I wanted to link to Richard Lindzen’s Congressional testimony. For slides, they are pretty easy to follow as they are mostly text. I want to particularly point out slide 4, which I think on one page outlines the single most important point to understand about anthropogenic global warming theory. When given just one minute to discuss climate, this slide embodies the message I give.
Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC. It is crucial to be aware of their implications.
1. A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models, there are positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain.
2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.
Given the above, the notion that alarmingwarming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC. 4
Many of the slides are showing as blank pages. Are you sure the pdf is OK, and not corrupted?
JohnF, the slides all look fine to me. No blank pages. You might want to re-download, or reboot – could be a memory issue.
Oh, hush now. People aren’t actually supposed to read those IPCC reports or take what’s in them seriously. That’s why all those citations were garbage; no one thought they’d be checked or that they even mattered in the end. The primary purpose for the IPCC reports is for legislators to point to authoritative looking piles of paper when presenting otherwise obviously insane plans for government action. Put an impressive title and seal on it, and it goes from random stuff no one really cares about to being The Science™ and/or The Consensus™.
****”That’s why all those citations were garbage; no one thought they’d be checked or that they even mattered in the end.”
Riiiiiiight Richard, that’s why they put their reports free online in Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.
Good thinking.
Waldo A — How many of the citations did you check?
I didn’t check any either until some wierd ones were pointed out to me in a few blogs. And how many politicians would check, or even understand what it was all about.
Waldo A — How many of the citations did you check?
I didn’t check any either until some weird ones were pointed out to me in a few blogs. And how many politicians would check, or even understand what it was all about.
Check what exactly, Ted? Most of the citations I’ve seen come from scientific journals such as Progress in Physical Geography or Nature Geoscience or Science or the like. The vast majority, in fact, are peer-reviewed scholarly science journals.
I too checked out some “weird ones” from the “No frakken consensus” blog (or something like that) and what I found that yes, in a few rare circumstances the IPCC used newspaper articles to discuss minor related points such as the cost of insurance premiums or recent news events such as forest fires–the kind of things, in other words, not necessary for peer review. The vast majority was science done by scientists.
Specifically, which “weird ones” were you referring to?
And no, the politicians may not understand the science any better than you or I would. But that’s why we have scientists. The scientists do the science and then advise the politicians.
And beware the blogs, man, they tend to distort things.
Waldo,
“And beware the blogs, man, they tend to distort things.”
Agree, but it would be good advice to apply that same caution to all sources. They’re all prone to distorting facts to fit their agendas… financial, political, or academic.
To Waldo A
Please read:
Sarcasm
Irony
Satire
***”They’re all prone to distorting facts to fit their agendas… financial, political, or academic.”
True to a point, Russ. But this is also a nasty charge unless one has some pretty solid proof. And I simply don’t see the proof and only the weakest evidence (yes, the CRU emails).
What gets me is how incredibly credulous the denialist camp is to these same sorts charges when coming from dubious sources, and yet will find no fault with commentators such as Mr. Meyer, netdr, ADiff, or Wally, who pretty clearly have political agendas involved–which might be characterized as financial, political, and academic.
It’s the double standard that gets me.
I hope, Russ, that you will be as vigilant pointing out this irony here as you have been toward climate scientists.
And I’m sorry Richard, did not read the sarcasm, irony, or satire in your comments–hard to define tone in a blog, and your comments read pretty much like your typical run-of-the-mill denialist.
With that in mind, however, good job on the sarcasm, irony, and satire.
Waldo,
Fear not. I endeavor to apply the same degree of skepticism to claims made by other skeptics.
For example, Lindzen’s statement “If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C.” doesn’t fit at all with the observations and simple back-of-the-envelope math.
Using IPCC AR4 (2007) as a reference, the past century saw global average surface temperature rise by 0.74 C (1906-2005). During that time period atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 295 to 379 ppm. If one indeed assumes that all of that warming was due to CO2, simple math gives us a climate sensitivity value of 2.05C for a doubling of CO2. (2.05C = 0.74C/ln(379/295)*ln(2))
So, I have my doubts about Lindzen’s climate sensitivity of “less than 1C”.
Excellent summary of the key issues. The alarm is not about a warming of the globe, nor particularly AGW. It is about CAGW. Only if the anthropogenic contribution is large and overwhelming is there any reason to be concerned, let alone change our ways.
In order to get over the why-worry threshold to 3+K/100 years, we must more than double the heating rate of the last 35 years. In order to get over the why-worry rate of historical and current sea-level increases (18 & 32cm/100 years, respectively) to alarm levels of >100cm/100 years, we must triple what is currenly happening. All the danger is in the future by modelling. Polar bears are not in danger, despite what people might imagine, but MIGHT be in danger IF the projections are correct.
The warmist agenda is vunerable at its base. To data. The people are swayed by conclusions, not observations. But to get them to look backward instead of forward ….
Does uncertain = nonexistent?
A CONSPIRACY OF SELF INTEREST
Is global warming a conspiracy ? Did a group of scientists go to a back room and make up Global Warming to make a lot of money. Of course not. What exists is a “CONSPIRACY OF SELF INTEREST”. It is to the best interest of all climate scientists for enough plausibility be found in Global Warming AKA climate change AKA climate disruption AKA weirding weather to keep the lights on and their paychecks coming in. If global Warming were to be found to be entirely natural, funding and staffs would be drastically cut.
To be fair around 1998 when there had been many years of continuous warming I can see why the climatologists were concerned. They projected the current temperature rise to mean 3 ° C by 2100. They didn’t have a crystal ball to predict that over the next 12 years temperatures would slowly fall. Studying global warming seemed to make sense. Of course once the laboratories had been built and the scientists hired there was a “constituency “ for further research.
Most scientist just want to study something and get paid for it and the best way to do that is to go with the flow. Climate change or global warming in the title of your study doubles the chances of it being funded by government or Greenpeace or WWF. After you take their money you had better find serious consequences if you ever want to get any more $.
In addition Climategate has proved that the CO2 mafia is so firmly entrenched that it would be professional suicide to try to do research into non CO2 based causes of our slight warming.
There is a pile of money to be extracted from a gullible public. That is where the true conspiracy exists. Cap and trade’s only function is to make tens of trillions of dollars to companies like Enron and the Chicago Board of trade. Cap and trade makes no sense even if you believe in AGW because it exports jobs to the coal powered factories of 3 rd world countries. So the worldwide emission of CO2 goes up.
Then there are other one worlder types who didn’t invent global warming but are happy to let it be a battering ram to help them get a redistribution of wealth and a world government. Notice that I don’t claim these people invented global warming but they are using it.