Posted on 04/02/2002 3:32:39 PM PST by liberallarry
Lindzen said in his recent Congressional testimony that major past climate changes were either uncorrelated with changes in CO2 or were characterized by temperature changes that preceded changes in CO2 by 100's to thousands of years.
Gentlemen I apologive for my late and certainly inadequate reply - I simply have too little time, to do proper research or even be sure I have read and understood all the responses. But I do want to get the following out for review:
Scientific American ran an article on Richard Lindzen - "Dissent in the Maelstrom (Sci.-Am., november 2001)", which I think does a good job in presenting his views and outlining the controversy.
"(Lindzen)fiercely disputes the conclusions of this past spring's report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)...and those of a recent NAS report that reviewed the panel's work."
Why?
"Lindzen dismisses this analysis (of observed historical climate change) by questioning the method for determining historical temperatures...Mann (Michael E. Mann, geologist at University of Virginia and lead author of the IPCC's past-climate chapter) was flabbergasted when I questioned him about Lindzen's critique, which he called 'nonsense' and 'hogwash'".
"Past climate isn't the only point of divergence. Lindzen also says there is little cause for concern in the future. The key to his opitimism is a parameter called 'climate sensitivity'. This variable represents the increase in global temperature expected if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubles over pre-industrial levels...Whereas the IPCC and the NAS calculate climate sensitivity to be somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees C., Lindzen insists that it is in the neighborhood of 0.4 degrees. The IPCC and the NAS derived the higher range after incorporating positive feedback mechanisms...(Lindzen) says negative...feedback rules the day."
After reading this I concluded that it was impossible for even a scientifically literate amateur to add anything to the dispute. Spunkets I find your idea that "A high school person should be able to answer that question. A college grad should understand it. It follows from the gas law..." to be ridiculous. Some of the world's top scientists, in the face of the most intense scrutiny by peers and public, continue to maintain their position even though high-school graduates can see the flaw in their position? No-way. PeaceBeWithYou, your suggestion that I should slink away because I can't refute Seitz's contentions is pathetic. If any amateur could do so what would that say about his creditials? Kidd, I find it disturbing that I cannot find any reference to Seitz and his petition in the mainstream literature. Why is that? Am I simply missing it? To those who criticize my conflict of interest argument regarding businessmen, unfortunately there's a lot of truth in what you say. No-one is free from bias or greed, or a deadly mix of the two. But I think people also have integrity - they try to remain true to what they believe. Which is why I conclude that people often support politicians who share their views rather than believing that politicians are always for sale to the highest bidder. Scientists principle motivation is a search for understanding of the objective world. Businessmens principle motivation is a devotion to the bottom line. That makes a difference.
While I won't argue the motivation of businessmen, I will argue the motivation of modern-day scientists. True, scientists of the pre-1940s were motivated by the excitement of discovery. This is sadly quite untrue in modern times. WWII changed the primary source of funding for science from private funds to public funds. Defense sponsored funding radically changed American science for the worse. Sputnik and the Cold War only aggrevated this. By the late 60s, America was producing tons of mediocre scientists in response to Sputnik. Sources of private funding were rare, and still are relatively rare. University scientists soon discovered that in order to survive as a scientist in an era of ever tightening federal dollars, that it became necessary to make a name for oneself. These mediocre scientists discovered that if you predicted the possible destruction of mankind that you could raise public interest, and thus raise funding for continued research in that area. Such global disasters include: an impending ice age, a population explosion, meteors crashing into earth, AIDS, radon, "the big-one" to hit California, and the great pseudo-scientist gold mine of them all: human induced global warming.
Science is not the honorable profession that it once was. There are still honorable scientists out there, mostly funded by private sources, but they tend to study the stuff that results in small advances that don't make the headlines.
I speak from years of battling garbage science, particularly science from government agencies.
Prof. Lindzen has described how funding agencies stopped funding some university research unfavorable to their view of global warming. See the Cato site.
Well, I knew you wouldn't read the link that I provided. How do I know that you didn't you ask? Because my "friend", you continue to attribute the petition effort to just Dr. Sietz, when in fact if you had read it you would know that it is a combined analysis by the scientist of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and the George C. Marshall Institute, compiled by PhD's Arthur B. Robison(Professor of Chemistry), Sallie L. Baliunas(PhD. Astrophysics-Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , Associate of the Harvard College Observatory), Willie Soon(PhD. Physics-The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute.), Zachary W. Robinson(PhD. Chemistry-Iowa State University), as well as Frederick Seitz(Stanford University (mathematics) and Princeton University (physics)Full bio here. The article is heavily referenced to the following sources.
During the last 2 years 17,100+ basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, are in agreement with the petition.
Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists(select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.
Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.
Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields. In addition to these 17,100, approximately 2,400 individuals have signed the petition who are trained in fields other than science or whose field of specialization was not specified on their returned petition.
Of the 19,700 signatures that the project has received in total so far, 17,800 have been independently verified and the other 1,900 have not yet been independently verified. Of those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified. One name that was sent in by enviro pranksters, Geri Halliwell, PhD, has been eliminated. Several names, such as Perry Mason and Robert Byrd are still on the list even though enviro press reports have ridiculed their identity with the names of famous personalities. They are actual signers. Perry Mason, for example, is a PhD Chemist.
The costs of this petition project have been paid entirely by private donations. No industrial funding or money from sources within the coal, oil, natural gas or related industries has been utilized. The petition's organizers, who include some faculty members and staff of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, do not otherwise receive funds from such sources. The Institute itself has no such funding. Also, no funds of tax-exempt organizations have been used for this project.
The signatures and the text of the petition stand alone and speak for themselves. These scientists have signed this specific document. They are not associated with any particular organization. Their signatures represent a strong statement about this important issue by many of the best scientific minds in the United States.
This project is titled "Petition Project" and uses a mailing address of its own because the organizers desired an independent, individual opinion from each scientist based on the scientific issues involved - without any implied endorsements of individuals, groups, or institutions.
It is you who are pathetic.
Man created Global Warming is a myth. The notion that it is to be feared or stopped is Eco-hype, and you if you still believe it, have been thoroughly and completely Greenwashed.
You asked me to "slink away" if I couldn't refute the petition's assertions. I said you were pathetic to think that an amateur's inability to do so indicated that the petition must be correct.
Now you assert that I must slink away even faster because so many more high-powered people support or wrote it! Aren't you ashamed to call such thinking reason?
I have not seen any reference to the petition any mainstream media - such as Scientific American, for example. That's distubing. If I've missed it, then tell me where to look.
I'll have to mention here that my comment regarded the statemnts by some, that more dangerous and violent weather developements would occur given the temps those folks were claiming. High school graduates wouldn't be expected to understand it, there's not much they really do understand. Most can grasp the concept though, and they should be taught how to use the gas law.
The gas law is appropriate to this question, because the atmosphere is a gas, bounded by the Earth and it's gravitational field. In other words it's a gas in a plastic container. One of the walls represented by the Earth's gravitational field is elastic, so neither the volume, or the pressure is exactly constant. Now the energy of the gas is P*V, so E = P*V. Take the example of the temp rise of 1.8oC estimated for the year ~2090 by the NSF, or check my FR bookmarks for a quick est. of the limit of temp rise for doubling the CO2, it's essentially the same number.
So T1 = 18oC = 291oK
and
T2 = 19.8oC = 292.8oK
Oh, I see someone's raised their hand. Yes, Mary...question. Mary asks, "what about the water, isn't there more water in the atmosphere if it's hotter." Why yes there is, since I let the P and V vary, lets account for the change in n, the number of moles of gas. That can be done easily by adjusting n2 by multiplying it by the ratio of the final pressure of the atmosphere to the initial pressure of the atmosphere at constant volume. Since the total pressure is a sum of the partial pressures, and at constant volume n will scale accordingly.
and at
Then at
So,
combining gives:
or,
So E after warming is:
So the new total E is 0.9% higher than it was before it warmed up a hundred years from now. That's ~1% more available E/storm and it's not significant.
It's not significant for any storm, because the energy of any particular location in the atmosphere is a random variable. Random variables follow a gaussian dist and the center of that dist is the average E. Storms are due to pressure differentials from atmospheric locations with different E's. So if the number of locations with different E, NEi, of a particular Ei, are plotted against Ei for the initial and final E's, in this case the higher temp envelope will be the same as the lower temp envelope, shifted around the higher average E2. The 1% change in avg. E isn't going to effect sigma, the std dev, for the 2 systems, because nothing significant was introduced to effect variability. So storm intensity will scale proportional to the avg E's for the 2 temps.
Now this example shows how to find and grasp what the limit is to any modeling of atmospheric disturbances done in a more detailed and complex way. Increasing the size of the vessel does not change the gas law in any way, it's validity is independent of V. It's valid so long as the gas is not near a critical point and the bulk of it's not. Water is, but if you compare the 0.6% increase, to the extra 0.3% from this calc, it still doesn't amount to spit as far as adding anything significant to the change in avg E, or the envelope of the atmospheric pressures that give rise to storms.
I don't read and follow all volumes of data and reports about this subject. I don't have the time. I believe the KISS principle always applies and should always be used to understand things and fish through the fog of obfuscation for the truth.
" No-one is free from bias or greed"...and"..."
I am. Moral folks seek truth and understanding, whether they're scientists, businessmen, whatever... I'm just a third world chicken farmer that believes in protecting Freedom. The KISS principle always works, especially to uncover a con. Cons are always an immoral scheme to subvert Freedom and individual rights. Public schools don't teach these things, because if they did, their cons would have no effect and the socialist system they promote would fail to progress and vanish.
You're welcome to email my reply to any "top scientists", or those expert in atmospheric modeling and ask they refute my analysis of the strange and destructive weather scare many warmists promote. I claim that this outline provides a reality constraint for any modeling output.
2660 individuals especially well qualified to evaluate "the effects of carbon dioxide on the earth's atmosphere and climate"? Were there really so many professionals who could do that?
I figured they must all belong to various professional organizations. So I looked at meteorologists and climatologists. I think what I found was 600 of the former and 50 of the latter - plus or minus. Could they have all have signed the petition? NOT A CHANCE. Even half would be generous. 325 or so. So who were the remaining 2300?
At that point I gave up.
And let me make sure I understand what you are claiming...That there are only 650 PhD's in climatology and meterology in the world?
You are insane, ingenuine, or both.
You're a lieberal alright.
Each state has a climatologist.
The American Meteorological Association (I believe that's the correct name) has a membership of 600.
Of course, I looked at the list. Some people identified themselves by profession and degree. Others didn't. I had no way of verifying anything without a great deal of research - which I hadn't the time or interest to do. I felt that if the petition had standing in the scientific community it would become part of the public dispute - mentioned in the mainstream press. It hasn't been - so far as I could discover - so I have reason to question its worth.
Your original claim was that if I couldn't refute the substance of the petition then it must be true and the IPCC wrong - a claim I find utterly pathetic. Do you still maintain that stance? Are you finished with name-dropping and name-calling? Can you argue a point or are you capable only of blowing smoke?
1) Because there's no way to force them to conform.
2) I don't know - but it seems the answer is in "and its forests".
3) How would I know? I haven't seen any relevant proposals - except the obvious one which you reject as too expensive.
Using the gas law you calculate the increase in energy available for storm creation in the atmosphere 100 years from now - about 1% based on a temperature rise of 1.8 degrees.
You then say that storm magnitudes follow a probability distribution and this distribution remains the same, independent of the rise in energy, except for a possible exception regarding water - which you consider later. Since the distribution remains the same one can pretty much expect a linear relationship between storm magnitude and energy level, i.e. storm magnitude shouldn't increase by much more than 1%, on average. Finally, you consider water and conclude that it does not near its critical point in the energy range under consideration.
If I can follow the argument virtually any real scientist concerned with atmospherics can. The idea that they couldn't, or didn't is ridiculous. I don't have to e-mail anyone.
I'm glad you don't suffer from greed or bias.
Here's page 6 of the NSF report. I don't notice they've tempered their speculative musings by any reality constraints. Their report is essentially a speculative statement on global climate and weather that includes extensive mention of local systems, with no caution whatsoever that the global climate can't be significantly different than what's already been experienced. If the global climate isn't significantly different, all the various local climates won't be either.
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