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Search for Richard Lindzen

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More than 100 comments found. Only the most recent 100 have been displayed.

John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

wbru49 at 06:51 AM on 27 September, 2023

Are there thoughts about this July 19, 2023 letter from William Happer
Professor of Physics, Emeritus Princeton University and Richard Lindzen
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Happer-Lindzen-EPA-Power-Plants-2023-07-19.pdf

There is no consensus

RicardoB at 23:13 PM on 10 September, 2023

Eclectic @951:

Thank you for you comments.

You stated: "Dr Jordan Peterson shows how little he knows about climate matters ~ fair enough ~ but why is he choosing to boost Dr Curry?"

He chooses to boost Curry as he chooses to boost many other prominent "climate narrative contrarians" that he "interviews" in that same channel, like Robert Bryce, Steven Koonin, Richard Lindzen and Alex Epstein.

Dr. Peterson main point of view on the "climate debate" seems to come from his strong belief (?!) that the political measures that are being enforced by governments (to tackle global warming) will lead to mass impoverishment and starvation via the rise of the energy bill. In his words: "People can't care about environmental concerns when they are so desperate they are worried about tonight's shelter and the next meal." He frequently rages about "the consensus" and the "hysteria" that are leading to these political choices.

Hence, he deliberately chooses to debate the topic only with "specialists" from the "contrarian side" - champions for the carbon industry agenda. It suffices to say that these interviews function not as debates or means to get to the truth (by now, Dr. Peterson seems mostly uninterested in the cientific truth), but as opportunities both to let these "specialists" voice their cherry-picked concerns and attack established comprehensive scientific bases, and to not get himself confronted/debunked on his opinions. There's no debating; there's only agreeing.

Climate Science Denial Explained

Eclectic at 23:02 PM on 20 March, 2023

MA Rodger @21 ,

Yes, as I was addressing Foster @11 and @17 , it seemed reasonable to throw in mention of those two scientists who are "icons" of the science-denier crowd at WUWT .

As you know full well, Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer are almost the only climate scientists having enough genuine track record in the field, as to qualify for worshipful attitude from the denialists. (In their desperation to find a respectable scientist who is "on our side" . . . the denialists are reduced to a choice of slim-to-none , compared with the many hundreds of mainstream climate scientists ~ or many thousands, depending on how defined.)

Dr Spencer's tendency is ( I gather secondhand from a Potholer54 video ) to take a religious fundamentalist viewpoint ~ to the effect that "all will be well with the Earth, thanks to divine protection". And Potholer54 relates how - over many years - Spencer has had to repeatedly backpedal from his climate assertions, as the contrary evidence keeps proving him wrong. Even so, at times Spencer gets a bit of flak from denizens at WUWT , because he is not quite politically-correct enough to deny Greenhouse Effect etc.

Both Lindzen and Spencer demonstrate how some well-informed & intelligent men can get it so very wrong, owing to a pigheaded "motivated reasoning" directed by the emotional part of their brain.

2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7

Eclectic at 11:47 AM on 27 February, 2022

Santalives @19 , it is always a fine day for me when I come across two good jokes in a day. (A) The first is that you say you've read "nearly every one of the [over 200] Climate Myth and many of the comments." And how you felt that the comments were not arranged by date. Thank you for your personal revelations in these matters. Difficult to top.

(B) The second joke: was the David Coe et al., paper which you linked to @ WattsUpWithThat blogsite. Hilarious. Even your paper by the good professor Koutsoyiannis looks half-way sane in comparison.

Santalives, sit down and put your thinking cap on. As Philippe Chantreau [above] says, the Coe paper is wildly . . . wildly . . . inconsistent with everything that's within arm-reach of conventional climate science. IIRC, only the good Lord Monckton has ever come out with a similar figure to Coe's ultra-low 0.5K figure for total climate sensitivity to CO2. And Monckton seems to produce new & wildly high/low ECS figures annually (but with a strong bias toward Zero).

Now, I've looked through the WUWT assessment of the Coe paper. Not encouraging, at all. As usual, a number of commenters there deny that CO2 absorbs radiation and/or deny that there is any GreenHouse Effect whatsoever. At my own time of writing [>80 comments] no expert scientist has appeared to make comment at WUWT . Especially no climate scientist. Yes, that is the usual lofty standard of scientific analysis at WUWT .

# However, Santalives, if you scroll down to a couple of comments by Rud Istvan [an intelligent & well-informed guy, if you make allowance for his bad case of motivated reasoning on climate] . . . you will find he shows that some semi-respectable "contrarian" scientists such as Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen give a climate sensitivity of 1.1 - 1.2 for CO2 alone [without the large additional feedback from H2O ].

'Nuff said. The Coe paper you mentioned is simply garbage. Santalives, please remember the acronym GIGO ~ where sometimes you see the Garbage going In . . . and sometimes (e.g. with Coe et al., ) you see the Garbage coming Out.

# Oh, Santalives, I did come across a joke yesterday :

"My math teacher really hated negative numbers. Hated them. He would stop at nothing to avoid them."

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Jim Hunt at 21:04 PM on 27 May, 2021

Eclectic @17:

I selected a different quotation from Mark Boslough as my favourite in a recent review article:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/unsettling-koonin-critiques-continue/

Most of the technical mistakes and misrepresentations in “Unsettled” may simply be attributable to Koonin’s trust of those advisors and lack of rigorous independent verification.

"Those advisors" being John Christy, Judith Curry, and Richard Lindzen.

Plus an informative infographic from his suggested source:

Climate's changed before

MA Rodger at 19:49 PM on 25 February, 2020

theSkeptik @813,

Such is the composition of your specific responses (not least to my comment @810) that I feel you should be made aware of how far you are from grasping the reality of the climatology you criticise. This makes addressing the substance of your comment (which actually has some merit) an impossibility.

Thus (& specific to you reply to my comment @810), what you call my "first argument" is correcting your error @808 by pointing out the well-known situation that the CO2 measured from ice cores is measuring trapped air. You move on from this 'correction' and on to the so-far-unmentioned-by-you problem of the difference between the age of the ice and the age of the air entrapped within the ice which as you correctly say is not addressed in this SkS post. It is addressed on a different SkS post which is linked within the above SkS post. "Unfortunately" you are unable to cope with that situation.

Similarly, you use part of what I present within what you call my "second argument" to begin anew with a different argument that an absence of Antarctic warming is equivalent to there being no global warming. (Actually if this were the issue, more up-to-date temperature data, so for instance the warming below -70ºS measured by GISTEMP, records a great deal of Antarctic warming over recent years.)

Finally you are flat wrong to suggest that you "do not make any claims about any relationships between GHG and temperature or other related parameters." Whatever your experience in "just looking for unbiased information," do not deny that you yourself come here with "overinterpreted data and conclusions driven by preoccupation," and I would suggest your two comments @808 & @813 show you are more pre-occupied than those you criticise.

The SkS post above, addresses the nonsense myth set out by denialist Richard Lindzen that "climate is always changing" and thus "wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence." You may be unsatisfied that this SkS post properly addresses Lindzen's denialist argument. And I may agree with you on that specific-but-narrow point. But such a deficiency does not, as you attempt to argue, make the underlying thesis wrong. And you failure to present consistent and trustworthy analysis suggests proper discussion of all this likely a little pointless.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Doug_C at 06:51 AM on 20 January, 2020

michael sweet @131

I fully disagree with your entire position on nuclear power and the LNT which was the result of Cold War politics not sound science.

It Is Time to Move Beyond the Linear No-Threshold Theory for Low-Dose Radiation Protection

Considering the fact that we are all exposed to ionizing radiation and all life has been from the start of life almost 4 billion years ago on an Earth that had far higher levels of ionizing radiation, how likely is that ionizing radiation is a risk down to a zero dose rate.

The LNT model of risk from ionizing radiation was a response to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the radiophobia that has resulted has been used by a sector that presents an actualy existential threat to life itself on Earth while at the same time causing the early deaths of millions of people a year from air pollution alone before we look at all the other negative impacts of fossil fuels including the wars that are often rooted in the conflicts over fossil fuels. Donald Trump just stated it is an American goal to seize Syrian oil deposits, a war crime.

When we look at the worst scenario nuclear reactor accident with a reactor type that will never be built again as was a function of the lack of competence and respect for safety by the regime that built it, the direct impacts to people is still a tiny fraction of what we accept from fossil fuels daily.

They don't even know how many people died from the Chernobyl accident becaused the increased rates of cancer even under the LNT are so small in relation to the other background causes. The highest estimates are about 500 people. That is about 1/23rd of the deaths that are caused by fossil fuels generated air pollution daily.

Anti-nuclear activists like Helen Caldicott have made totally unsupported claims that close to 1 million deaths resulted from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting even their own ealier claims.

Nuclear opponents have a moral duty to get their facts straight

Arnie Gundersen was making almost the same claims about the Fukushima accident.

Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer

What exactly are you afraid of with nuclear power, it's clear that more than a few anti-nuclear activists are not basing their hysterical claims on science or reality itself.

Based on the massively exagerated claims by people who treat all ionizing radiation as an almost inevitable death sentence you'd think that people exposed to the most extreme human generated forms would all die very early deaths.

Let's start with Chernobyl and the several hundred emergency response personnel who were working next to an exposed nuclear core on fire

Health effects in those with acute radiation sickness from the Chernobyl accident.

Of those hundreds of personnel, 134 were diagnosed with ARS, should be and immediate death sentence based on the conventional "wisdom" that holds what an extreme threa to life all ionizing radiation is.

Of those 134 people, 29 died in the following months, mostly from the same kind of skin infections third degree burn victims would. In this case it was the beta burns from the intense radiation.

By 2001 a further 14 had died, does that sound like the death sentence that mainstream radiophobia would have us all treat any IR exposure as.

In a much less savory case who' ethics I'm not going to debate as I think what was done was deplorable, people diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the US were administered without their knowledge plutonium, the "most dangerous" substance on Earth going by the kind of treatment that you claim is based on sound science.

Some of them were misdiagnised and lived for decades with plutonium in their bodies.

Human Plutonium Injection Experiments

I don't work in the nuclear sector, I don't even have a degree, a serious disability has severely limited my life. I don't have children, I do have many nieces and nephews and the world we are leaving for them causes me anguish.

If I can figure out how broken the LNT model is and how totally irrational our entire approach to nuclear power is by book from libraries and online resources, then what does that say about the entire field of science that is still struggling to do anything about this nightmare we are all caught up in.

Some scientists like Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Tim Ball have and still, used their credientials and standing to totally distort the existential threat we all face from fossil fuels climate change. And yet they are still treated as part of this profession.

I have been taking verbal abuse from the people who they feed their intellectual fraud to online for years in a attempt to advocate for some form of sanity including from Tim Ball at WUWT because I dared to point out that his claims that water vapour were the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere was falacious as could be seen by the very title of his article. It there as a vapour not a gas and therefore isn't stable without the presense of another persisent gas namely carbon dioxide. His response and the many people who chimed in were abusive to say the least. But isn't that the point, to eliminate any opposition to your position no matter the cost to others.

Unlikely as I thought it to be, I find myself facing the same kind of treatment here.

I don't care for your baseless ad hominem against me because I simply want life not death to dominate our future.

As the subtext of your comment is that I and my views are simply not welcome here I won't frequent this site again and will treat it in the end like I do WUWT. As a meaningless spinning of wheels to comfort people as nothing real is done to save ourselves from an existential threat of our own making.

I'll go with the insights of some of the most brilliant scientists to have lived like Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg who both held that nuclear power would be our salvation.

I simply have no time for people who are fomenting the same kind of intellectual fraud that has given us anti-vaxxers.

The Harmful and Fraudulent Basis for the LNT Assumption

At some point we are going to realize that views like yours are what is helping to kill us all, I just hope it's before it's to late to build the tens of thousands of nuclear reactors that we actually need to replace all fossil fuels.

There is no consensus

MA Rodger at 21:16 PM on 19 December, 2019

PatrickSS @862,

You present three names in response to my request @858 for the scientists you tell us "think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C," a position you appear to set as equal in importance to "those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C." It's not much of a list. Do note that two of these are not climatologists and further, I do not see that any of them present substantive reasons to support their bold claims. This is evidently not two sets of scientists arguing. It is sadly science under attack from a handful of swivel-eyed lunatics.

In support of my own rather bold statement, I would share with you my view of the one climatologist you name - the veteran climate denier Richard Lindzen. He has been at this game so long that he has lost entirely his grasp on the science he is supposed to be practising and now resorts to bare-faced-lies/deluded-foolishness [delete as applicable]. He has certainly ventured far beyond the science of climatology with his nonsense. See his 2017 version here and tick off the numerous examples of untruth he presents. (And to keep us on-topic, note his first attempt to refute AGW is "The 97 Percent Meme".)

I note you cite Dickie Lindzen when you say "Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down)." I am not sure where Lindzen explaining this mechanism but the way you phrase it is subject to vast misinterpretation.

You add that Judy Curry has had difficulty getting published yet if she has anything worth publishing she only has to post it on her website to get it into the scientific/public domain. Yet there is complete absence of any substantive comtribution from Curry, an absence that speaks volumes.

@862 you say you do not feel your "main argument" has not be "really engaged." You appear to be arguing that the scientific view of AGW is not truly reflected in the 97% consensus and specifically that Verheggen et al (2014) is 'obviously not' fairly summarised by the 91% value. I find this difficult to accept. Perhaps we are reading a different paper.

There is no consensus

PatrickSS at 07:49 AM on 19 December, 2019

DB, can't I say that it's incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political?

One Planet, when I listen to “consensus” climate scientists, they say that sunlight comes in, heats the Earth, and the heat escapes from the Earth via IR. Increased CO2 absorbs and blocks more IR, so the Earth gets warmer.

When I listen to Richard Lindzen he says that CO2 and H2O already absorb all the IR emitted at the Earth's surface, and that the IR that escapes is actually emitted high in the atmosphere. Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down).

That seems to me to be "expanding awareness and improving understanding". He seems to be a good communicator and a good scientist. It seems unlikely that he invented the whole thing.

Then I watched Richard Alley on youtube. He is a very good communicator, and at first I found his argument very convincing. He said that the ice ages were driven by cycles of the sun at 100,000, 41,000, 23,000 and (I think it was) 19,000 years. Then he said that the sun cycles (periodically) released CO2, and the CO2 drove temperature. So we have sun -> CO2 -> temp. But the sun can only act through temperature. So we have sun -> temp -> CO2 -> temp. Suddenly it seems much less plausible. What's wrong with sun drives temperature?

One Planet, I don't get your point about Curry's reviewer. Surely we can agree that his or her comment was extraordinary, and showed dishonest thinking? Curry's other reviewers may have been good and rational, but one at least was not. Of course she could have made that comment up – but I have no reason to believe that. It seems more likely that she is sincere because she has put her career on the line.

None of this means that the “consensus view” is wrong. But it makes it very difficult to know who we should listen to.

There is no consensus

PatrickSS at 05:58 AM on 18 December, 2019

Thx so much for your replies.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political – on both sides IMO.

Actually I don’t feel that any of you have really engaged with my main argument: does this page give a fair summary of scientists’ views? E.g. does sticking up the percentage “91%” give a fair summary of Vergehhen’s data? (Obviously not.)

Science is IMO very subject to fashions. When authors, reviewers and the people who award grants all have the same point of view it can all go wrong. E.g. a few years ago almost everyone believed that fat in the diet was a kind of poison – which we now know is nonsense.

What I notice is that most scientists who are contrarians are either old and retired, or else somehow supporting themselves on private means or as consultants. That doesn’t seem like a good situation. It could mean that only crazy old men and women believe this nonsense, or it could mean that young climate scientists would damage their careers if they expressed contrarian views. MA Roger @857, I've listened to Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen and William Happer on youtube and none of them seem crazy, they seem to be good scientists. Judith Curry said that she couldn’t get her work published. I’ve just checked what she said – in fact she did publish one reviewer’s comment:

“Overall, there is the danger that the paper is used by unscrupulous people to create confusion or to discredit climate or sea-level science. Hence, I suggest that the author reconsiders the essence of its contribution to the scientific debate on climate and sea-level science.”

Hmm. That’s definitely a very dangerous argument. In fact it's very worrying indeed.

Scaddemp, most lukewarmers that I've listened to (including Judith C and Matt Ridley) definitely want to protect the environment, and they propose the expansion of research into new energy systems, but they worry about taking it to an extreme.

But . . . . although the process looks bad, there could be a real problem here. I find it incredibly hard to know. Unfoortunately we all have this thing called confirmation bias, and that makes everything tricky.

Harnessing gamification to defeat climate misinformation

Doug_C at 17:02 PM on 28 November, 2019

nigelj I think so, there is very little in the way of emotional intelligence being applied to climate denial. Ironically it depends on a hostile emotional reaction on the part of the target audience of the denial campaign. They have to be motivated to oppose any policies that may impact the financial interests of the people and companies central to this.

There's no question that this decades long campaign of denial of basic reality itself has been highly effective and understands the weaknesses in the scientific method. Which would follow because it was designed by some fairly well versed scientists like Fred Seitz and Fred Singer with others like Richard Lindzen picking up the ball later.

With virtually no concern at all for the catastrophic impacts that with business as usual will likely include mass extinction on Earth that could include us humans. Sociopathic behavior of a fundamental nature I'd say.

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

LFC at 07:41 AM on 26 September, 2019

Impressive letter coming from 500 "scientists"! There are 14 "ambassadors" signing the letter so let's have a look. Richard Lindzen? OK, he's a scientist though of course one that has been wrong repeatedly. Now HERE's a name that stands out; "The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, United Kingdom". Yes indeed, the bug-eyed man who is literally nuts is one of their "ambassadors." That's more than enough for me to dismiss the entire thing without even attempting an analysis.

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

MA Rodger at 22:02 PM on 12 September, 2019

The OP suggests this silly denialist letter to the EU "represents the best case that climate deniers can make against the existence of a climate crisis." I feel that needs some qualification as it is a small set of denialists who came up with the silly five point 'oh-no-it's-not' rebuttal.

At the end of January we hear of a large number of academics writing to the Belgian "federal and regional governments." I cannot see the actual letter sent but it did result in swivel-eyed denialists from the Netherlands responding with a point-by-point counter-argument which was quickly translated for the English-speaking deniosphere.

(The authorship of the denial is given as the Climate Intelligence Foundation which is described as "a new Foundation that is funded by worried wealthy citizens. The Foundation focuses on independent public information. She does that by telling the entire climate story." somewhat similar to the nonsense spouted by the UK's GWPF who make out they are an educational charity (& thus trouser taxpayers money to fund their lies). The odd thing with this authorship for an OP posted 1st Feb 2019 is the Climate Intelligence Foundation (soon gaining the name CLINTEL) was not started until the end of March 2019, according to one of its co-founders. who says in this video that it will be set up "tomorrow" with the launch seemingly a couple of days later.)

The point-by-point counter-argument of early Feb runs to seven points. The first five of these present identical argument to the silly denialist letter, although the letter has hardened the message a bit. The first five Feb points were - (1) Climate has always changed with warming from 1850, (2) Calling recent warming 100% anthropogenic is unscientific, (3) There is no discernable trends in floods & droughts & plagues of frogs, (4) Models are hypersensitive to CO2 so any warming CO2 causes will be mild and nature can cool as well as warm. (5) The cost to Belgium & Holland of AGW mitigation is massive for "negligible and immeasurable" gain.

(These five from February are pretty-much the same as the five in the silly denialist letter of August. The February version adds (6) AGW mitigation is not more cost-effective than doing nothing, (7) They mix up a clean environment, which all agree with, with AGW mitigation.)

So the grand denialist message is no more than a knee-jerk response to a letter from Belgian academics supporting stronger action on AGW. That it has folk like Richard Lindzen signing-up to it when he disagrees with parts of it is presumably more a mark of solidarity than a mark of wholehearted agreement.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

MA Rodger at 20:37 PM on 20 August, 2019

Doug_C @21/22 & @25.
I think we are mainly talking past each other here. Perhaps to complete the trade of AGW 'credentials', I have been bashing on about the need to reduce our GHG emissions for only 38% of my life-to-date. I very quickly learnt that such a message is not something that easily yields meaningful results.

We agree that the scientific uncertainty within the subject is not the uncertainty wielded by denialists, although they will happily add it to their own accumulated pile of uncertainties. We agree there is no doubt that the scientific consensus dictates the need to quickly reduce GHG emissions to zero. And we seem to agree that the 3% non-consensus is today entirely non-scientific.

You do react to my assertion that there is scientifically a "looney fringe" that happily exaggerates AGW and which matches that denialist 3%. It is not as prominent as the 3% and it isn't so detatched from the science as the 3%. (And there are those non-scientific voices that exaggerate AGW even further.) Such exaggeration is often wielded by denialists as reason to ignore the science.
[Strangely there has been warning from denier Richard Lindzen that the most basic non-scientific denialist argument is damaging to his denialism (He says you couldn't hire folk to do a better job - see from 12:00 in this 2012 talk in the Palace of Westminster.) but such mud doesn't seem to stick to denialists as it does to AGW.]

One point I would take serious issue with.
You consider "even a 5% chance we are facing a global crisis of this magnitude it should result in immediate action.[my bold]" Yet I fully understand why, within the political sphere, that would not happen. The big problem is not the '5%' (which of course is actually a lot higher, not significantly different to 100%). The big problems are threefold - (1) the timing of the "global crisis" in the future way beyond any political planning horizons (with the exception of SLR on building requirements). (2) the far-reaching actions required by that "immediate action." (3) and what can be called 'institutional denialism' - your Trans Mountain pipeline provides a good example of the lunacy that can ensue. Unless the message sweeps the institution, the counter message of 'continue-on-as-before' will have great strength and will tend to regain its prior position. So bye-bye message.

I will continue to object to use of the word "existential" without qualification. And the extinction of species and habitats is surely not such a qualification. (Note that denialists will counter by saying that the present sixth great extinction event isn't all down to AGW. And there are more powerful arguments that they fail to harness.)

Finally, I'm reluctant to drag Quantum Mechanics into this interchange as it is certainly not of primary consideration. Yes QM does provide the "understanding" of the physics but the impact of the physics is measureable without it, perhaps this epitomised by black body radiation being the evidence that led to identifying QM and its probabalistic physics.

@25 - "How do you reason with people who have strayed so far from rational thought?" Reason may have flown out of their window but do we give them a free pass to spread their nonsense? If you can make their arguments look ridiculous it will perhaps chip away at their denialism and it will surely dissuade onlookers from believing it.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

MA Rodger at 00:40 AM on 20 August, 2019

Doug_C @19,

I rather disagree with your comment or at least feel it sould be better explained.

There are certainly differing qualities of work that comprise denialism. There is a large protion of that denialist work that is incompatable with very basic science. (I'm not sure that your mention of Quantum Mechanics is entirely correct or helpful to your assessment.) There is also a large protion of that denialist work that is incompatable with scientific data and thus contrdicts the resulting inferences that can be established by that data. None of this is a great distance from your comment.

What I don't see is any remaining denialist work that is properly supported by evidence. The entirety of the 3% sitting beyond the 'consensus' is surely incompatable with the scientific data and it is actually not a proper constituent part of the science.

What I particularly feel is a step too far is suggesting that:-

"The few percents of research that show doubt are simply there as part of the uncertainty that is inherent in science, it may as well be stated in terms of a 100% consensus when it comes to evidence driving policy on global warming."

This statement is saying that there exists "uncertainty ... inherent in (the) science" which is exactly the denialist message. The likes of, say, Richard Lindzen or Judith Curry who constitute the 3% outside the 'consensus' will argue that there is enough uncertainty to infer that Climate Sensitivity is low and thus AGW will not be a problem.

Now, we can see that Lindzen with his cloud iris theorising or Curry with her large natural climate wobbles are part of the scientific process. But the doubt they may have sown scientifically is long dispelled. What we are left with is the likes of Lindzen & Curry continuing to spread their now-unscientific message to policymakers as though it was legitimate science. It is unscientific to represent these messages as scientific and their messages ar become part of the "finely tuned stream of disinformation" (although the "tuning" may not be a conscious process on their part).

And masquerading as legitimate science, their message can then be presented as though it had the same scientific standing as the IPCC Assessment Reports rather than a loony fringe opinion, indeed one balanced by those who grossly exaggerate AGW.

I note you use the word "existential" without making plain to what it applies - ie what it is that has its existence threatened by AGW. I would suggest that it is but that loony fringe (that is balanced by the denialist looney fringe) that describes AGW as an existential threat to the human race when AGW is surely only an existential threat to the world economy whose collapse would not be a pretty sight and likely reduce human populations to a fraction of today's total.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

DPiepgrass at 17:07 PM on 14 June, 2019

Michael sweet, Abbott 2011 is an opinion piece, not a study, and while Abbott is clearly intelligent, so is climate science denier Richard Lindzen, who has "published more than 200 scientific papers and books".

Nuclear issues are clearly not Abbott's main academic focus. He has made claims that are obviously unreasonable, and when such claims are not backed by citations, I see no reason to give them as much weight as the information I've seen in technical presentations by, say, Jesse Jenkins, expert in energy systems, or Dr. Brian Sheron, former Director of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, or MSR engineers such as Kirk Sorensen or Ian Scott, or even this discussion of how radioactivity decreases over time in HLW. While fair and reliable sources are hard to find, I've been around the block enough times to know roughly what's what.

Anyway, I'll certainly share what I've been able to find from the scientific literature on nuclear issues. Chiefly:

On Radiation Risk

The main disease caused by radiation is non-CLL leukemia (in some cases there are other risks, e.g. radioactive iodine can cause thyroid cancer.) Here is a "meta-analysis of leukemia risk from protracted exposure to low-dose gamma radiation". It concluded, based on 23 other studies, that the excess relative risk (ERR) of non-CLL leukemia from 100 mGy of radiation is roughly 19% (it is unclear to me if 100 mGy is different from 100 mSv). Based on a typical non-CLL leukemia rate of 10 cases per 100,000 people per year, ERR=0.19 would increase this by roughly 1.9 cases per year (1 in 53,000 people). The risk varies as a function of time since exposure, but this particular study seemed to completely ignore the issue. If one assumes ERR=0.19 every year for 25 years after exposure, the chance of cancer from exposure to 100 mGy would be about 0.05%. "25 years" is a guess on my part, so if you can find any study that quantifies the risk more clearly as a "1-in-X chance" or as a loss of DALYs, I'd love to see it! For reference, the natural environment gives an average radiation dose around 2.4 mSv per year (Hendry et al 2009 citing UNSCEAR), though I've heard urban environments tend to block some of this. The Canadian NSC limit for radiation workers is 100 mSv over 5 years.

Waddington et al 2017 concluded that "relocation was unjustified for the 160,000 people relocated after Fukushima," since the radiation dose most residents would have received (after returning from a brief evacuation period) was quite small and the loss of life expectancy was 3 months. The paper notes that

No radiation deaths occurred during or following the accident, however there were a number of deaths directly attributed to the relocation and subsequent relocation of the Fukushima population. Hasegawa et al. (2015) summarise that “After the accident, mortality among relocated elderly people needing nursing care increased by about three times in the first 3 months after relocation and remained about 1·5 times higher than before the accident.”

It also says "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl."

It is considered unlikely that cases of thyroid cancer in children have increased around Fukushima due to radiation (Suzuki 2016) as most I-131 disappears within weeks of an accident.

See also the EPA's Q&A for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies.

Various sources mention that uncertainties remain regarding the risk of low doses of radiation. UNSCLEAR recommends, for example, that

Increases in the incidence of health effects cannot be attributed reliably to chronic exposure to radiation at levels that are typical of the global average background levels of radiation.
The Scientific Committee does not recommend multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or lower than natural background levels.
Increases in the incidence of hereditary effects among the human population cannot be attributed to radiation exposure.

I would submit that the reason for this uncertainty, despite much study, is that the effects are just too small to measure precisely.

97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

Marathon at 06:30 AM on 21 February, 2019

Magma, The three deniers are John Christy, Richard Lindzen, and Roy Spencer.

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

One Planet Only Forever at 01:35 AM on 24 November, 2018

There appears to be confusion due to incorrect conflating of:

Scientific consensus of understanding (development of an emergent truth that is open to correction if substantive new evidence is contrary to the developing understanding).
An individual's helpfulness in efforts to improve awareness and understanding: in the field of understanding, among leaders in society, among the general population.

Individuals are not 'part of the 97% or 3%'. The consensus measure is regarding how much of the 'literature that is a legitimate part of the effort to improve the understanding of an area/field of understanding' is aligned with a developing understanding. As the degree of alignment increases it can be understood that an emergent truth is being established (an understanding that is unlikely to be significantly altered by new investigation in that field of learning).

An evaluation of all of an individual's actions is the basis for determining how helpful they are to the improvement of the understanding and to the increased 'correct' awareness and understanding among leaders and the general population.

While the likes of Judith Curry, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen may have their names on a specific piece of literature that is included in the 97% side of the climate science consensus evaluation regarding the understanding that human activity is significantly impacting the global climate, that does not make them 'a part of the 97% side'.

Individual merit would be determined by their collective actions regarding the understanding. That evaluation would undeniably indicate that the likes of Judith Curry, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen are very unhelpful (harmful) to the improvement of awareness and understanding the understanding that human activity is significantly (and negatively) impacting the global climate that future generations will suffer the consequences of and the challenge of trying to maintain perceptions of prosperity that are the result of a portion of humanity getting away with benefiting from the damaging unsustainable burning of fossil fuels (benefiting in ways that do not develop sustainable improvements for the future of humanity - like perceptions of reduction of poverty that cannot be sustained if the damaging impact creation of fossil fuels is significantly and rapidly curtailed like it has to be in order to minimize the damage done to the future generations of humanity).

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

One Planet Only Forever at 01:59 AM on 23 November, 2018

Art Vandelay@8,

A more important measure than 'grudging acceptance of climate science to a limited degree' is how helpful a person is to improving the more correct awareness and understanding of climate science in the general population and among leadership.

By that measure Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen are dismal damaging failures.

As a case in point, I frequently visit Roy Spencer's site (just for the amusement, but in case he actually presents a meaningfully insightful point).

Roy Spencer spends almost all of his time making up stories to refute the need for the burning of fossil fuels to be curtailed. The lack of validity of his story-telling is consistent. He also spends a significant amount of time creating creative ways to intrerpret satellite data in an attempt to refute that unacceptable warming and climate change is happening (he has been forced to partially correct his misinterpretations of the satellite data many times).

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Art Vandelay at 17:27 PM on 22 November, 2018

It should be noted too that Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen et al, are all painted as skeptics or "deniers", but are in fact members of the 97% consensus.

Perhaps a more valuable statistic would be one that indicated a percentage of (climate) scientists who hold the view that it's a serious threat requiring urgent, universal remedial action.

How (not) to talk about Climate Change

citizenschallenge at 01:50 AM on 7 November, 2018

I'm curious how would one apply this method to counter the malicious science by slander and retortic that Dr. Richard Lindzen has been peddling with such success for decades now (though his general thesis hasn't changed one iota)?

Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races

MA Rodger at 21:32 PM on 22 October, 2017

NorrisM @152,

Perhaps I should explain why I brand you a troll. In rough terms, it is evident that you come to SkS with a contrary view but fail at every turn when asked to justify that view. You appear more interested in piling on the startling contrary views than in attempting to reconcile the views you express with the views others expressed here, those which are in the main science-based.
Strangely, I don't appear to have branded you a troll before, strange as I don't usually hold back for so long. But let us consider the detail of your use of Miersch down this thread.
@122 you introduced Michael Miersch into this thread as an aside, suggesting his message comprises news from Germany of "a major backlash" against renewable energy. By the sounds of it, he is an enemy of on-shore wind power and is being invited to speak in the seat of UK government (the Palace of Westminster) by a UK educational charity, the GWPF. Of course, the GWPF is no normal charity but a cynical bunch of climate change deniers. (The last time I heard of a GWPF talk at Westminster it was veteran climate denier Richard Lindzen.) I can't believe you would not have known about the GWPF given you tell us @112 that your understanding of Miersch is based on GWPF information. If you did not, its dodgy nature was set out @114. ( Interestingly, your acknowledgement of this situation @127 is riven with the sort of gramatical nonsense you would expect from an non-English speaker, suggesting you found writing it very difficult. Perhaps the message you wrote there was foreign to you!)
It is true that you were goaded into continuing further with this, but you did so by citing in the most general terms an 80 minute pod-cast to support the case of Miersch having the right of freedom of speech to say what he does (even though we still don't know what it is he does say). I listened to what I assume is the passage of that pod-cast which you were citing. (It's at about 1hr to 1hr 6 here) What Cass Sunstein is saying is that you cannot slander or libel a person (which the German government were accused of by Miersch, but which the courts said otherwise. The courts say there is no libel as Miersch is a Klimawandelskeptiker). Cass Sunstein also says that a person has the right to describe the Sandy Hook massacre as being a real or imaginary event that was orchestrated by the US government to enable tighter gun laws. As long as you are sincere and not lying, you are allowed to say such outrageous things. This can be said as this is not slander/libel - no individual is being defamed. And apparently some seriously sick people do brand Sandy Hook a hoax/conspiracy. As it is difficult to establish legally that they are sincere in their belief (an so not lying) they are imune to legal challenges. Sunstein was also asked about malicious 'doxing' replying that newspapers do have the right to publish the names and addresses of rape victims even if the intention was to unleash violence against them. Sunstein says this is poor law, saying on this of Madison (a US founding father, apparently) "(it is) not clear if Madison would roll over in his grave if we said you can't disclose where someone lives if the purpose and effect of that is to increase the risk of voilence."
So that is pretty startling stuff you cite to defend Miersch's right to say... well... frankly, I get the distinct impression you do not know what Miersch says on "wind and solar versus nuclear" and so who can say if he is "someone who shared my views." So this continues to be a troll-like discourse here, or have you a source of Miersch-ism you have, golly, forgotten to share with us.

The F13 files, part 1 - the copy/paste job

Eclectic at 08:32 AM on 19 October, 2017

Derek, your question may be a little premature. Let's see more on the details of that paper. Valid "denier literature" is rarer than rocking-horse poo. But anything which shows even a degree of verisimilitude, is like a sticking-up nail that ought to be hammered down. (Unless the "literature" appears in Shonksville extremist publications like Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons ~ where Richard Lindzen has published [more a rant than a paper]).

I keenly look forward to Ari Jokimaki's next instalment.

(My apologies, Ari — for I haven't discovered how to correctly make the umlaut in your surname. )

Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist

Eclectic at 12:59 PM on 2 October, 2017

Magellan @90 , it is a strawman argument to say that: "Ivar Giaever is not fit to address the issue because its [sic] not his field of expertise". And I'd love to know who are the "very smart people on both sides of the isle [sic] here". And which island are you referring to?

Magellan, you entirely miss the point about criticism of Giaever. It is irrelevant which "field of expertise" he previously came from.

Giaever's incompetent assessment of climate science is being criticized because

(A) He got it wrong. And got it wrong bigly !

(B) He had the hubris to think that a few hours of googling the topic of climate science would gain him enough knowledge to make a worthwhile contribution to the public discussion.

(C) He had the arrogance to think that a few hours' reading on non-specialist websites would qualify him to declare that all the experts were wrong.

(D) At the age of 83 , he had the chutzpah to lecture a formal gathering of Nobel Laureates (and also of many bright young scientists) about how science is done properly — while at the same time demonstrating his own failure to think logically about science! What an embarrassing performance in front of the young scientists (not to mention in front of the Laureates). Truly cringeworthy stuff !

(E) And he had the lack of insight to recognize the above.

~ Magellan, possibly you do not recognize/comprehend Scaddenp's euphemism of "Gone Emeritus" about Giaever. "Gone Emeritus" is a term used about some retired professors or retired eminent scientists — it represents a pathological fusion of hubris & mild senile dementia. It shows itself as wacky beliefs and/or a maverick's disregard of the evidence base of mainstream science.

If Giaever were 50 or 60 years younger, then scientists would simply call him a silly young fool. Yet still have some hope that he would come to his senses as he got a bit older.

Magellan, possibly you are not aware of the insidiously corrupting effects of small amounts of money or other inducement. Money etc that Giaever receives from propaganda organizations (e.g. his payments from the Heartland Institute in his role as an apologist for Big Tobacco) might not appear to you as very much or very likely to influence a famous/wealthy person to any great degree. But psychologists' experiments show that a small amount (such as $25,000*) can be more effective than a large amount (say $500,000) in maintaining & entrenching a person's adherence to a particular line of thinking. So for rather small amounts, the propaganda paymasters get very good value for money!!

[ * I mention this figure because it is an example: of a sum paid to the science-denier Richard Lindzen by Peabody Energy. I have not seen the size of the payments / stipends / gratuities / subsidies received by Judith Curry or her like, from paymasters such as Heartland, the GWPF, or under-the-counter industry slush funds. ]

The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change

Eclectic at 20:59 PM on 27 September, 2017

Randman @22 , about your quote: "she was" (unquote)

She was . . . what? What are you talking about? Please be precise! Readers here don't wish to bother second-guessing what you intend to mean.

Regarding Judith Curry :- the sources are her own comments :

(A) in April 2015 : "Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change" (unquote)

(B) also in 2015 at a Congressional hearing, she stated about the global warming [of the past 200 years] : "And that's not human" (unquote)

(C) in 2014 speaking at the National Press Club : "We just don't know [what's going to happen]. I think we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales." (unquote)

(D) in November 2015 [please specially note this very recent date, Randman] she supported the existence of the so-called hiatus or pause : "global average surface temperature ... has shown little or no warming during the 21st century" (unquote)

(E) in 2011, she supported Murry Salby's crazy/nonsensical "hypothesis" that oceanic-origin CO2 is the real cause of our modern rapid Global Warming.

Now, Randman, consider each of the above 5 statements. If you yourself had issued them, then it would be evidence that you were grossly ignorant about climate science. If they had been made by a scientist (a scientist not specializing in climate related matters), then that would count as intellectual dishonesty. Issued by a climatologist, that would rise to the level of gross intellectual dishonesty.

Individually, each of the above statements cannot be justified, for they are individually & severally false and/or misleading. Randman, I could add others to the list . . . but (to paraphrase an Einstein quote) :- "It only takes one" !

$$$$$$$

Randman, I do not in any way suggest that Curry receives money illegally from the Oil industry & other anti-science propagandists. Arguably, what money or other benefits she receives from such groups is immoral but not illegal.

~ In 2006, Judith Curry [climatologist] and Peter Webster [meteorologist] set up a private company "Climate Forecast Applications Network". Judith Curry is President (not an unpaid job, I gather!). Curry herself said (in an interview with Scientific American) : "I do receive some funding from the fossil fuel industry ... [per my company] since 2007." (unquote). Please note, Randman, that that sort of thing is not illegal — it is simply one of the many ways that the Oil industry slush funds operate.

Perhaps you are innocently unaware, Randman, that the fossil fuel industry slush fund money percolates all around the place. [Though I had to laugh when I saw that Peabody Energy's filing for bankruptcy in 2016 had "stiffed" the prominent science-denier Richard Lindzen, for a USD$25,000 "consultancy fee" that they owed him — though I don't know whether that $25,000 was a one-off or an annual stipend.] Stipends, expenses, etc are paid in various ways — sometimes by "sinecure" payments, sometimes by propaganda "fronts" like Heartland or GWPF, sometimes by other under-the-counter indirect methods e.g. payments to a company (not to the individual).

As to other benefits [in non-monetary form, not in cash] there are the examples of Curry appearing at least three times in front of Congressional-level hearings. I am sure that even you, Randman, are not so naive as to believe that Curry paid for travel accommodation & incidental expenses, out of her own purse — if you act as a prominent stooge for Big Corporations, then they look after you in the premium style. That's just the way the business world is, Randman. (But it's not in any way illegal for her to be on the Big Oil teat.) And then there's the purely psychological benefits she receives — definitely an ego boost for a mediocre climate scientist, to appear (and often) in the national Congressional limelight (etc).

Then there are other benefits in cash e.g. in January and February this year [her academic retirement onto a teacher's pension, being at the end of December 2016] Judith Curry authored two reports, one for Koch Brothers and one for the British propaganda machine GWPF. I don't know whether she was paid directly into her personal account or indirectly via her CFAN company, or by other means — but it would have been a generous*-sized benefit. Again, not illegal — but of doubtful morality. ( *Randman, it is extremely difficult for denialism-pushing Big Corporations to find any scientist with more than a shred of repectability/reputation who can be relied on as a stooge who will play the "Doubt & Uncertainty" game, in the face of all the overwhelming evidence that proves "D&U" is unjustified/dishonest.)

In Summary :

So, all in all, Randman, your own phrasing: "her scientific reasoning is dishonest, biased and she is funded by the oil companies" . . . is a fairly good summation of the situation.

The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists

NorrisM at 07:19 AM on 1 September, 2017

Following up on my thoughts on another blog on this site (re Trump country to be hit hard by climate change), I truly think that the scientific community should not lose this opportunity to have an effect on Trump's policies going forward.

The reality is that the Trump administration (or at least a Republican administration) will be in power both in the White House and in Congress for at least the next 3+ years.

Although Trump has called "climate change" a hoax perpetrated on us by China we have come to learn to live with his hyperbole. He is a salesman, that is what salesmen do. Please understand I am not an apologist for Donald Trump (I just hope we can make it through the next 3 years without any major disaster).

But he will be moved by the public mood. From what I can understand, the American public are very ambivalent about Climate Change and how much trust can be put into climate scientists (notwithstanding the IPCC, Neil DeGrassie Tyson and Stephen Hawking). In many, but not all, respects these differences do seem to be drawn on political lines. I went to the Pew Research website to get my information.

Here is the url for the Pew October 4, 2016 "The Politics of Climate" article on Americans' view on Climate Change: http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/

Given this diversity, it would seem to me that this "red team blue team" approach proposed by Scott Priutt could, depending on the results of the information exchange (the "debate"), move many moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats (see Pew Research) into the camp of the majority scientific view which would clearly turn the political heat up on Trump. I personally would like to see a follow up examination on how best to deal with the impacts of climate change.

I do not think anyone seriously argues as to whether the climate is changing (when has it not?) or whether man has had a signficant hand in it. What this first debate should be focussed on is: (1) how much of a temperature rise should we expect until 2100 (and after) taking into account existing model predictions of future temperature increases and whether this temperature rise will exacerbate extreme weather events; and (2) what would those specific impacts be (ie estimated sea level rise by 2100, etc) on the world assuming no action were taken to limit carbon emissions to mitigate the changing climate. The second debate would have to focus on the best ways to deal with those impacts (ie mitigation and adaptation). It would be too confusing to put this all in one debate.

Given the political reality in the US today, I would hope that the scientific community would jump at this opportunity. I think failure to do so would cause serious harm to its cause. I can just hear Trump if that were to happen!

As I have said in other venues, anyone asking how this could work should search "Climate Change Policy Statement" on the aps.org website, the official website of the American Physical Society, the second largest association of physicists in the world. This panel discussion chaired by Steve Koonin, an eminent physicist (and former Energy undersecretary in the Obama administration), along with other APS physicists, had some of the best climatologists on "both sides" giving their views on certain questions posed in something called the Workshop Framing Document. This Framing Document largely keyed on the IPCC 2013 Group 1 Assessment. The three climatologists for the "majority opinion side" were all important contributors to the IPCC assessment. On the other side were "lukewarmers" like Judith Curry, John Christy and Richard Lindzen.

Based upon the final policy statement ultimately issued by the APS, the "majority side" won, so why should there be any reluctance to engage in this kind of exchange?

If someone like Steve Koonin were to be appointed as the chair of this red team blue team investigation I think you would have a reasonably independent person at its head. I fully understand that after this APS panel hearing Koonin made public statements even calling for such a red team blue team approach. But I do not think anyone could question his integrity.

As I have noted elsewhere, I just wonder whether Trump really has the intestinal fortitude to take a chance on this. My guess is that he will not.

JWRebel @ 2. Actually, my understanding is that in a red team blue team exchange there is no final "decision". I actually find this to be a weakness of the red team blue team approach but I fully understand why. But I would prefer to have a "majority opinion" and "minority opinion" published giving their reasons for their decision in words that are understandable to the public. But this would then become political because who gets to appoint the full hearing panel? I trust Steve Koonin to be a moderator but after that it would be like appointing justices to the US Supreme Court!

Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump

nigelj at 06:43 AM on 20 July, 2017

Thoughts @38, with respect, you are entirely missing the point. Certainly some scientists deny climate science, including a very small number of climate scientists, and some other scientists.

But there's evidence that at least some of these people have various ulterior motives, rather than just purely scientific objections and this could extend to various fears, beliefs and vested interests that colour their conclusions on the science. I would suggest you will find the vast majority have these motives.

For example some sceptical climate scientists have been funded by fossil fuel lobbies like Willie Soon. Now are you seriously going to claim this doesn't alter their mindset? Of course it could, because these lobbies will expect a certain result.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/21/climate-change-denier-willie-soon-funded-energy-industry

Roy Spencer is a sceptical scientist, and has strong religious convitions that "man couldn't fundamnentally destabilise" the planet. He also has strong libertarian political leanings so would definitely be suspicious of carbon taxes etc. Its perfectly reasonable to conclude these things colour his conclusions about the science to some extent.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Climate_change

Richard Lindzen is a sceptic, and has expressed something very similar that the planet is self correcting. He also has or had interests in the coal industry.

Other sceptical scientists I have come across have strong fiscally conservative views, or libertarian leanings,and may be worried about government involvement or taxes. Its reasonable to think this could be a cause of their scepticism of the science.

I think you will find many sceptical scientists, probably most are influenced by a range of ideological issues, personal interests, and fears.

Models are unreliable

Tom Dayton at 11:40 AM on 27 June, 2017

NorrisM, initially I'm going to assume you are who you claim to be, though the content of your post makes me suspicious--very suspicious--that you are one of SkepticalScience's fake-skeptic, trolling, chronic sock-puppeteers, and one in particular.

Your statement

The APS panel consisted of six (6) arm’s length physicists (with no axe to grind) chaired by Steve Koonin who were asking hard questions of both sides. What actually struck me as very astounding was how honest Koonin was about his previous lack of understanding as to how uncertain climate science is owing to the uncertainties underlying the climate models.

is incorrect. Steve Koonin is a notorious fake skeptic, who has both the background and the subsequent, repeatedly delivered, information to know that most of what he says and writes is factually and drastically incorrect. Christy has and continues to make claims that are factually incorrect, and is motivated primarily by political and religious beliefs. Christy's partner in crime is Roy Spencer, who is a member of the Cornwall Alliance that claims human-caused global warming is impossible because God promised Noah there would not be any more floods. Really. LIndzen's pet theory about the "iris" mechanism that self-regulates the Earth's temperature conclusively and repeatedly has been proven wrong (obviously, since Earth's temperature has varied drastically--Snowball Earth, ice ages,...) but that has had no effect on his opinion, and he very much resents and takes personally the criticisms. Curry once was an adequately productive climate scientist, but for reasons I won't speculate on here, has become quite the opposite.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 21:37 PM on 9 June, 2017

Sorry, Rikoshaprl @754 , but the link you supply mentions the main "leading climatologist" as Richard Lindzen — an ex-climatologist who was so unscientific, that he caused major embarrassment to his colleagues at M.I.T. when he was there. And the other climatologists your article (at yournewswire) links to, are little better! Lindzen makes a triple fail, because his own climate predictions are now a full degree Celsius below the present day global surface temperature. That is a colossal error by Lindzen. And Lindzen still seems to think there has been hardly any warming, despite all the evidence to the contrary! Lindzen is severely out of touch with reality. And his third fail, is that he appears to hold a religious-based belief that Jehovah would prevent a global warming of more than the slightest amount. Completely unscientific attitude there, as I am sure you must agree. Among genuine climatologists, Lindzen is a laughing stock.

Now to the Cook study itself. Rikoshaprl, it appears you have not read the Cook paper. If you had read it, then you would see that the second part of the paper consists of questioning the authors of those papers — and here, the authors themselves rate their own papers at around 97% support of the consensus figure found in the first section of the study [i.e. also 97%]

Sorry, Rikoshaprl, but you haven't a leg to stand on.

Perhaps you can inform us of how you came to make such a complete mistake of the real situation. For your own benefit, you should do some reading about what is actually happening in the field of climate science — and you can learn a great deal, right here at Skepticalscience.

Avoid foolish propaganda sites such as Yournewswire. They will misinform you and lead you to embarrass yourself, hugely !!

Study: inspiring action on climate change is more complex than you might think

Eclectic at 10:40 AM on 21 May, 2017

Factotum @3 , you may be right, about the role played by religious fundamentalism in fostering a science-denying attitude about the changes occurring in this planet. See Roy Spencer's strong leaning toward minimizing (in his mind) the amount of global warming going on. And the relatively high level of Christian fundamentalism in the USA has some correlation with the higher than world-average denialism among Americans. It would be a difficult matter to study statistically. For comparison, it would be interesting to see the relative amount of denialism among Christian fundamentalists in Mexico, South America, and perhaps Africa.

I suspect that a greater motivation, at least in the USA, is the anger felt by change-rejecting conservatives — combined with right-wing rejection of governmental regulations, plus ordinary selfishness & lack of compassion for others (especially foreigners).

It is not just Christian fundamentalist theology having a hand. Take for example the (non-Christian) Richard Lindzen who also expresses a belief that this world is a Divine creation, formed as a mechanism which is self-correcting : and which cannot slide into a condition which is unfit for mankind. Presumably this reflects his Old Testament upbringing. [ I am unaware of the degree of denialism in Israel. ]

However, there may also be many people whose thinking is influenced by some amount of "non-religious spiritualism" or subconscious worshipping of an idealized Mother Nature.

Of course, all these factors could be: Horses harnessed together and pulling in the same direction.

New publication: Does it matter if the consensus on anthropogenic global warming is 97% or 99.99%?

knaugle at 00:38 AM on 5 May, 2017

Most of the time when I look into this, at a purely amateur level, I find that there are maybe 80 really active, publishing climate scientists. From this list, I can count less than a handfull of scientists whom I know are critical of AGW. Roy Spencer, John Christy, and Judith Curry come to mind. Interestingly Curry has retired and so is no longer on my list. As is the case with Richard Lindzen and William Gray, and for that matter Christopher Moncton and Fred Singer (who aren't really climate scientists) it seems the most ardent "deniers" are getting really old and I'm not seeing their replacements. The eternal problem of being a contrarian is always that while you might be right, it is really hard to convince anyone.

Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

nigelj at 06:06 AM on 2 April, 2017

I don't think Scott Pruitt was completely doubting the greenhouse effect. He was more doubting whether we can quantify how much recent warming is the greenhouse effect, and how much is from natural influences. So the article is factually correct, but missed the target a little for me.

My understanding is most research says the warming since the 1970's is at least 90% due to human causes including fossil fuels and methane etc. I totally accept this evidence. This leaves the question of why Pruit would doubt the vast weight of evidence.

Instead he chooses to believe someone like Judith Curry or Richard Lindzen who minimise human contributions to climate change. It's hard to figure people like Pruitt out. Maybe they are just pig headed stubborn, (and definitely hypocrites)

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Tom Curtis at 07:16 AM on 26 March, 2017

jupiterjosh @45, first (a very small point), it is anthropogenic climate change, not anthropomorphic. The former means human generated or caused, the later human formed.

Second, a number of climate scientists and communicators have tried very hard to get direct "skin in the game" in the form of bets on future temperatures. These include Rob Honeycutt himself, the climate scientist who blogs under the name of Eli Rabbet, and others. Generally they have had difficulty finding betting partners from among purported skeptics. Curiously, often purported skeptics are only prepared to bet on terms which presume a warming climate, although the bet Rob Honeycutt is involved in is not among those. Richard Lindzen, for example, is only prepared to bet on odds that assume it is 50 to 1 against a cooling climate in future.

Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

Nick Palmer at 00:31 AM on 2 March, 2017

I thought I'd see how many of the usual suspects were in it. Interestingly, I didn't find Christy or Peiser in there...

ABDUSSAMATOV, Habibullo Ismailovich
ANDERSON, Charles R
BALL, Tim
BARTLETT, David
BASTARDI, Joseph
BELL, Larry S
BOEHMER-CHRISTIANSEN, Sonja A
BRIGGS William M.
D'ALEO, Joseph S.
DOUGLASS JR.
DYSON, Freeman
EASTERBROOK, Donald J.
EVANS, David M. W.
HAPPER, William
HUMLUM, Ole
IDSO, Craig
LEGATES, David R.
LINDZEN, Richard
MANUEL, Oliver K.
MISKOLCZI, Ferenc Mark
MOCKTON, Christopher
MOORE, Patrick
MORNER, Nils-Axel
MOTL, Lubos
SCHMITT, Harrison H.
SINGER, Fred S.
SOON, Willie
SPENCER, Roy W.
WHITEHEAD, David

Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

chriskoz at 17:41 PM on 28 February, 2017

Desmog provides some more trivia about the subject Lindzen list. I find especially funny this one:

...in reality, Lindzen’s list is a rehash of previous “open letters” and petitions going back almost a decade, carrying many of the same names and making the same worn-out arguments that CO2 is good for the planet

and this final one:

Lindzen’s list also includes several members of Principia Scientific International — a UK-based group that has claimed carbon dioxide is not even a greenhouse gas.
Climate science denier and British peer Lord Christopher Monckton once described a founder of that group, John Sullivan, as “confused and scientifically illiterate.”
This is terrifically ironic because Monckton is also on Lindzen’s latest list, except his name is spelled “Mockton.”

Cannot be any more ironic. And of course indicative that Lindzen may well made this list up and people who "signed" it don't even know of its existence.

Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

ubrew12 at 06:43 AM on 28 February, 2017

WUWT has the letter and the list. WUWT says 'The petition contains the names of around 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals, including physicists, engineers, former Astronauts, meteorologists ... computer modelling specialists, and many more. It is a long list.'

I got a kick out of the emphatic: 'It is a long list'. But I also appreciated that among the 19 professions identified, none was 'climate scientist'. I guess they didn't want to get sued.

Also, as an American, we get a little rowdy over here when experts from Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Latin America tell our President what to do. We like to think we have enough experts right here to handle our own affairs. It's says a lot that Dr Lindzen couldn't locate more of them to pad his list.

Coal made its best case against climate change, and lost

ubrew12 at 19:29 PM on 13 May, 2016

For 30 years, Richard Lindzen has been criticizing the Climate Models under apparently no pressure to offer a prediction alternative. Imagine Opthalmologist Lindzen ordering a patch on your one good eye because it wasn't seeing 20/20: "Trust me! You're better off blind!"

How to inoculate people against Donald Trump's fact bending claims

ryland at 19:42 PM on 24 March, 2016

Dr Death @8. Not unsurprisingly despite your comment "I will look at scientific facts and the reasons for it and then I look at the debunking side of it as to why people believe that part is not true" none of those responding to your post have provided you with any sites where "debunking" occurs on a regular basis.

Some of those sites are Wattsupwiththat run by an American "meteorologist" but probably more accurately a TV and radio weather presenter; Jonova run by the Australian Joanne Nova who has an Honours degree majoring in Microbiology and Molecular Biology from the University of Western Australia; ClimateAudit run by Steve McIntyre a Canadian with a Bachelor's degree im Mathematics from the University of Toronto and a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the Unversity of Oxford; Climate Etc run by the American Dr. Judith Curry who is a climatologist with many peer reviewed publications in the field of climate science; Global Warming Policyh Foundation started by the Englishman Nigel Lawson (aka Lord Lawson) who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Mrs thatcher's government. Others you might like to look up are the American Dr. Richard Lindzen an atmospheric physicist educated at Harvard, the American meteorologist Dr Roy Spencer and the American climate scientist Dr john Christy who, with Roy Spencer monitors the global climate using information from satellites

All of those who I have mentioned are persona non grata at this site but as your stated aim is to examine the views from the "debunking side" it seems remiss not to point you in the direction of some, but by no means all, of those who frequently comment on the 'debunking side" of the climate debate

The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU

ryland at 16:59 PM on 22 December, 2015

If climate scientists are or feel they are, being reviled and misrepresentred, perhaps it is because of the arrogant and pompous behaviour of a significant number of climate scientists and their acolytes. If you call people who disagree with you "deniers" with all the unpleasant connotations that word brings, why shouldn't you be pilloried in return? Statements such as that by Professor Richard Parncutt from the University of Graz that "deniers should be executed" ( a statement for which he subsequently apologised) is hardly likely to endear the climate change proponents to those that are less convinced. Al Gore suggested deniers be punished. David Suzuki said deniers shoud be thrown into jail. James Hansen said deniers should be brought to trial for high crimes against humanity. Stephan Lewandowsky equates "deniers" with conspiracy theory nuts. Pro AGW blogs regularly make derogatory comments against Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen and John Christy and Roy Spencder and Bjorn Lomborg. The climate scientists and acolytes are reaping what they sow. I exclude Kevin Cowtan from any of this as he is a courteous and thoughtful man

Tracking the 2C Limit - September 2015

Paul Pukite at 06:33 AM on 24 October, 2015

The mechanisms behind ENSO are still not completely understood, but the closely related Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) of atmospheric winds is showing promise in being solved.

http://ContextEarth.com/2015/10/22/pukites-model-of-the-quasi-biennial-oscillation/

You may think this model is too straightforward to be believable, but you have to remember is that it is replacing the traditional QBO model of the AGW skeptic Richard Lindzen, who has also left a trail of debunked theories (the Iris Cloud hypothesis) and trail of retracted papers. That is not the scientist that you want to lend credence to.

Global warming deniers are an endangered species

mancan18 at 10:19 AM on 25 July, 2015

In Australia, Climate Change denial does pay. Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters, a significant proportion of it's power generation comes from coal, and coal products are an important component the national income that underpins Australia's wealth. As a result, attitudes towards climate change follows party lines, with one party, Labor, promoting it as a serious issue and the other, Liberal/National Party, while giving it token support, take a "lukewarmer" position. This is the reason that the Government has implemented it's clayton's climate change policy, "Direct Action" and has attacked the climate advisory bodies, climate change funding arrangements for developing needed technologies, and promoted many climate change deniers to important positions upon it's economic advisory bodies.

The reason for this is actually quite simple. One of the main Liberal/National party policy think tanks is the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA). It is Australia's equivalent of the George C Marshall Institute. The IPA, along with other Liberal Party policy think tanks like the Menzies Research Centre and the H. R. Nicholls Society, all actively promote Climate Change denial. Scientists like climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are attached to the IPA, providing advice related to climate change policy. Plimer is also an important member of the Mining Council of Australia, having been it's chairman, and he influences it's political stance. Gina Reinhart, Australia's wealthiest person, who made her money from huge mining projects, is also related to the IPA. She funded a Christopher Monkton speaking tour of Australia, at the height of the ETS/Carbon Tax debate when Labor tried to introduce an ETS. The IPA is also an important source of climate change denial material and underpins the political stance of Murdoch media outlets who reach around 83% of the Australian population, where right wing commentators like Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, and Piers Ackereman, and right wing shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, disseminate IPA inspired climate change denial material to their readers and listeners.

Also, the IPA, through it's journal, provides climate change material to its readers, and it's latest effort comes in the form of a book called "Climate Change - the Facts 2014" with contributions from Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Nigel Lawson, Bill Kininmonth, Willie Soon, Christopher Monckton, Garth Paltridge, Richard Tol, Brian Fisher, Bob Carter, Donna Laframboise, Anthony Watts, Alan Moran amongst others and other climate change deniers. Also, this book seems to form the basis of Matt Ridley's latest essay in June's Quadrant magazine "How the Climate Wars Undermine Science", where John Cook's Consensus Project is discredited, (in their eyes), by referring to it as being biased and unrepresentative.

Now I don't know about you, but, I don't think that climate change deniers are being marginalised in Australia. If anything, they are still pre-eminent due to the IPA's political and media reach. Trying to take effective action to tackle climate change in Australia has already seen the toppling of two prime minsters and a leader of the Liberal Party who did think that the issue was important. It will be a significant issue in the next election but whether the electorate will embrace it, after a fear campaign related to the hip pocket nerve and xenophobic fears related to asylum seekers, is questionable.

While it is easier to have a debate with like minded people; what is happening in Australia, while the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian do present material properly conveying the 97% consensus; demonstrates why climate change advocates need to be more engaged with the climate change deniers from the IPA, the Murdoch press, and the right wing shock jock community, because, at the moment the denier/lukewarmer argument is still pre-eminent and not getting it's proper voice with Australia's public.

What you need to know about the NOAA global warming faux pause paper

mwsmith12 at 20:37 PM on 18 June, 2015

This is important because it illustrates how contrarians leverage these details into doubt and suspicion.

This is a quote from post by Patrick Michaels, Richard Lindzen, and Paul Knappenberger over at WUWT. I don't read that site, but posts from there get used everywhere, so I had to deal with this one:

"In addition, the authors’ treatment of buoy sea-surface temperature (SST) data was guaranteed to create a warming trend. The data were adjusted upward by 0.12°C to make them “homogeneous” with the longer-running temperature records taken from engine intake channels in marine vessels.

"As has been acknowledged by numerous scientists, the engine intake data are clearly contaminated by heat conduction from the structure, and as such, never intended for scientific use. On the other hand, environmental monitoring is the specific purpose of the buoys. Adjusting good data upward to match bad data seems questionable, and the fact that the buoy network becomes increasingly dense in the last two decades means that this adjustment must put a warming trend in the data."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaas-new-paper-is-there-no-global-warming-hiatus-after-all/

The authors are trying to convince me that homogonization is cheating. They put it in quotes. Well, I already know why homogenization is important and how it improves data qaulity, but even so, why add 0.12C to all the buoys when the buoys were designed for this and should be more accurate than measurements from ships that are just trying to get from A to B as fast as possible?

And despite my being a career software engineer who at least reads a lot of climate science reportage and the occassional paper, and who understands the scientific method and the concepts of statistics etc, I was still left with some doubt because it isn't clear to me why data that seem to me to be more accurate are adjusted up to be compatible with data that seem to me to be less accurate.

Having now understood the explanation, I can't believe the three authors of the WUWT post don't know it already. And if so, their objection is disingenuous at best. But it would be very useful to the general public if each scientific paper could have an accompanying link to a page on which these explanations are provided, together with the perhaps bogus objections that require them.

Maybe a section here at Skeptical Science, where these papers are catalogued toghether with all the contributed explanations for questions like: Why did we add 0.12C to the buoy data, and why is that the right thing to do?

The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

Philip Shehan at 23:22 PM on 11 June, 2015

Thanks for the comments KR. Fully understand that you are too busy to deal with theose long posts . (And thank you moderator).

A summary then:

The problem with Whitehouse (first link) is that he basically says that non statistically significant warming translates to evidence for a "pause."

This is acommon argument I get from "skeptics".

Their argument is that less than 95% (actually 97.5%, as half the 95% confidence limits are on the high side) probabiility of a warming trend equates to evidence of no warming trend.

Whitehouse also wants to exclude the years 1999 and 200o from trends on these grounds:

“It occurred immediately after the very unusual El Niño of 1998 (said by some to be a once in a century event) and clearly the two subsequent La Niña years must be seen as part of that unusual event. It would be safer not to include 1999-2000 in any La Niña year comparisons.”

To which I commented:

Whitehouse thinks it is entirely kosher to start with the el nino event of 1998 in a trend analysis and presumably include the years 1998 and 1999 in that trend, [ to justify a pasue claim] but you must not start with the years 1999 and 2000. [Starting at 1999 for UAH data gives the same warming trend as for the entire satellite record. Not statistically significant. "Only'' a 94.6% chance that there is a warming trend from 1999. ]

Is it only me who finds this gobsmacking?

I also wrote

[Whitehouse] says “Lean and Rind (2009) estimate that 76% of the temperature variability observed in recent decades is natural.”

No. On the graph itself it states that the model including natural and anthropogenic forcings fits the data with a correlation coefficient r of 0.87.

And the Figure legend says that “Together the four influences [ie natural and anthropogenic] explain 76% r^2 [0.87 x 0.87] of the variance in the global temperature observations.”

Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, andPaul C. Knappenberger (second link) write of the recent paper by Karl et al:

“The significance level they report on their findings (0.10) is hardly normative, and the use of it should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard.”

Yet further on Michaels, Lindzen,and Knappenberger claim:

“Additionally, there exist multiple measures of bulk lower atmosphere temperature independent from surface measurements which indicate the existence of a “hiatus"…Both the UAH and RSS satellite records are now in their 21st year without a significant trend, for example.”

Here are the trends for UAH, RSS and Berkeley data (the most comprehensive surface data set ) from 1995 at the 0.05 level

0.124 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.030 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.129 ±0.088 °C/decade

So, Michaels, Lindzen, and Knappenberger object to statistical significance at the 90% level used by Karl et al.

Yet they base their claim of “multiple measures of bulk lower atmosphere temperature independent from surface measurements which indicate the existence of a “hiatus” on two data sets which have a probability of a “hiatus” or a cooling trend of 4.8% (UAH) and 34.5% (RSS).

Again, is it just me or is these double standards here amazing?

Then there is Springer (third link)

Singer objects to non satellite data “with its well-known problems”. and write of RSS data:

“the pause is still there, starting around 2003 [see Figure; it shows a sudden step increase around 2001, not caused by GH gases].”

I note:

UAH 0.075 ±0.278 °C/decade

RSS -0.031 ±0.274 °C/decade

So UAH shows a slight warming trend and RSS shows a slight cooling trend but unsurprisingly, for a 12 year time frame, you can drive a bus between the error margins.

As for the step claim. Nonsense, aided by selecting a colour coded graph that foster that impression. No more a step than plenty of other places on the non-colour coded graphs.

Singer also writes:

“Not only that, but the same satellite data show no warming trend from 1979 to 2000 – ignoring, of course, the exceptional super-El-Nino year of 1998.”

Again “skeptics” have been cherry picking the exceptional el nino of 1998 to base on which to base their “no warming for x years” claim for years.

But because it does not suit his argument, Singer wants to exclude it here.

Then Singer decides that non-satellite data is kosher after all because it suits his argument.

I am told that I must bow to the experts here.

Am I crazy or are these people utterly incompetant or dishonest when it comes to statistical significance?

The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

Philip Shehan at 00:38 AM on 10 June, 2015

Have been getting all sorts of grief over at Bolt for pointing out a number of problems with "skeptics" use of temperature data, and using the trend calculator for this purpose.

I am told that I should contact directly the people whose interpretation I criticise and offer tham right of reply. Just like the "skeptics" do with scintistrs they bucket on blogs. (Yes, sarcasm.)

Actually I have on occasion have failed to do so in the case of Fred Singer, David Whitehouse and Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberge

I have told one critic, on numerous occasions that i have checked the trends with those produced by , among others, Monckton, McKitrick, and those who leapt on Jones' "admission" that a 15 year warming trend was not statistically significant, but nearly so, and the trend calculator results match theirs. I have also explained repeatedly the necessity for autocorrelation to be used with temperature data and referred him to this link.

Yet he wrote today.

The calculation that he [that is me] uses is a method written by a shill that just doesn’t make sense and comes out two to three times larger than you would get if you treated the noise as just random.

I will encourage him to represent his argument here.

But thank you for this valuable tool

Of interest this week are the following posts of mine;

On Anthony Watts blog, Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberger dispute a recent paper by Karl et al which questions whether there has been a “hiatus” in global warming.

This new paper, right or wrong, does not affect my primary argument on claims of a “hiatus”.

Which is that such claims do not meet (in fact do not come within a bulls roar of) the criterion of statistical significance.

What is of interest is that the criticisms of Michaels, Lindzen,and Knappenberger again demonstrate the way that skeptics apply totally different standards of statistical significance depending on how they want to spin the data.

The critique of the paper says:

True, the usual standard of statistical significance is the 0.05, 95% or 2 sigma level. The 0.10 level means that there is a 90% probability that the trend is significant

Yet further on Michaels, Lindzen,and Knappenberger claim:

Here are the trends for UAH, RSS and Berkeley data (the most comprehensive surface data set ) from 1995 at the 0.05 level

0.124 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.030 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.129 ±0.088 °C/decade

The Berkeley data shows statistically significant warming trend, as do 5 other surface data sets, with mean trend and error of

0.122 ± 0.093 °C/decade

So, Michaels, Lindzen, and Knappenberger object to statistical significance at the 90% level used by Karl et al.

I mean, these people have the chutzpah to write “the use of [a confidence level of 90%] should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard” yet pin their case for a “hiatus” on such a low statistical probability for two cherry picked data sets.

Models are unreliable

Phil at 20:43 PM on 29 May, 2015

Postkey @925

The section you quote is essentially a conspiracy theory: that errors in physics originally made by Sagan have been continually supressed.

It is worth noting that there have, in the past, been a number of scientific papers published that have challenged or questioned the accepted model of climate change; these include papers by Richard Lindzen, Christy and Spencer, Murray Salby and Gerlich and Tscheuschner. This provides us with evidence of the absense of a conspiracy: the scientific community is perfectly willing to publish a variety of views on Climate Change, even if further examination shows these papers to be wrong, unlikely or implausible.

Thus, had Sagan actually made "4 basic mistakes", and these were hushed up "in the Cold War Space race", there is no way that these mistakes would not have found their way into the scientific literature today. The fame of any scientist able to disprove todays consensus on Climate change would be immense (if only for the amount of physics they would actually have to overturn in order to do so).

A brief viewing of the on-line biographies of Carl Sagan and James Hansen shows almost no intersection; Sagan was an advisor to the NASA space program in the 1970's, whilst Hansen was employed at GISS (which is a division of NASA, but not the one Sagan was advising)
.

It is worth noting that Sagan is perhaps an easy target; as a science communicator and educator it is often necessary to simplify the science (It is for that reason , for example, that grossly inaccurate "pictures" of the atom persist today for educational purposes). Thus his public pronouncements may have been less rigourous. But as Michael Sweet mentions above, the development of climate science does not spring from Sagan.

Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing

Chris Snow at 17:42 PM on 22 May, 2015

It would be good if the Democrats and Republicans had to select three new expert witnesses each time. After a short while, the Republicans would run out of experts to ask.

Here in the UK, there are so few potential sceptic expert witnesses that when in January 2014, the House of Commons select committee on energy and climate change met to discuss the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report in a similar format, the sceptic side had to jet in two of its witnesses, Richard Lindzen and Donna Laframboise from the US and Canada respectively. The other witness was Nic Lewis.

So in the UK at least, I'd say that the 97% figure for the consensus is, if anything, a low end estimate. I'm struggling to think of a single UK-based climate scientist who disputes the basis consensus. Even Nic Lewis's estimates for climate sensitivity are within the range of the IPCC's, albeit at the lower end.

Lukewarmers – the third stage of climate denial, gambling on snake eyes

scaddenp at 10:38 AM on 15 May, 2015

What Lindzen says scientifically, (ie in peer-reviewed journals) is not a problem and is addressed there. Addressing what Lindzen says when talking to the naive (eg congress) is the problem. I wonder how many of the statement list here would have been made if addressing an audience of his peers?

Lukewarmers – the third stage of climate denial, gambling on snake eyes

mancan18 at 09:51 AM on 15 May, 2015

Attaching derogatory labels to opponents of your argument does not promote better understanding in non scientist. It allows your opponents to to stereotype you and then dismiss the worth of anything you say. This in turn polarises the argument to its extremes and eventually leads to a megaphone debate. In a scientific debate, it is the sober, well argued, revealation of scientific information, without resorting to stereotyping of opponents that will ultimately win through, i.e. the information will always trump the stereotype. Also, to convince genuinely skeptical people, rather than the so called climate denier/skeptic/obstructionists, you need good metaphors easily understood by non-scientists, to convince people. In other words SMILE, simple makes it lots easier, is better.

While Sks presents the scientific arguments, sometimes, the complexity of the scientific debate does not make the science easily accessible to the non-scientist. This leaves a chasm for opponents to AGW and CC to use dismissive stereotypes to drive through their scientific misinformation and political rhetoric. The CO2 problem for the Earth is similar to a swimming pool whose chlorine pump is broken. Even though the quantities are small, if too much chlorine accumulates, you will get burnt; if there is too little, you will get algae. In both cases you won't be able to swim in the pool. Other metaphors, like intravenous administration of a drug, again, only trace quantities are used, but too much you will die, too little you will get sicker and may die. The same goes for a fertilizer/farming metaphor. To much you can't grow anything, too little you get weeds. The minute increase trace argument, can be likened to interest rates on an investment account, and the climate models are unreliable argument, might be better counteracted by wondering why they rely on economic models to make their investements which is surely as complex, and not always accurate. There are plenty of simple metaphors to describe the CO2 problem before explaining the scientific complexity of the carbon cycle where the recent rise in CO2 is put into its proper geological context.

To question a scientist as eminent as say Richard Lindzen, there is no need to resort to a label. You can use what he presents scientifically. As I understand it, he predicts that doubling CO2 will only yield a 0.5 degree C increase in temperature, hence of no consequence. However, over the last century we have already seen a 0.8 degree C increase in temperature, while CO2 levels have increased by 40%, hardly a doubling. Without any other scientifically verifiable casuality, I would have thought that this would be enough to negate his key argument, that doubling CO2 is not significant. There is no need to use labels like denier. Leave the labels like warmist, carbonite, leftie, greenie etc. to those whose scientific arguments are so weak that they have to resort to them. Also, I would have thought that the 15 degree difference in the average global temperatures between the Earth, with its 200-300 ppm CO2 (today 400 ppm), and the Moon (zero CO2), and with the paleoclimate evidence, would be enough to address the climate sensitivity issue in the mind of non scientists. Presenting simple scientific inconsistencies in the argument of opponents by using simple metaphors is more likely to promote better understanding than resorting to yet another label.

Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis

mancan18 at 17:37 PM on 26 April, 2015

Tom Curtis

I am not saying that being wrong in science is a problem. Its not. In fact it normally leads to better understanding and a science that is more robust. I am also not saying that the h index is not an important measure to determine the credentials of professional academics. I was being devil's advocate in suggesting a SLC (safe level of carbon dioxide) index for those who enter the climate change argument. While the h index should be enough amongst professional academics to assess credentials, it does not help those outside academia in assessing credentials. Some form of SLC index would at least inform outsiders about the merits and positions of the various advocates. Or perhaps some CSC (Climate Science Credibility) credential based on the Consensus Project might be more useful in assessing climate scientists. Again I am being devil's advocate. Amongst climate science commentators, there is a huge difference in climate science credentials between the likes of Andrew Bolt, Richard Lindzen, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, David Karoly, James Hansen, Judith Curry, Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Bjorn Lomborg and the various scientists who regularly contribute to sites like SkS. Unfortunately, for outsiders, there is a lot of noise which is hard to penetrate and creates doubt that allows any politically motivated denier to drive a truck through the arguments. There needs to be a simpler measure for the wider public to make an assessment as to the quality of what is being claimed. After all, those who believe the level of CO2 is not the key issue in the whole debate probably should not be given any credibity in the discussion. Because at the moment, we are right on track to release the CO2 that was naturally sequestored in the Earth's crust over millions of years in a little over 300 years putting CO2 levels not seen since the dinosaurs. Now anyone suggesting that this is a good thing needs to have their arguments closely scrutinised.

The Wall Street Journal downplays global warming risks once again

Composer99 at 23:41 PM on 23 September, 2014

Ashton:

Pedantically, detailed discussions need not mean "met" in the conventional sense, in an era of long comment threads and email.

Substantially, "leading" climate scientists is a bit of weasel wording on Koonin's part. Although understandable given typical word limits (I assume the column was also published in the printed version of the Wall Street Journal) (*), the phrase could refer to climate scientists with loads of high-impact, well-cited papers published, or it could refer to S. Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, and other contrarians with little to no recent publication and an extensive history of being wrong - or indeed, to any mish-mash of scientists Koonin personally felt were sufficiently notable to describe as "leading". This ambiguity does not resolve if we presume total sincerity on Koonin's part, since we have abundant evidence of contrarians genuinely treating contrarian scientists with extensive histories of being wrong as "leading" climate scientists.

With respect to your reference to Stern et al, I should remind you that Baron Stern, an economist, is usually referred to speaking within his domain of expertise, economics, in which case he is an expert, as is Professor Garnaut. For his part, Professor Flannery would be within his domain of expertise when discussing climate impacts on mammals (especially mammals in Australasia). I don't recall seeing Skeptical Science, or indeed any other science-based online source, rely on any of them for climate information outside their domains of expertise, although one could readily - and legitimately - include interesting or insightful things they have to say that illuminates the science. At any rate I do not see any justification for your apparent claim of tu quoque.

(*) For instance, I wouldn't want to spend substantial parts of an op-ed I wrote just naming scientists I spoke to.

97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

Lionel A at 21:27 PM on 10 September, 2014

I see Richard Lindzen has indeed joined the group, between David Karoly, Keith Shine and Veerabhadran Ramanathan.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Tom Curtis at 01:20 AM on 17 August, 2014

Dikran @1465, following up I have found the major revision of the wikipedia page on thermodynamics which eliminated the form of the statement quoted in the OP above, and replaced it with another version, which has since in turn been replaced. The original replacement took place on Oct 11th, 2010, with prior versions of the article having the quote in the OP. Evidently, therefore, the OP took its quote from the wikipedia page to which it linked. If it is a misquote, it is then entirely inadvertent as regards SkS. The original version on wikipedia may also explain the frequent occurence of that version on the web.

With regards to books, google books shows just five books containing that version of the quote. Of those, it shows the relevant contents of just three recent (2011 to 2013) textbooks, the former on "The Energy Problem", and the seond on thermodynamics, and the third being Farmer and Cook (2013). The earlier books are one from 2010 by Lawrence Soloman discussing "The Deniers", and one from 1992 by Richard Lindzen. Unfortunately without the text it is not possible to determine whether Lindzen attributes the version of the 2nd Law to Clausius, or whether he presents it as a quote.

Of the five, the most interesting is Stein and Powers (2011), which attributes the quote to "Rudolf Clausius' paper in 1850" (p27). In fact Clausius' talk to the Academy of Berlin in 150 was published in two parts in Pogendorff's Annalen, the first starting on page 368, and the second on page 500. These were translated in 1851, and included as the first memoir in the first edition of the "Mechanical Theory of Heat".

The closest formulation I can find in Clausius 1850 occurs on page 45 of the English first edition of "Mechanical Theory", and page 503 in the Annalen. In English it reads:

"Hence by repeating both alternating processes, without expenditure of force or other alteration whatever, any quantity of heat might be transmitted from a cold body to a warm one; and this contradicts the general deportment of heat, which everywhere exhibits the tendency to annul differences of temperature, and therefore to pass from a warmer body to a cold one."

The relevant principle is, of course, stated in the second part of the sentence. While the quote given in the OP is a good, if abbreviate, paraphrase of that sentence, it is also clearly not direct quotation. Interestingly, in the "Mechanical Theory" a footnote dates 1864 again glosses the principle stated in the body of the text as "... heat cannot of itself pass from a colder to a warmer body". That, or the alternative formulation, ie, that "A passage of heat from a colder to a hotter body cannot take place without compensation" have the strongest claim to represent Clausius' true formulation of the 2nd law (ie, the one he was happiest with on reflection).

Moving on: With misquotation, as with plagiarism, academic misconduct can exist in the absence of intent. That is why there are fairly strict academic rules about methods of quotation, which are always relaxed outside of strict academic contexts (and apparently always in the physical sciences). The strict rules are there to prevent inadvertent misquotation. One of those rules is that when you quote somebody indirectly by quoting somebody else quoting them you clearly indicate that so that any error can be attributed to the source that made the error. If you do not so attribute, you are considered as guilty of any error as if you yourself had made it.

In this case, however, clearly SkS misquoted here inadvertently by copying somebody elses "error". Further, they linked to their source and in a way that made it transperent that it was their source. At least, it made it transperent until the text of wikipedia was edited. Consequently no fault lies with the authors of the OP. Of course, that does not mean the text should not be updated with a correct quotation of an original source (or possibly rewritten in light of the other interesting material uncovered by this excercise.

Global warming theory isn't falsifiable

michael sweet at 23:33 PM on 11 May, 2014

mbarrett:

Your claim that Climate Science is falsifiable only after we are dead is false on its face. In 1896 Arrhenius predicted that the climate sensitivity was 4.5C/doubling of CO2. That number (calculated with a pencil) is still within the IPCC accepted range (although it is at the high end of the accepted range). His calculation has been validated by observations since then. Skeptics ignore the history of climate science when they say the science is not falsifiable.

Likewise, in 1989 James Hansen and denier Richard Lindzen testified before congress. Hansen asserted that the warming signal could be observed while Lindzen testified that it was not warming. The observations currently are "unequivical" that Hansen was correct and Lindzen's position has been falsified. Lindzen has proposed many skeptical theories over the past 40 years. All have been decisively falsified. He will be remembered as an abject failure and a hinderance to determination of the facts about Climate Science.

Numerous other examples exist where Climate Science has correctly predicted changes in advance. The recent National Academy of Science and American Association for the Advancement of Science Reports contain myriad examples of effects predicted decades to centuries ago that are now measured. Skeptical claims that changes will be small have been decisively falsified.

The question before us now, that scientists are currently debating, is will the changes be catastrophic or just really bad? How long will you live? If the drought currently occuring in Texas and Caifornia turns out to be the first major (USA) agricultural hit from AGW we will know if 5-10 years. I expect to live about 30 years. That is enough to see big changes from BAU.

Your claim of "It seems to me a climate science model is not sufficiently falsifiable for many years." is only true if you ignore all the evicence that has already been collected. Of course if your standard is that anything learned before today doesn't count, it will be longer before AGW is proven again.

There is no consensus

KR at 05:33 AM on 9 May, 2014

bakertrg - I expect you will be subject to moderation, due to claims that people are presenting deceptive opinions due to financial renumeration. That said:

Although Spencer Weart has expressed concerns about a particular study (Anderegg et al 2010), you do not appear to have read his actual comment, which states:

The statistics are certainly interesting, but must be interpreted as "2-3% of people who have published 20 climate papers are willing to publicly attack the IPCC's conclusions." That is, to me, a surprisingly high fraction...

If Weart feels that 2-3% rejecting the consensus is a high number, he is hardly disagreeing, now is he? It appears his concerns were with the methods of that particular study, and not the conclusion of an overwhelming consensus. Curiously, you present your information linking a website that appears to be a blog from someone in climate denial, which only reinforces the impression that you, too, are in climate denial. In fact, the more you write, the less interested (IMO) you appear in actual science. It's rather sad that the only lesson you take from Weart is an out of context of a single paper, rather than the copious work on the basics of climate change that I pointed you to. Your reading appears to be rather selective...

Incidentally, Dr's Spencer and Lindzen are quite familar names, as they have quite a history of climate denial themselves - see here and here.

There is no consensus

bakertrg at 04:43 AM on 9 May, 2014

(snip) Despite how my posts are being characterized I'm not intent on being a dissenter I am just skeptical of some of what is here and any website pushing that 97% number so hard and calling it the consensus makes me VERY skeptical of both the message and the messenger.

Sorry if I offended you with my retort Dikran, not my intent but I felt you totally mischaracterized my post drew a conclusion I never made and sent me off to read sources that don't refute my point, aren't relevant to the issue and actually support my position not yours.

(snip) One of his arguments was that the papers in the 97% number actually don't say man is the main cause of global warming... which is exactly my leaning. I'm not emotionally vested in this idea, it's just the best answer from the data I have actually researched.

dikran 593: 97% of the papers that take a position on the question do take the position that it is mostly anthropogenic.

next paragraph

If you want a study of scientists that are publicly stating that humans are the primary cause of climate change, then you won't find one, because scientists have better things to do

so 97% of scientists are taking the position that THE cause of global warming is anthropogenic but none of them are publicly stating that humans are the cause of climate change? Maybe I'm missing something but that seems to contradict itself.

Despite what it may appear to be my goal is to find answers. I am skeptical of some of the things that are held to be incontrovertible here. My main question and the reason I'm posting on this thread is because I strongly disagree with the methodology for coming up with the number 97%. It seems that a lot of scientists think that humans are A cause of global warming and the graphic takes a huge liberty with meaning by saying humans are THE cause. The meanings are vastly different. I have tracked down some of the papers I'm going to see how many say THE cause.

I'm not a climatologist, I do have a background in physics, computer science and engineering, I have no dog in this fight other than I truly want to know what is happening on our planet if not solely for my edification so that I can at least educate my kids to the best of my ability and speak intelligently on the subject which potentially has massive ramifications going forward. In any event I am honestly trying to address each counter to my initial post (despite what is pretty close to being dog piled which is my reading comprehension is any good turns out to also be against the comment policy)

I see the words "easily disproven", but I actually thought it was accepted fact that we have had cooling trends during the modern industrial period despite ever rising CO2 levels. I posted 1900 to 1940 because I believe I read that on this website but in actually going to look I found some different time lines that had downward trends. 1880 to 1915 or 1940 to 1975 would have been a better example for me to use, I stand corrected.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_200_yrs.html

In any event, the point still remains the same, if the CO2 level is constantly rising and the causation is as great as is being purported shouldn't we see an accelerating temperature change? According to information IPCC admittedly can not explain temperature has been flat for the last 17 years. That is very difficult to explain if the problem is accelerating and even suggests that the causation is either much smaller than alarmists suggest (small enough that mother natures natural variance swallowed it whole) or the link to causation is less strong than you're suggesting.

dr don easterbook gives a fairly informative view both in text and video (though my research shows that he has taken money from the koch brothers) sadly, many players in this discussion have taken funding from one side or another and/or have a book centric profit motive to push their beliefs. Richard Lindzen also falls in this same space. Unfortunately it's hard to determine what came first the ideology or the funding, of course the non consensus supporters are going to look for scientists who share their ideology to champion the cause so it's not surprising that the guys who get funded by big business have the anti AGW ideology. (snip)

The video is long but interesting and he does seem to have quite a bit of data. video the text can be found here and has a lot of great information. Dr Lindzen also offers some pretty compelling video's and his credentials are top notch. That being said his monetary incentive made me watch both videos with a very jaundiced eye. I found him to be pretty credible but I'm always skeptical of people getting paid for their science by a source that only wants a specific outcome.

KR - I briefly looked at Spencer Weart and despite being a believer in global warming comes out against a recent argument for the consensus here. His post about the flawed assumptions in the paper from PNAS made me think he's at least interested in being objective. A very telling point of his post (made on this very website) here poses a big problem for the 97% number. He states that while he is convinced by the evidence, he is surprised by the number who are not. Doesn't appear as if he believes it's only 3% dissenting. He pointed to several reasons why that number could be skewed and he's a recognized figure on your side of the argument.

Brandis confuses right to be heard with right to be taken seriously

Composer99 at 00:43 AM on 7 May, 2014

To elaborate a bit on the characteristics of denialism, and how creationists, climate science deniers, and anti-vaccine activists share them in common, let me provide some examples:

1. Fake or Misleading Experts

Creationism - Ken Ham, Dr Michael Egnor (a neurosurgeon), William Dembski

Anti-Vaccine Activism - Andrew Wakefield, Dr Jay Gordon (*), Dr Vera Scheibner (a micropaleontologist)

Climate Science Denial - Christopher Monckton, Dr Roy Spencer (*), Dr S. Fred Singer (*), Dr Richard Lindzen (*), Ian McIntyre

(*) denotes misleading experts - people with pertinent expertise in the subject (e.g. Dr Jay Gordon is a pediatrician) but who are using their credentials to support or propagate false or misleading information, in the public sphere at least, if not in the literature (e.g. Dr Spencer and the Cornwall Alliance). (Some creationists I have named above might be misleading experts; but I'm not familiar enough with them to say so.)

2. Cherry-Picking & Misrepresentation

Creationism - claims about radiocarbon dating, this article showing distortion of so-called "No Free Lunch" algorithms, claims about the eye, or flagellum, making Charles Darwin out to be a proto-eugenicist, etc.

Anti-Vaccine - Wakefield's (retracted) 1998 Lancet paper (I don't recall seeing that one get trotted out as much since its retraction), some rubbish papers by Laura Hewitson et al (also retracted), claims about various ingredients in vaccines (formaldehyde, aluminium, etc.), the "Fourteen Studies". I could go on - maybe search the vaccine topic thread on Science-Based Medicine for some more examples.

Climate Science Denial - the "pause" in global warming (cherry picking a small portion of the surface temperature record while ignoring the behaviour of 95+% of the climate system), the obsession over outdated papers (Hansen et al 1988 and Mann et al 1999), Anthony Watts' "surface stations project".

3. Logical Fallacies

Creationism - false dichotomy (either their misrepresentation of evolutionary processes must be true, or God/an "Intelligent Designer" did it), ad hominem or similar argument (e.g. accepting evolution leads to the Holocaust, courtesy of Ben Stein).

Anti-Vaccine - ad hominem (what Dr David Gorski calls the "pharma shill gambit"), red herrings (appeals to the issues surrounding thalidomide, Vioxx, or, say, the Tuskegee experiments).

Global Warming Denial - ad hominem (pretty much whenever Al Gore or David Suzuki's names come up), strawman argument ("CAGW"), appeal to popularity (here's a good example, or you could bring up the Orgeon Petition), guilt by association (Donna Laframboise's book about the IPCC).

4. Conspiratorial Ideation

Creationism - In Expelled, Ben Stein alleges that the scientific community conspires to ruin the careers of those who express any doubt in the "scientific orthodoxy of Darwinism" (quotes used to denote sarcasm, not direct quote). Especially religious creationists are liable to discern the influence of Satan or other supernatural forces of wickedness in the widespread acceptance of evolution among biologists.

Anti-Vaccine - One activist, Jake Crosby, is famed for trying to playing "six degrees of separation" to try and tie pro-vaccine advocates to pharmaceutical companies. Conspiracy theories are also called upon to explain why public health departments & researchers would continue to support vaccination programs despite the alleged harms of vaccines.

Global Warming Denial - The allegations that the UEA-CRU hack exposed fraud, or that the subsequent inquiry findings were whitewashing. Any time the claim is made that climate scientists are engaged in a hoax or fraud for the purpose of securing grant money. Any time the claim is made that climate science is part of a wider "eco-fascist", "Marxist", or what-have-you plot to establish despotism.

5. Impossible Expectations/Shifting Goalposts

Creationism - I'm not as well-read on creationist tactics on this front, but I understand that creationists have made a big fuss about lack of certain transitional forms, or even set up impossible expectations for what sort of transitional forms might be found (e.g. the "crocoduck"). The shift to "Intelligent Design" as the primary public vehicle of creationism is a goalpost shift.

Anti-Vaccine - Despite its unethical nature, many anti-vaccine activists call for a double-blind trial of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. Anti-vaccine activists occasionally demand 100% certainty of the safety or efficacy of vaccines. I have personally had an anti-vaccine commenter demand that science either develop the capacity to predict who would be harmed by vaccines (an impossible expectation at present).

Climate Science Denial - The "quantum" behaviour of denial as recently discussed on Skeptical Science is a perfect example of shifting goalposts. A good example of impossible expectations would be Judith Curry's "Uncertainty Monster", or similar claims that we just need to do more research for a few more years/decades before we can make policy decisions (because it's all so uncertain).

How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

Cedders at 19:46 PM on 13 March, 2014

On Tuesday in the UK House of Commons, one of the members of the select committee on Energy and Climate Change, Graham Stringer MP, asserted that "50% of the meteorologists in the United States are unhappy with the conclusions of the IPCC" (at 1h24m) which led to some disagreement with the relevant Minister as Stringer did not have any source to hand. From a web search, I think this figure may have originated here, based on a 2008 survey of TV weather forecasters and commentary in an AMS journal (available online via Heartland).

(Committee sessions are a disappointing example of the science-policy interface. Stringer and Peter Lilley MP seem to me to be successfully obstructing discussion about important topics such as carbon budgets by focussing on odd details such as p1010 of WG1 SYN. The committee had previously interviewed Richard Lindzen, giving his affiliation as Professor at MIT, whereas I believe he's now at Cato Institute and we should normally refer to him as emeritus professor. It cannot be said they aren't giving space to contrarians.)

Regarding the 2011-12 survey of AMS members, a sample of the email that appeared to come from AMS is available at the Bad Astronomy blog. (James Taylor of Heartland wrote the misinterpretation of the survey, but has not responded to challenges to comment on Heartland tactics, Cindy Baxter etc.)

The epidemic of climate science false balance in the media

Alexandre at 10:03 AM on 28 February, 2014

I remember the late BBC One Planet podcast, that covered environmental issues: they had this "balance" in their interviews, giving space to the likes of Richard Lindzen and letting him get away with claims like "high sensitivity is just the result of biased models" or that the reason for virtually the whole scientific comunity to support climate action was "vested interests".

This podcast has had its good moments, but bad moments like this made me feel less sorry for them being cut off.

The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures

citizenschallenge at 03:11 AM on 1 February, 2014

Mike that (conservamerica.org/) looks interesting, thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I noticed "ConservAmerica was founded in 1995 to resurrect the GOP's great conservation tradition and to restore natural resource conservation and sound environmental protection as fundamental elements of the Republican Party's vision for America." Tragically it seems they haven't had much impact on the GOP mind-set.
~ ~ ~

Hope you don't mind me sharing a link myself:

Friday, January 31, 2014

"Dr. Richard Lindzen, scientist as fiction writer"

http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/01/dr-lindzen-scientist-as-fiction-writer.html

The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures

kmalpede at 00:17 AM on 8 January, 2014

On added bit of info.: Richard Lindzen holds the Alfred P. Sloan Chair of Meterology at MIT. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which endows Lindzen's chair also "funds plays about science." It is the only foundation that specifically funds plays about science. It has refused funding to "Extreme Whether" through Ensemble Studio Theater which administers its grants, on the grounds that the climate change deniers portrayed in the play are "too evil to be put on stage". We are in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign to try to fund this play which, by the way, has been approved by James Hansen who spoke after an April 8 reading and said "this play certainly resonates with me.": http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/extreme-whether

The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures

kanspaugh at 03:11 AM on 7 January, 2014

I think the author nails it when he says that Richard "Tricky Dickey" Lindzen has made a career of being wrong. I'd say his contrarian nature is psychopathological except that I've noticed he tends always to be contrary in a way that pleases deep-pocketed industries like Big Oil and Big Tobacco. So just a cynical servant of corporate interests with all the ethical integrity of a mob lawyer. A fit object for our scorn, not our pity.

Climate contrarians are more celebrity than scientist

Doug Bostrom at 16:49 PM on 8 November, 2013

Speaking from his uniquely, ironically qualified perspective, Richard Lindzen:

"When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue."

Dr. Lindzen liked the sound of that piece so well that he offered it to two different publishers, with each accepting it. One of those publishers appears to have made an exception to accomodate the duplication, taking it on over 2 years after it was originally published.

Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation

MA Rodger at 18:46 PM on 12 October, 2013

jmorpuss @29.

You present an interesting example of denial. Does the ionosphere actually dictate the climate? Are the elusive results of the ATLANT experiments elusive because they are being covered up? This, jmorpuss, is the stuff of the "reality" you speak of.

So to you, AGW is not a problem. All the climate scientists in the world are so dumb or corrupt that not one of them can see what you, a humble citizen of this planet, can see as plain as day in front of you.

Congratulations, jmorpuss. You are in denial. Any evidence of human science is irrelevant and rendered false if it supports AGW, because you know AGW is false. You are not alone. Prof. Richard Lindzen takes the same position as you do, and he is a proper climatologist, abet a rather elderly one. Lindzen ignores all the unhelpful evidence because he believes some vital ingredient is missing from the theories, some mechanism of climate that will make the problems of AGW disappear. (I'm not sure how it would make the unhelpful evidence disappear for him, but hey-ho, what do I know.)

Of course, because neither you nor Richard Lindzen are being scientific about AGW to a greater or lesser extent (you jmorpuss the greater, he Lindzen the lesser), you would neither agree with each other. Indeed Lindzen would consider you views ridiculous and insane. And he would not be alone in this opinion.

Such is the stuff of denial. Thank you for sharing it with us.

The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report

kmalpede at 04:45 AM on 18 September, 2013

American climate denier Prof.Richard Lindzen occupies the Alfred P. Sloan chair at MIT. Sloan Foundation funds plays about science, but refused to fund "Extreme Whether" because it is a play that unmasks the nefarious tactics of climate deniers. We need a culture of climate change...and one is growing, novels, photographs, plays, despite the difficulties with funding, the artists, like the scientists, will not be stopped.

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

KR at 00:43 AM on 11 July, 2013

guinganbresil - In anticipation of possible comments (having Googled SkS for previous discussions on the subject and your comments), I will note that cloud changes would be a feedback to temperatures, not a forcing, and that despite attempts to show negative cloud feedback by Lindzen and Choi 2011, or Spencer and Braswell 2011, the evidence indicates that any such cloud feedback would be small and likely positive (as per Dessler 2011).

Spectral reductions in effective emissivity are indeed direct evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect.

CO2 effect is saturated

Rob Honeycutt at 12:30 PM on 18 June, 2013

Stealth...

I think you're getting some figures wrong here. The variation in the 11 year solar cycle is about 0.25W/m^2. The change in radiative forcing for doubling CO2 over preindustrial, including feedbacks, is in the neighborhood of 4W/m^2. (And we're potentially talking about TWO doublings if we do nothing to mitigate emissions.) Natural variability doesn't add any energy to the climate system. Global temperatures over the past 17 years represent only a fraction of the energy in the climate system, and that trend is still well within the expected model range.

We are likely to see an increase in surface temps for doubling CO2 of around 3C. Two doublings would put us at 6C over preindustrial. Even 3C is a change that take us well outside of what this planet has experienced in many millions of years, and we will have accomplished this in a matter of less than 200 years. Do you really think that species and ecosystems can near-instantly (genetically and geologically speaking) adjust to such changes?

When you read at WUWT about the logarithmic effect of CO2, you're reading a straw man argument. Scientists understand the logarithmic effect and it's built into every aspect of the science and has been ever since Svante Arrhenius at the turn of the 20th century. In fact, that position is directly contradicted by their own contrarian researchers like Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen.

UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)

Lionel A at 23:11 PM on 12 June, 2013

This does not surprise me at all. After all this is the government which is pushing for fracking as hard as it is trying to block green energy sources especially wind turbines.

As for US training, picking up on tamikenn57 at #6, sure there has been input from the direction in the shape of Richard Lindzen for one but I suspect the steady drip from other sources such as the 'squeezer of watermelons' aka 'Interpreter of interpretations' has been at work too.

Question Time has a record of allowing ignorant or ideological blinkered denialists on a panel where climate change is brought up as seen some while back where Melanie Phillips gives forth.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention John.

Lindzen's Junk Science

Tom Dayton at 06:31 AM on 9 June, 2013

The site What's Up With That Watts? has a point by point dissection of a 2009 lecture by Richard Lindzen: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Ed Davies at 19:41 PM on 16 May, 2013

Excellent work. One question, how would a paper which accepted the basic chain of human emissions -> more CO₂ in the atmosphere -> warming -> positive feedbacks (water vapour, etc) but then proposed that there were large negative feedbacks which cancel out most of the effect be counted? I'm thinking of the UAH guys and Richard Lindzen who, as I understand things, have views like this.

(Read this article and your Guardian post but not the main paper - sorry if this is covered in the paper.)

Climate's changed before

Mark Bahner at 12:02 PM on 11 April, 2013

What was wrong in what Richard Lindzen wrote?

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

Doug Hutcheson at 08:38 AM on 19 March, 2013

Further to my comment above, Radio National have come back to me. I was wrong to attribute the comment to Pielke Jnr: it was actually Lindzen. From the transcript:

"Richard Lindzen: My own particular research on this topic has dealt with water vapour, for a very simple reason; water vapour itself could account for 98.5% of the present greenhouse effect. It's the giant greenhouse gas, and in fact no model would give more than about 1° warming for a doubling of CO2 unless it had water vapour amplify it. And so we've been looking at how they deal with water vapour.
And they don't have the physics that we know accounts for water vapour, they are having numerical errors all over the place. So here you have the major greenhouse gas, you're worrying about something that's in the 1% region, and you're getting the thing that is 98.5% totally wrong, 100% errors.
We've been doing some studies on it, and I strongly feel that water vapour in fact is acting in the opposite direction from what the models suggest, and according to our calculations it should keep the warming for a doubling of CO2 down to about two-tenths of a degree. You couldn't tell that from natural variability."

So, warming from a doubling of CO2 amounts to two tenths of a degree, if the good Professor does not have his facts bass ackwards. There, don't you feel safer now?

Carbon Dioxide the Dominant Control on Global Temperature and Sea Level Over the Last 40 Million Years

jzk at 08:04 AM on 7 March, 2013

Rob Honeycutt,

Actually when presented with that very issue, that CO2 is necessary to drive interglacials and glacials, Richard Lindzen said "I don't think there is any case to be made for that." He has further cited Roe's "In Defense of Milankovitch" which states "Thus, the relatively small amplitude of the CO2 radiative forcing and the absence of a lead over dV/dt both suggest that CO2 variations play a relatively weak role in driving changes in global ice volume compared to insolation variations."

Carbon Dioxide the Dominant Control on Global Temperature and Sea Level Over the Last 40 Million Years

Rob Honeycutt at 07:28 AM on 7 March, 2013

jzk... Actually, the forcing from Milankovitch cycles and the direct radiative effects of atmospheric are very well understood and calculated. Not even the Richard Lindzen's and Roy Spencer's of the world dispute these figures.

I would suggest that if you're not getting a satisfactory answer, then maybe you aren't reading or comprehending the research.

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

dana1981 at 02:24 AM on 25 January, 2013

John Brookes @1 - yes, Ridley is one of those "lukewarmers" who's not in total denial, but also advocates for climate inaction because he doesn't believe AGW is a problem. From a practical standpoint for those trying to solve this problem, it's really not any better.

Composer @2 and John Russell @3 - yes, a good scientist will admit when his prior conceptions were wrong. Ridley apparently will not (this is also a problem for some other contrarians like Richard Lindzen).

The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions

jyushchyshyn at 06:58 AM on 3 November, 2012

gws

Yes, Germany is like a ship that does not easily change direction. The same can be said of the United States of America, a hot bed of global warming denial.

Do you take global warming seriously or not? The notion that we have to choose between nuclear power and renewables is a straw man argument. No proponent of nuclear power is against renewables. Some question whether renewables can provide baseload power. If you can prove such concerns to be unwaranted, more power to you, no pun intended.

Anyways, the question is not whether to phase out coal, but when and how fast. You can replace coal in half the time frame using both nuclear and renewables than you could using renewables alone or nuclear alone. And then, if it looks like renewables could provide all of our power needs, then we can consider phasing out nuclear power, without hoping that Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen are right.

Climate of Doubt Strategy #1: Deny the Consensus

vrooomie at 23:13 PM on 30 October, 2012

danielbacon@13, Anthony watts has kindly compiled a list, which should go a ways towards adressing your requests.

Andrew Montford (Author of The Hockey Stick Illusion)
Richard Lindzen (Alfred P. Sloan professor of Meteorology, MIT)
Marc Morano (Climate Depot)
John Coleman (Founder of the Weather Channel, now at KUSI-TV)
Chris Horner (Senior Fellow, Center for Energy and Environment, CEI)
Steve McIntyre (editor of ClimateAudit.org)
Dr. Ross McKitrick (University of Guelph)
John Christy (Alabama State climatologist, co author of UAH dataset)
Joe D’Aleo (WeatherBell)
Joe Bastardi (Weatherbell)
Senator Jim Inhofe
Bob Tisdale (author of Who Turned on The Heat?)
Dr. Ryan Maue (Weatherbell)
Dr. Sebastian Lüning (co-author of Die Kalt Sonne)
Harold Ambler (Author of Don’t Sell Your Coat)
Donna LaFramboise (Author of The Delinquent Teenager)
Pat Michaels (former State climatologist of Virgina, fellow of the Cato institute)
Pete Garcia (Producer of the movie The Boy Who Cried Warming)
Christopher Monckton (SPPI)

*All* have been debunked/addressed here on SkS in the helpful links on the home page.

PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?

Doug Bostrom at 01:44 AM on 20 September, 2012

CRV9 makes some good points about acknowledging "wrong" and letting the public see what it looks like. The trouble is, many viewers are not obsessively fascinated with this topic and (our cognition being what it is) will in the absence of any other story adopt Watts' story as their operative picture of what's going on with climate science and climate change.

Leaving aside that the segment was remarkably uninformative on its notional topic, one should set some sort of lower threshold to the "quality of wrong" chosen for illustration.

A presentation including somebody such as Richard Lindzen would actually have been better. Lindzen shares many of the ideological fixations as does Watts but is fully able to describe climate science accurately if he so chooses. Based on his track record we'd have been presented with a similarly slanted perspective but one more comprehensive than Watts was able to accomplish, given his limitations. Lindzen is state-of-the-art "wrong" so if the producer's objective was to present the best "wrong" available Lindzen would have been a much better choice, with a cluster of other better alternatives to Watts also in the realm of best fit for purpose.

A presentation with Lindzen would still leave open the question of what is the point of parading "wrong" in front of viewers. Obviously the intention is not to present a freak show but rather is a communications effort of some kind. News Hour failed to "speak in its own voice" to properly explain their objective with the segment, leaving us guessing the reason for why a person who is essentially unqualified to solidly improve public understanding of the topic of climate change was chosen to occupy ten minutes' airtime. Other choices would leave open the same question.

PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?

Doug Bostrom at 13:33 PM on 19 September, 2012

Dale: A scientist does not need academic credentials. They need well researched, well reasoned, well supported points.

The first attribute "academic credentials" leads more reliably to the next three. If you're a producer working in the usual feverish haste, skipping the basic notion of formal qualifications as the first step to picking an expert is a very foolish choice, leads to embarrassment. We've just seen that amply demonstrated.

Sometimes an "appeal to authority" is not so bad. "Help us" isn't the same as "he just knows."

Of course if they'd chosen Richard Lindzen we'd have a whole different set of objections. :-)

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Lacatena at 13:56 PM on 28 August, 2012

176, desertphile,

Is there any scientist out there who believes Earth's atmosphere is CO2 saturated?

Climate scientist?

No.

I'm sure you'll be able to find some physicists and such, even ones of great stature in their own fields, who will subscribe to such insanity, but not any climate scientists. Not even the likes of Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen or Roger Pielke, Sr.

[I won't link to discussions proving that Lindzen or Pielke believe in the greenhouse effect, because [snip] Suffice to say, no, not even serious deniers like Spencer, Lindzen or Pielke will destroy their own reputations that completely by ascribing to "CO2 is saturated"[snip] People who buy into lame points of view like that are either in serious denial or so thoroughly lost in the depth of the science that you can't possibly educate them.]

Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun

funglestrumpet at 05:28 AM on 23 August, 2012

So, we have a widely read website dedicated the science of climate change describing Professor Richard Lindzen, a highly regarded climate scientist at MIT, as: "... quite possibly the most consistently wrong climate scientist on climate issues on the planet."

I wonder if I am the only one who will see Professor Lindzen as incompetent, or possibly even as a fraud, if he does not sue for defamation of character and be very interested in the outcome if he does. I would have thought that MIT would want to know why if he fails to sue and also be very interested in the outcome of any proceedings if he does.

Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality

Steve L at 02:20 AM on 23 August, 2012

Joe Romm seems to think that Richard Lindzen is the most consistently wrong climate scientist around. Perhaps it's Pat Michaels? I think a contest, with campaign-style pageantry, could really be interesting and maybe even get some publicity.

Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun

David Lewis at 06:22 AM on 22 August, 2012

I found Richard Kerr's "Greenhouse Skeptic Out in Cold" article published in Science 246.4934 (1989) useful to understand Lindzen:

Then, as now, some say: "no other US skeptic has such scientific stature".

Kerr got Lindzen to admit how unscientific his critique is: "what Lindzen has now is not so much a complete model as an idea about how control of atmospheric temperature works. Indeed, he describes it himself as an idea of a theological or philosophical nature"

Kerr quoted Schnieder in 1989 on Lindzen's ideas: "I know of no observational evidence supporting it". His latest 2012 paper was rejected by PNAS editors as you discussed in your analysis because it was low quality and its conclusions were not justified. Nothing has changed.

In his book "Storms of My Grandchildren" Hansen shares a story about when he shared a cab with Lindzen: "I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems".

Hansen says didn't ask that question during that cab ride, but he says he did ask Lindzen later, at a conference both were attending: "He began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous with his views of climate data"

Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress

Lionel A at 01:25 AM on 17 August, 2012

Richard Lindzen coughs again in the WSJ citing John Christy's Senate Testimony in:

'Climate Consensus' Data Need a More Careful Look

BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming

ranyl at 18:58 PM on 3 August, 2012

Good post and graphics, thankyou Dana.

With the comments above, lead to some thoughts and questions, hope that is ok.

"Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."

To establish skeptical view or "denial driven view", is very difficult but it strikes me there are many who fully recognise global warming, but are skeptical of the size for the issue, this can range from a healthy skepticism as part of scientific method to denial in disguise.

I find that people that say things like "CO2 isn't even a warming agent", "its all volcanoes" are normally not "skeptics" (whatever that this) as such, more just not prepared to even look for fear of the possibility, for whatever reason.

For those who are not skeptical about environmental change what does all this actually mean?

"The BEST team also found that the observed warming is consistent with an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.1 ± 0.3°C for CO2 doubling, in line with the IPCC climate sensitivity range, and demonstrates once again that contrary to the persistent claims of Richard Lindzen, the Earth has warmed as much as we expect given a relatively high climate sensitivity."

For me this is could be slightly skeptical view, for to say that a CS of 3.1C is relatively high, is slightly underestimating the higher potential of CS, for a CS of 3.1C for me is a middle of road potential possibility of climate sensitivity, and there is a ~50% chance it could be higher. A relatively high CS would be 3.75C-4C, with a 3C mean and 95% range 1.5C-4.5C, SD 0.75C.

And with that middle of the road potential Hansen is still calling for 350ppm by 2100.

The higher ppm we get to the harder returning to 350ppm becomes and it makes sense that the higher the heating imbalance or the larger the effective heater the faster things will proceed.

So my questions are, considering the BEST results confirmations of warming and the size of the CO2 problem.

What is a safe peak ppm?

a) 400-410ppm
b) 410-420ppm
c) 420-450ppm
d) 450-500ppm
e) 500-550ppm

What is most likely CO2 peak, all things considered?

Just wondering what people think?

Nordhaus Sets the Record Straight - Climate Mitigation Saves Money

Peter Lang at 09:23 AM on 1 June, 2012

dana1981 - my apologies; my second link should have pointed readers to:
the two comments on 4 May. Below is an expanded version.

Benefit to cost ratio of the Australian CO2 pricing scheme to 2050

In an interesting exchange between Roger W. Cohen, William Happer and Richard Lindzen, and reply by William D. Nordhaus on “The New York Review of Books” here Professor William Nordhaus (hereafter WN) said:

“The final part of the response of CHL comes back to the economics of climate change and public policy. They make two major points: that the difference between acting now and doing nothing for fifty years is “insignificant economically or climatologically,” and that the policy questions are dominated by major uncertainties.

Is the difference between acting now and waiting fifty years indeed “insignificant economically”? Given the importance attached to this question, I recalculated this figure using the latest published model. When put in 2012 prices, the loss is calculated as $3.5 trillion, and the spreadsheet is available on the Web for those who would like to check the calculations themselves. If, indeed, the climate skeptics think this is an insignificant number, they should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.”

Particularly note this bit:

When put in 2012 prices, the loss is calculated as $3.5 trillion, …. If, indeed, the climate skeptics think this is an insignificant number, they should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.

I am surprised that WN says the $3.5 trillion is a significant number, given that it is cumulative to 2050 and is for the whole world. I am also surprised that WN says skeptics “should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.” I consider the Australian situation and calculate the costs to achieve the Australian share of the $3.5 trillion reduction in climate damages would be around nine times greater than Australia’s share of the estimated $3.5 trillion saving. Here is how I did my calculations.

I converted the estimated $3.5 trillion world damages avoided to the Australian proportion on the basis of Australia’s share of world GDP, i.e. 1.17%. So Australia’s share of damages avoided is 1.17% x $3.5 trillion = $41 billion. That is the cumulative damages avoided by Australia to 2050. It assumes an optimal CO2 price, the whole world implements the CO2 price in unison, and an economically efficient system is implemented across the whole world. It also assumes Australia’s share of world GDP remains constant.

The Australian Treasury estimated the loss of GDP that our legislated CO2 tax and ETS will cause. [ However, it seems they may have underestimated because they, apparently, have not estimated the compliance cost]. The cumulative loss of GDP to 2050 is $1,345 billion (undiscounted) (Chart 5:13), or $390 billion discounted at 4.34%, which I believe is the discount rate that is the default in RICE (2012) and gives the value of $3.5 trillion quoted by WN.

If my calculations are correct, the benefit, to Australia, of the optimum CO2 tax rate (if the world implements an economically efficient CO2 pricing scheme in unison) would be $41 billion and the cost (reduced GDP) would be $390 billion. Therefore, the benefit to cost ratio is 0.11. [benefit/cost should be greater than 1 for the policy to be justified] .

Therefore, I do not understand WN’s statement that “[sceptics] should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.” My calculations suggest we would spend nine times greater sums, not smaller sums, to achieve the benefits estimated by WN.

Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science

Rob Painting at 16:39 PM on 8 May, 2012

"In Lindzen's model, there is no unrealised warming."

Yes, so it is clearly wrong. The Earth still has a persistent energy imbalance (Loeb [2012]) which means further warming is in the pipeline.

In essence Lindzen's model assumes the oceans will not take up much heat and therefore the atmosphere warms much more rapidly. This is the basic gist of low climate sensitivity, the oceans supposedly cannot take up this extra heat so the atmosphere warms quickly instead, until the system is back in equilibrium.

In contrast, mixing heat down into the deep ocean slows the response time and allows the oceans to store much more heat - much of which is eventually given back to the atmosphere. This would signify greater climate sensitivity, and greater warming in the long-term.

The trouble with Lindzen's ideas on this issue is that the climate has been much warmer in the past, which indicates larger climate sensitivity. It is the No.1 climate skeptic argument at SkS. In 'Greenhouse' intervals in Earth's history, the oceans were considerably warmer according to paleoproxy data - sea surface temperatures reaching as high as 38°C in the tropics. As Dr Richard Alley would say "That's Hot!" Furthermore, the deep oceans were much warmer, as were the seas around both poles.

All of this is consistent with the mainstream estimates of climate sensitivity, but incompatible with low climate sensitivity, such as that argued by Lindzen.

Why Are We Sure We're Right? #2

JimF at 03:33 AM on 7 May, 2012

Tarcisio Jose D @31
Sorry it took a bit to get back to you, but I was cutting back my candytufts a week before Mother's Day...I used to love those old pictures of Mom in front of the white blooms on Mother's Day.
Jose, you've got to help me out here, because this how I start to get worried when I have these conversations.
OK.
For a non-scientific view, if in the year 2017 (five years from now), global land and sea temperatures continue to rise, 3 of those years land in the top 10 of warmest years on record, New Orleans gets hit with a category 5 AND Mexico gets hit with a category 5, Richard Lindzen has changed his mind, and JimF now cuts back his candytufts 3 weeks before Mother's Day rather than the current one or two, do you begin to question your stance on this?
Is there any point that you say, "I still don't think that man is the primary cause to GW, but we add to it, and we need to start to do something about it?"

Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton

skywatcher at 13:42 PM on 27 March, 2012

#46: SkS has some comment on Dessler's 2011 paper that deals with Lindzen and Choi here and also in a little more detail here. As for "it hasn't warmed as much as expected recently", Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 show that it has warmed just as much as expected, given recent solar and ENSO variations and the ongoing GHG forcing increase. The 2000s were also hotter than expected given the decadal trend through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Convincing the general public is a different matter - new temperature records will go a long way to dealing with your #1 IMHO, and #2 is largely irrelevant as LC11 is a poor, debunked paper at variance with a mountain of evidence. New temperature records look distinctly possible in the next few years, largely dependant on ENSO, and are virtually certain after a few years regardless with the continuing rise in forcing.

I don't think all this is that much about debating type fora anyway. That people like Monckton continue speaking rubbish shows you don't need evidence to claim to have a debate. But there's so little hard evidence to support any of the various mutually contradictory skeptical stances, they are finding it increasingly hard to support pretty much any points. This is leading to increased infighting and marginalisation amongst skeptics as they try and decide which points to follow.

Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science

West129 at 07:19 AM on 23 March, 2012

Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory not supported by science but by crude climate models.

I accept the reprimand from your blog. (-snipOn the other hand I appreciate the honesty reflected in the official IPCC documents which were arrived via “scientific consensus” and “rigorous peer reviews”. In multiple places the documents clearly admit that at the current state of the art the climate cannot be fore- or back cast. The admissions bolsters the much needed credibility for climate scientists:

“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC-III-2001: 14.2.2.2 (Page 774), http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/tar-14.pdf

IPCC, AR4 reports re-confirms that all the answers are not in:

“.... However, the relationship between the isotopic records indicative of the Sun’s open magnetic field, sunspot numbers and the Sun’s closed magnetic field or energy output are not fully understood ...” This is in conjunction with Fig. 6.13. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6-3.html ).

“...the complexity of the climate system and the multiple interactions that determine its behaviour impose limitations on our ability to understand fully the future course of Earth’s global climate. There is still an incomplete physical understanding of many components of the climate system and their role in climate change. Key uncertainties include aspects of the roles played by clouds, the cryosphere, the oceans, land use and couplings between climate and biogeochemical cycles. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-1.html

Therefore, one should not overestimate the capability of models because they are just models and are not proof . Ignoring the distinction between a scenario run by model and a forecasts may lead to and has been used to assert conclusions that may be base on incorrect/incomplete concepts/models.

To claim “peer reviewed”, “scientific consensus” and “indisputable fact” does not advance science but are stifling. Research has to continue in all directions, because what we ”know” today might be looked at differently tomorrow. This was my point and it is more eloquently expressed very recently by Richard S. Lindzen, Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, MIT: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02148/RSL-HouseOfCommons_2148505a.pdf-)

Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer

layzej at 10:34 AM on 21 March, 2012

It looks like Richard Lindzen may be one of Singer's "deniers".

Singer states "there is another group of deniers who accept the existence of the greenhouse effect but argue about the cause and effect of the observed increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide."

Recently Lindzen questioned the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 on an Australian talk show: "the argument often is presented that the natural part is in balance and our contribution is imbalancing, unbalancing the system and so that’s leading to a rise. Uh, that’s an arguably possible situation but in point of fact there’s limited evidence of that and the merest uh misunderstanding of the 97% could easily overbalance man’s contribution" - http://planet3.org/2012/03/19/who-will-tell-us-whom-to-believe/

It would be interesting to compile a list of main stream contrarians that fail Singer's skeptic test. Would many survive?

Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer

Eric (skeptic) at 00:08 AM on 17 March, 2012

Alexandre, I gave some ideas about the uneven distribution of water vapor here: /detailed-look-at-climate-sensitivity.html, and modeling of ENSO in post 30 here: /Dessler-2011-Debunks-Roy-Spencer-And-Richard-Lindzen.html. Neither thread is very satisfying to me, I still owe scaddenp a more detailed answer, but I certainly do not have the time to build my own climate model.

Lindzen's London Illusions

MA Rodger at 03:13 AM on 14 March, 2012

jzk @68
You could have warned me about the aweful music at the start of the second clip!

Listening to the actual seminar (links @67), I can add to the comment @66.
P13-14 uses graphs that stop in 1984 likely because as Lindzen says "No one's done this (analysis) in 20 years." Maybe he should have asked why nobody has.
P35-36 He makes no mention of presenting a shuffled-up series of years. He perhaps mutters "decadal" as the final 4 are shown. There is no mention of winter trends or lack of trends, just "huge fluctuations." He says "And they're kinda random," (Ah ha, but is he referring to the fluctuations or the presented graphs?) However his main point is that there is physics at work here in the Arctic "...which is completely lost when you take annual mean temperatures." He is here entirely dismissive of any Arctic trend being anything to do with AGW, thus the throw-in 1922 report.
I would add for jzk's benefit - the audience is never appraised that they are not being shown a time sequence of graphs while 'lack of summer trend' & an all-random fluctuating winter is proposed. That is plain sneeky.
P15 was introduced with the words "But here's something that'll give you a little perspective on it." and after explaining the graph "Put in perspective of you regular experience."
Perhaps most telling is a message from his 'take-away' from this section. "Say at least, so far, I mean if some day I see there are changes 20 times what I've seen so far, that would be certainly remarkable. But nothing so far looks that way." This refers to the global average temperature fluctuations so 20 times 0.5-0.7 deg C = 10 - 14 deg C!!!!

Richard Lindzen - an alleged climatologist who doubts that anything short of 'Snowball Earth' or a 'Steam-Soaked Sphere' is worthy of remark.

Lindzen's London Illusions

Martin Lack at 03:42 AM on 10 March, 2012

#58 Tom Curtis

Glad to know someone was curious to go and see what I was talking about. However, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble and just looked at the screenshot of this Keeling v Temperature graph on either of my first two Lindzengate posts ("Open Letter to Richard Lindzen" ... or "Prof. Lindzen try this instead").

Had you done this you might have been able to spot the caption I have inserted underneath the embedded image, which reads as follows:
"If you stretched the temperature axis far enough, they would have correlated perfectly. Therefore, this [not now] 'missing' graph neither proves nor disproves anything."

This is why re-inserting the graph into the PDF changes nothing. In fact, it implies that Lindzen doesn't even appreciate why it is so meaningless and misleading. This is why I was so gobsmacked by the whole thing. It was either complete incompetence or transparently disingenuous.

Lindzen's London Illusions

Martin Lack at 07:09 AM on 8 March, 2012

Professional misconduct complaint against Professor Richard S. Lindzen Sent by me to MIT today:

Dear Sirs,

I should appreciate some guidance about whether and how - as a non US citizen - I can make a formal complaint against Professor Richard S Lindzen for apparently repetitive hypocrisy, obfuscation and misdirection of several audiences, including the following:
1. At the Heartland Institute's 4th International Climate Change Conference in May 2010;
2. In testimony to US House Subcommittee on Science and Technology hearing in November 2010; and most recently
3. At a meeting in Committee Room 14 of the Palace of Westminster (at which I was present) on 22 February 2012.

I have now sent Professor Lindzen 3 emails (on 23 and 25 February, and 5 March but, as yet I have had no explanation - let alone a satisfactory one - for the issues I have raised in my emails to him.

Transcripts of my 3 emails have been published on my blog as follows:
An open letter to Richard Lindzen (28 February 2012) - 1800 word email with questions from me.
Prof. Lindzen – try this instead! (29 February 2012) - Many of my questions re-formulated as 17 statements via which I invited Professor Lindzen to explain his position.
There is no cause for concern? You cannot be serious! (5 March 2012) - about 900 words - plus some very interesting comments from me and others.

If nothing else, Professor Lindzen's repetitive divergence from - and ridicule of - the genuine scientific consensus regarding the nature, scale and urgency of the problem we face (i.e. anthropogenic climate disruption) and/or his invocation of conspiracy theory as a grounds for dismissing the validity and reliability of that consensus would appear to be in severe danger of damaging the international reputation of your highly-esteemed establishment.

Therefore, if I do not hear from you within 7 days, I shall forward this email to Suzanne Goldenberg (US Environmental Correspondent for the Guardian newspaper) suggesting that she publish it forthwith because, in the continuing absence of a satisfactory explanation from him, I am inclined to believe that Professor Lindzen is part of an organised campaign to downplay, deny and/or dismiss anthropogenic climate change being orchestrated by right-wing, ideologically-prejudiced Conservative Think Tanks (CTTs) such as the Heartland Institute and the CATO Institute. I have reached this conclusion, in no small part, as a result of my reading of research done by Peter Jacques et al., the findings of which may be summarised as follows:

In prefacing their research, Jacques et al. observed that:
“Since environmentalism is unique among social movements in its heavy reliance on scientific evidence to support its claims… it is not surprising that CTTs would launch a direct assault on environmental science by promoting environmental scepticism… (2008: 353).

Furthermore, based on their findings, they concluded that:
“Environmental scepticism is an elite-driven reaction to global environmentalism, organised by core actors within the conservative movement. Promoting scepticism is a key tactic of the anti-environmental counter-movement co-ordinated by CTTs…” (ibid: 364).

Jacques has also highlighted the central aim of CTTs as being to cause confusion and doubt amongst the general public, in order to prevent the creation of a popular mandate for change (i.e. achieved by using a tactic developed by the tobacco industry of countering supposedly “junk” science with their “sound” science), which he refers to as the “science trap” (2009: 148).

Based on the findings of the research published in 2008, Jacques therefore also concluded that environmental scepticism is a social counter-movement that uses CTTs to provide “political insulation for industry and ideology from public scrutiny”; and that this deliberate obfuscation stems from a realisation that “anti-environmentalism is an attitude that most citizens would consider a violation of the public interest” (2009: 169). However, Jacques does not blame the CTTs for the ecological crisis he feels we face, as they have merely exploited a dominant social paradigm; “because neoliberal globalism and its logic are protected from critique” (ibid: 119).

I therefore trust that I may hear from someone regarding this in the very near future.

Kind regards,

Martin C. Lack. BSc (Geology), MSc (Hydrogeology), MA (Environmental Politics).
Author of the Lack of Environment blog - 'On the politics and psychology underlying the denial of all our environmental problems….'

References:
Jacques, P. et al. (2008), ‘The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism’, Environmental Politics, 17(3), pp.349-385.
Jacques, P. (2009), Environmental Skepticism: Ecology, Power and Public Life. Farnham: Ashgate.

Lindzen's London Illusions

logicman at 19:56 PM on 6 March, 2012

The Heartland Institute, not widely know for accurate reporting, fell for the 'Lindzen addresses Parliament' hoax - hook, line and sinker.

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen delivered a comprehensive presentation to the British House of Commons last week explaining why humans are not creating a global warming crisis."
http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/

Lindzen's pdf of his seminar talk commences with thanks to the organisers: the campaign to repeal the climate change act. One of their patrons, Bob Carter, is a trustee of the GWPF. The GWPF is an "educational" charity and as such is not permitted to engage mainly or entirely in political activities. Perhaps Lord Lawson will now drop Bob Carter from his panel of "scientific" advisers. Even better, perhaps the GWPF, an organisation which merely publishes biased opinion pieces and does nothing to promote education, will stop calling itself an educational charity.

Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming

gallopingcamel at 09:12 AM on 1 March, 2012

Jose_X at 16:41 PM on 29 February, 2012,
You have identified the main weakness in the references I cited. They lack a physical mechanism to underpin them and that leaves them open to the charge of "curve fitting".

Remember that Alfred Wegener had been dead for many years when the scientific world stopped laughing at his theory of "Continental Drift".

Nicola Scafetta is all too well aware that even if his prediction of global temperatures to 2040 proves to be more accurate than that of the IPCC's AR4, it proves nothing unless he can explain the underlying processes. He is making progress and I find his ideas quite plausible. When he "goes public" we will be able to take this discussion to the next level.

In my opinion, N&K are in the same boat but I have not had the opportunity to meet them.

(-snip-)

Early drafts of the AR5 Working Group 1 have been leaked and I have a team working on them. You are clearly a deep thinker so would you be interested in participating?
http://www.gallopingcamel.info/IPCC.htm

Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming

gallopingcamel at 15:30 PM on 28 February, 2012

Chris @35.
Thanks for recommending Grant & Petty but you are a little late.

In the same spirit may I recommend you read Rodrigo Caballero (University College, Dublin):
http://maths.ucd.ie/met/msc/PhysMet/PhysMetLectNotes.pdf

scaddenp @35,
The N&K calculations I was referring to in #31 are based on physical laws from which the DALR can be derived. One of the quibbles I have with N&K is that their calculations do not make corrections for water vapor (moist adiabat). Even so, their analysis fits the facts very well for Earth, Venus and Titan:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/

In a nutshell, the main variables that determine planetary surface temperatures are TSI (Total Solar Irradiance), and surface pressure).

There are plenty of smaller influences such as albedo, cloud cover, ocean currents etc. There are even some respected scientists who claim that CO2 affects the climate. For example, Richard Lindzen:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#more-7386

2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8

David Kirtley at 01:33 AM on 28 February, 2012

I'm from the U.S.

In no particular order here are my top 5 climate science sites:

Climate Progress
Open Mind
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
RealClimate
DeSmogBlog

I see that Richard Lindzen gave a talk to the British House of Commons. It appears to be the same old stuff. But is there any chance you'll do a debunking post on it?

Search For 'Missing Heat' Confirms More Global Warming 'In The Pipeline'

Rob Painting at 19:02 PM on 24 February, 2012

Neil - sorry but I don't have the same reverence you have toward the scientific literature, there is plenty of junk in there too - check out Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen's work for instance.

A far more realistic scenario is that considered in Armour & Roe (2011) - Climate commitment in an uncertain world: They state:

"Turning now to the case in which all anthropogenic emissions cease, there is an immediate unmasking of greenhouse gas forcing as aerosols are quickly washed from the atmosphere. The effect is an abrupt rise in climate forcing (Figure 1a) to a peak value of around 2.7 W m−2 , which is relatively well constrained as it depends only on greenhouse gases. The response is a rapid warming (Figure 1b), with a transient commitment of up to 0.9°C above the modern temperature. Thereafter, forcing declines over the next few centuries as greenhouse gases are partially, but not completely, removed from the atmosphere"

Neil -"This is is all consistent. If emissions "stop" the surface does not warm, but the ocean continues to warm"

That makes no sense at all. How can the ocean warm without eventually exchanging that heat to the atmosphere?

Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider

Rob Honeycutt at 04:03 AM on 5 January, 2012

Well, put Tom (@41). The point that needs to be made, and I think rarely does (and what I love about what Schneider is saying), is that the act of giving equal time to two sides of the debate distorts the perception of the reality of climate science. In fact, it's worse than that. You rarely ever see the "screaming hairy conniption fit" (Richard Alley's term) AGW side of the story, whereas you DO almost constantly get the "screaming hairy conniption fit" on the denier side. Even from main stream "skeptics" you get this. Never mind folks like Monckton, just reading Richard Lindzen's NYT OpEd this past year the term that pops into your head is "wow, what a screaming hairy conniption fit he's on!"

What you get from the actual climate science community is generally very careful nuanced responses that do little to counteract the conniptions on the other side. The actual debate in climate science takes place within a fairly narrow range of potential forcing responses. But it sure is hard to sell main stream news on that kind of story.

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