attributes ALL observed warming to CO2 and negates any possible natural warming component. I don’t differentiate between ECS and TCS because I think we are already deep into the weeds of warmist fiction.
Recognizing that atmospheric CO2 changes LAG atmospheric temperature changes by ~9 months leads to the rational scientific conclusion that CS to increasing atmospheric CO2 probably does not even exist. For simplicity, we should assume that CS equals zero.
We lost a very honest and influential voice of reason. Any negative comments by the climate alarmists are simple complements about Pat Michaels effectiveness in communicating complex scientific issues, and more evidence that the climate alarmists are not acting as scientists, but rather propagandists for their own self interest and that of the trough gobblers who grow their wealth and power off the backs of others.
“Ryan Maue, who was tapped by former President Donald Trump to be NOAA’s chief scientist.“
And they had to add that, in an attempt to discredit Ryan Maue.
I started to expound on that when I was writing the post, but I couldn’t keep it succinct or profanity -free.
Unfortunately in this case, it is not possible to defame a dead person. In English law at least. I suspect US law is no different.
Defamation of the deceased isn’t legally actionable, but it’s still defamation…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defamation