(MIT Professor) Lindzen: “Earth is never in equilibrium” - ( the issue of climate change )

Watts Up With That? ^ | April 9 , 2010 | Anthony - Prof Lindzen

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This is an essay professor Richard Lindzen of MIT sent to the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va for their Opinion Page in March, and was recently republished in the Janesville, WI Gazette Extra where it got notice from many WUWT readers. It is well worth the read. – Anthony

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worth the read. – Anthony

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Richard Lindzen

To a significant extent, the issue of climate change revolves around the elevation of the commonplace to the ancient level of ominous omen. In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption. In a world where we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day, we treat changes of a few tenths of a degree in some statistical residue, known as the global mean temperature anomaly (GATA), as portents of disaster.

Earth has had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a 100,000-year cycle for the last 700,000 years, and there have been previous interglacials that appear to have been warmer than the present despite lower carbon-dioxide levels. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th century, these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat, and, indeed, some alpine glaciers are advancing again.

For small changes in GATA, there is no need for any external cause. Earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Examples include El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, etc. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for all change in the globally averaged temperature anomaly since the 19th century. To be sure, man’s emissions of carbon dioxide must have some impact. The question of importance, however, is how much.

A generally accepted answer is that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (it turns out that one gets the same value for a doubling regardless of what value one starts from) would perturb the energy balance of Earth about 2 percent, and this would produce about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warming in the absence of feedbacks. The observed warming over the past century, even if it were all due to increases in carbon dioxide, would not imply any greater warming.

However, current climate models do predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide might produce more warming: from 3.6 degrees F to 9 degrees F or more. They do so because within these models the far more important radiative substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever an increase in carbon dioxide might do. This is known as positive feedback. Thus, if adding carbon dioxide reduces the ability of the earth system to cool by emitting thermal radiation to space, the positive feedbacks will further reduce this ability.

It is again acknowledged that such processes are poorly handled in current models, and there is substantial evidence that the feedbacks may actually be negative rather than positive. Citing but one example, 2.5 billion years ago the sun’s brightness was 20 percent to 30 percent less than it is today (compared to the 2 percent change in energy balance associated with a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels) yet the oceans were unfrozen and the temperatures appear to have been similar to today’s.

This was referred to by Carl Sagan as the Early Faint Sun Paradox. For 30 years, there has been an unsuccessful search for a greenhouse gas resolution of the paradox, but it turns out that a modest negative feedback from clouds is entirely adequate. With the positive feedback in current models, the resolution would be essentially impossible. [Note: readers, see this recent story on WUWT from Stanford that shows Greenhouse theory isn't needed in the faint young sun paradox at all - Anthony]

Interestingly, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the greenhouse forcing from manmade gases is already about 86 percent of what one expects from a doubling of carbon dioxide (with about half coming from methane, nitrous oxide, freons, and ozone). Thus, these models should show much more warming than has been observed. The reason they don’t is that they have arbitrarily removed the difference and attributed this to essentially unknown aerosols.

The IPCC claim that most of the recent warming (since the 1950s) is due to man assumed that current models adequately accounted for natural internal variability. The failure of these models to anticipate the fact that there has been no statistically significant warming for the past 14 years or so contradicts this assumption. This has been acknowledged by major modeling groups in England and Germany.

However, the modelers chose not to stress this. Rather they suggested that the models could be further corrected, and that warming would resume by 2009, 2013, or even 2030.

Global warming enthusiasts have responded to the absence of warming in recent years by arguing that the past decade has been the warmest on record. We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question. Since we are, according to these records, in a relatively warm period, it is not surprising that the past decade was the warmest on record. This in no way contradicts the absence of increasing temperatures for over a decade.

Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) suggests that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, so too is the basis for alarm. However, the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. Polar bears, arctic summer sea ice, regional droughts and floods, coral bleaching, hurricanes, alpine glaciers, malaria, etc., all depend not on GATA but on a huge number of regional variables including temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, and direction and magnitude of wind and the state of the ocean.

The fact that some models suggest changes in alarming phenomena will accompany global warming does not logically imply that changes in these phenomena imply global warming. This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred, and this will not change in the future. Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this. However, history tells us that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience.

One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years. When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence and donations are reasonably clear. So, too, are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.

Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted to save Earth. Nations see how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. So do private firms. The case of Enron (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, Enron was one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon-emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to trillions of dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions.

It is probably no accident that Al Gore himself is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense.

Finally, there are the well-meaning individuals who believe that in accepting the alarmist view of climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue. For them, psychic welfare is at stake.

Clearly, the possibility that warming may have ceased could provoke a sense of urgency. For those committed to the more venal agendas, the need to act soon, before the public appreciates the situation, is real indeed. However, the need to courageously resist hysteria is equally clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever-present climate change is no substitute for prudence.

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT. Readers may send him e-mail at rlindzenmit.edu. He wrote this for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Now following the comments on the Blog...see post #39...just above ...Article at the American thinker is referenced:

October 09, 2009
The Science of Disinformation

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By Jed Gladstein

In the dictionary:

• Science is defined as "knowledge gained by the study of the physical world."
• Knowledge is defined as "possession of ... truths."
• Disinformation, is defined as "false ... information."

So, apart from a possible oxymoron, what in the world is the Science of Disinformation?

The Science of Disinformation is the deliberate, immoral disregard of truth for the sake of selling something packaged as science. Think it can't happen? It is happening in a very big way, and right in front of our very eyes.

Whatever one's view about global warming,¹ it is an odds-on bet that most of us don't know very much about the science underlying what has become a global socio-economic phenomenon.² For example, most people don't know that many scientists think Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth propagated the theory of human global warming based on some very inconvenient untruths.

Most people also don't know that when Al Gore was chosen for political reasons to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in connection with his global warming advocacy, he was supposed to share that prize with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.³ However, IPCC scientist Dr. John Christy refused to accept the Nobel Prize because he did not want to dignify "jump-to-conclusion advocates" and "scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse."⁴

So, what's going on here? Why do the mainstream media continue to tell us that the science "is in" on global warming, when so many scientists who actually deal with the scientific data say otherwise?⁵ Well, perhaps the mainstream media are relying on people like Randy Olson, a marine biologist turned movie maker, whose ideas about honesty include the notion that if you want to get a scientific message across to the scientifically illiterate public, don't obsess about facts.

In the dictionary:

• Fact is defined as "something that can be shown to be true."
• Knowledge is defined as "possession of ... truths."
• Science is defined as "knowledge ..."
• Disinformation, is defined as "false ... information."

So, I guess the Science of Disinformation is all about possessing information that does not support what people say when they want others to believe that science proves something they know it does not prove. Interesting notion of science, wouldn't you say? Let's hope our doctors don't adopt the climate change model of science any time soon. Can you imagine how you'd feel if your doctor operated on you for rectal cancer and the only thing you needed was a hemorrhoid suppository?

Jed Gladstein is an attorney, author and educator.

[bert]

......You think that will slow down the AGW train?.....

Slow? Perhaps. I think he is just piling on. Perhaps he sensed it was time for rational intellectuals to throw around a little weight. Perhaps he is coming out of the closet so to speak. I don’t know any one from MIT except my friend who recently retired as Professor from Carolina and of course Tim McGee on the NCIS staff.

A dynamic earth means that saving endangered species is necessary to preserve a status quo of some imagined time. We must save the rain forest and the polar bears. It has always seemed that liberals are so progressive socially and yet insist on no geological or climate or biological change from the status quo.

There is a lot at stake

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OK lets look at this...Blog:

Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?

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Thursday, 31 December, 2009

The 'airborne fraction' refers to the amount of human CO₂ emissions remaining in the atmosphere. Approximately 43% of our CO₂ emissions stay in the atmosphere with the rest being absorbed by carbon sinks. But is the airborne fraction increasing? A paper published in November 2009 found no statistically significant trend (Knorr 2009). Anthony Watts labeled this result the "Bombshell from Bristol" - A potentially devastating result for anthropogenic global warming. Was it such a shock? The 2007 IPCC verdict on the airborne fraction was "There is yet no statistically significant trend in the CO2 growth rate since 1958 .... This 'airborne fraction' has shown little variation over this period." (IPCC AR4) I'm not sure the move from "not much happening" "to "still not much happening" warrants the label "bombshell".

The airborne fraction is calculated from the rate of human CO₂ emissions and changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The global increase in atmospheric CO₂ has been directly measured since 1959 and can be calculated from ice cores for earlier periods. Primarily, CO₂ emissions come from fossil fuel combustion with a lesser contribution from land use changes. Fossil fuel combustion is calculated from international energy statistics. CO₂ emissions from land-use changes are more difficult to estimate and come with greater uncertainty. Land use emissions are estimated using deforestation and other land-use data, fire observations from space and carbon cycle modeling.

There have been several recent studies determining the airborne fraction. Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (Le Quere 2009) examines the airborne fraction from 1959 to 2008. This period was chosen as we have directly measured atmospheric CO₂ levels over this time. Fossil fuel emissions rose steadily in recent decades, contributing 8.7 ± 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon in 2008. This is 41% greater than fossil fuel emissions in 1990. CO₂ emissions from land use was estimated at 1.2 ± 0.4 gigatonnes of carbon in 2008. Note the proportionally higher uncertainty compared to fossil fuel emissions.

Over this period, an average of 43% of each year's CO₂ emissions remained in the atmosphere although there is much year-to-year variability. The noise in the airborne fraction was reduced by removing the variability associated with El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and volcanic activity. They found the airborne fraction increased by 3 ± 2% per decade. This is a slightly increasing trend although only barely statistically significant .

Knorr 2009 extends this analysis back to 1850 by combining direct CO₂ measurements from Mauna Loa and the South Pole with CO₂ data derived from Antarctic ice cores. This enabled Knorr to compare CO₂ emissions to atmospheric CO₂ levels for the past 150 years.

Figure 1: Observed increase atmospheric CO₂ derived from direct measurements, taking the average of Mauna Loa (Hawaii) and the South Pole (thin solid line) and two ice cores: Law Dome (dashed thin line) and Siple (thin dotted line). This is compared to total anthropogenic emissions (thick solid line) and 46% of total emissions (thick dashed line). (Knorr 2009)

Knorr finds that since 1850, the airborne fraction has eemained relatively constant. When CO₂emissions were low, the amount of CO₂absorbed by natural carbon sinks was correspondingly low. As human CO₂ emissions sharply increased in the 20th Century, the amount absorbed by nature increased correspondingly. The airborne fraction remained level at around 43%. The trend since 1850 is found to be 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade.

There are several differences in methodology between Knorr 2009 and Le Quere 2009. Knorr's result does not include the filtering for ENSO and volcanic activity employed by Le Quéré. However, when Knorr does include this filtering in his analysis, he finds a trend of 1.2 ± 0.9% per decade. This is smaller than Le Quere's result but is statistically significant.

Knorr also finds the 150 year trend while Le Quéré looks at the last 50 years. This may be significant. If the airborne fraction is increasing, it is possibly a recent phenomenon due to natural carbon sinks losing their absorption ability after becoming saturated. Several studies have found recent drops in the uptake of CO2 by oceans (Le Quere 2007, Schuster 2007, Park 2008). However, with such a noisy signal, this is one question that will require more data before being more fully resolved.

Lastly, some perspective. There are still areas of uncertainty associated with the carbon cycle. Because of this uncertainty, scientists are currently debating whether the airborne fraction is steady at 43% or slightly Increasing from 43%. Unfortunately, some skeptics use this uncertainty to hold the position that the airborne fraction is closer to 0%.

Posted by John Cook at 11:09 AM

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments to the Blog article just above......#43.:

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a coal-to-liquids plant in South Africa that is the world's biggest single source of CO2.

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Maybe we should shut that down...?

it would help...LOL!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments ...post #45 there.....I agree with what is said:

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ralphiegm at 12:09 PM on 5 January, 2010 Riccardo - not to disrespect any scientist - but do you believe there are enough data points throughout the entire shell of the atmosphere to accurately model CO2?

In my estimation there is not a computer model in the world that can predict future CO2 and future global temperatures. It is difficult to model a 2 dimensional system such as a river for pollutants with any degree of accuracy. Now, we are being told that the world can be modeled for a sneaky CO2 molecule.

Complicating matters infinitely is the fact that CO2 is part of the carbon-based life-cycle on our planet. I can only guess how many assumptions need to be made in such a model - which starts out with bare-boned CO2 data to begin with.

I think its an impossible task - and irresponsible of scientists to imply to the public that they know firmly anything at all about the climate other than what the weather channel can give us.

BTW - I have extensive computer modeling experience and a graduate degree in environmental engineering and know that models of natural systems are nothing more than curiosities. I don't like to see others touting these models as truth - cause they're not.

I would listen to a model of global CO2 that had 100 years of data tied with accurate temperature data and ground CO2 data at grid points of 5 miles including the oceans and air columns. Until that data arrives I'll be skeptical. No "tree rings" for me.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments to article...linked at post #31:

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Cassandra King (23:29:07) :

A very detailed reply but based on a series of flawed assumptions based on woefully short timelines and reference data from start to finish I fear.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide cannot cause or influence a runaway global warming indeed carbon dioxide is a product of cyclic warming not the cause and more importantly the vast bulk of atmospheric CO2 is natural, just one big volcanic erruption would negate any effort to limit CO2 output however much we cut at whatever cost.
This very simple reality has always caused the AGW theory the most anguish and it is why the AGW theorists try their best to hide and ignore it.
The earth is around 4.5 billion yrs old and at times the CO2 levels have been much higher and yet the earth did not enter a runaway death spiral.
Occams razor has been hidden in the attic it seems.
Dr Walt calls himself a sceptic, this seems to be a new and interesting fashion among those who have for so long pushed the AGW/AAM/MMCC theory, the actions of the climate science community however are anything but sceptical as we have seen by the manipulation of the historical temperature record.
The truth is very very simple and there is ample evidence to support this simple truth. Carbon dioxide has become the key to controlling the energy supply matrix, control the emission of human produced CO2 and you effectively control humanity. This control is very tempting to those with a taste for power and the means to gain that power.
So much time and money and reputations are invested in the AGW theory it is no surprise that scientists just cannot bear to admit that the theory has fatal flaws.
The earth warms and the earth cools in known cycles this simple fact seems to escape many scientists, as the earth warms carbon dioxide increases along with the planets biomass.
The planet has been warmer in the past and it has been colder in the past, there has been less CO2 in the atmosphere and more,sea levels have been higher and lower, there has been more ice at the poles and less, we have all the evidence we need to show that the earths climate moves in cycles and we see the product of these cycles in the geologic record.
How can a sceptical scientist infer anything whatsover from a thirty year satellite record of the polar caps, I cannot fathom how highly intelligent scientists can lose their sceptisism so easily and place their faith in models so flawed that they cannot predict a week ahead let alone a century(see met office).
The reality is simple, when a theory loses its simplicity it is time to start looking for another theory isnt it?
Climate science is tying itself in ever more complicated knots in the vain attempt to justify a theory long past its sell by date, the horse is dead so its time to stop flogging it, at some point as with plate tectonics the scientists involved are going to have to come to terms with the failure of the AGW theory and the sooner the better.
The tragedy is that so much valualble time and resources is being utterly wasted in the vain attempt to justify a socio political narrative and scientists have the moral duty to kill this narrative dead and make no mistake the AGW narrative deserves to be killed and the sooner the better for humanity.
BTW & FWIW & IMHO the reliance on a one hundred year old experiment carried out in a greenhouse is not the best of defences I think and the so called ocean acidification theory is about as far from reality it is possible to get, that little chesnut borders on voodoo/astrology/homeopathy IMHO.

[Marine_Uncle]

As usual. Quiet interesting reading on the CO2 subject. One thing on the AGW denier side is the models suck for the most part. It seems fair to assume we are years away from reaching an honest evaluation as to what causes short term and longer term global warming and it's counter part global cooling.
To many very complicated systems have been either ignored or just partially investigated thus far.

[Marine_Uncle]

OK E. I finally have made some time with a bit clear head to examine the "answer and questions" link via. WUPW regarding the interview with Dr. Meier. NH1, NH2 proposal etc..
Unless I had misread his comments directly concerning CO2 part of the issue, I believe he is not qualified to answer questions on that issue. For that matter he seems to be on the AGW side in effect.
I continue to be baffled at how so many scientist, I assume they have carefully studied what those that specialize in spectroscopy and have to say about the limitations of CO2 to absorb then re-emit in distinct very narrow bands with the 100 micron or so infra-red bandwidth, any significant transfer of heat into any other given molecule within the couple layers of the atmosphere in question.
And they seem to neglect the general acceptance that CO2 can only force to about 8% total heat tranfers based on observable readings as well as lab level experiments.
Such people when interviewed etc., seem to gloss over solid scientific conclusions.
His whole response was a bit wishy washy as far as I cam concerned. Dice throwing, simple graph depicting a few sigmas along a bell curve. I don't buy his simple explanations.
He in essence admits to being a believer in AGW. He smooths his lengthly answers to try to appear somewhat neutral at best.
In other words, I think he is full of bull shit.

[Marine_Uncle]

On the other hand. Richard Lindzen is solid. He has been around a long time and as far as I can see does not buy for one minute the many things that are thrown out as supposed peer reviewed and approved scientific conclusions. He is a real scientist. I do hope as indicated a number of times previous, we shall soon see growing numbers of solid scientist in the many associated fields that can relate and do contribute to what is known as climate change via. their particular deciplines come forth and do influence their universities and industries to not let the this crap get to the point where the one worlders can suck our pay checks out of our pockets under false pretenses.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Some where on a thread I had pointed to a series of 8 about 10 minute segments on youtube where Lindzen was very, very straight forward on how this whole Global Warming campaign had all the characteristics of the German, Italian propaganda campaigns ....of Hitler and Mussolini.

For anyone getting this far in the thread...the Globalist Crooks are rushing to get this game going ...meeting in Cancun where no snow will disturb them may be too late....see this thread:

Climategate bust: UN’s last, desperate bid for unelected world government depends on Bonn

[Billthedrill]

A BTT. Thanks for all the great research.

Profesor Lindzen nails it in the first paragraph, IMHO:

In a world where climate change has always been the norm, climate change is now taken as punishment for sinful levels of consumption. In a world where we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day, we treat changes of a few tenths of a degree in some statistical residue, known as the global mean temperature anomaly (GATA), as portents of disaster.

One cannot help a little skepticism at the level of religious fervor that appears to regard man's very existence (and especially his material progress) as a sin against Mother Gaia. There was once a time when someone carrying a "Repent Or The World Will End" sandwich sign was the very caricature of a kook. They're all over the place now, and it isn't funny anymore.

[Marine_Uncle]

I’ll check out your latest link E. Perhaps shortly I will hit the sack. I do distinctly remember within this post what you said. I have been hitting up some of the links as my time permits over the past two days. Do try to have a great upcoming day.

[Marine_Uncle]

"However, one empty chair is a pointer of things to come. The Holy See – a tiny nation in its own right, with a billion citizens around the world – has left its chair empty. And that is significant. If “global warming” still mattered, the Vatican would make sure that its representatives were present throughout this gloomy gathering of world-government wannabes."
Bingo! Yes E. I had read this post about an hour back. Thanks.
Let us hope the whole movement slowly dies....along with all the bankers and other hopefuls that they can make a easy killing on carbon taxes/credits. And let us hope Obi from Nairobi and his side kick Lisa Jackson get a big surprise from our Congress in the days to come.
I also hope the conservative side of the Parliament in England start to challenge Brown and his clowns on this issue and educate the English voters as how they are being fully had! It would be a nice start to the end of the biggest crime in the last century.
No one will go to jail. But as long as all these bastards are finally silenced and put out of action would be ok with me.