WUWT

Jonathan Baxter Christopher Keating • 2 hours ago

You're a joke Keating. Here's my submission: http://wattsupwiththat.files.w...

I suggest you do your homework before accusing others of not doing so. How many original climate science papers have you read? Not the environmentalist puff pieces, or secondary sources such as skeptical[sic]science, but actual papers with actual modeling. I have read hundreds (see, I have a PhD in physics/math/stats so I can. Can you?) Lindzen's points are valid. His particular hypotheses may not be correct but he's doing research in a widely accepted uncertain area (cloud feedback). It's not like his critics have better justified alternative models in that area. But his points about feedbacks and warming are valid. Calculate it for yourself, it shouldn't be difficult for someone such as you that claims such a deep and fundamental knowledge of climate physics. Mainstream claims of high climate sensitivity are critically dependent on noisy (uncertain) terms that appear in the denominator of the feedback formula (that's the term on the bottom of the fraction if "denominator" is outside your vocabulary). And your claims that his views are somehow paid for by the fossil fuel industry are ridiculous (why don't you do a bit of research and find out exactly how much he was paid before making such stupid claims).



Response:

Anytime you use WUWT as your reference you are almost certainly wrong. You would know that if you had bothered to do a little homework. Watts is a hero in the contrarian community but has zero credibility out of it. So, if all you want to do is be a contrarian, then you're fine. But, if you want to be educated on the subject matter and be taken seriously by anyone other than contrarians, I suggest you dump him and move on to someone more credible.

This graph is a perfect example.This graph originated with one of the biggest frauds in science - Mr. Roy Spencer. I have already reviewed it and found issues with it, but also found a site that did a really thorough debunking of this graph. Someone asked me once, did Roy Spencer make this up? The answer is, yes, he did. The plots are valid, but are all plotted against a false baseline that results in shifting the models up. Also, the observed data is not plotted consistently. I have to conclude, looking at the plots and the analysis, that it was done intentionally in order to make the models look invalid. That would be consistent with previous work by Spencer.

I seriously doubt you are a Ph.D. and I do not believe you have read even a single scientific paper on climate change. You may have pointed your eyes at some, but you didn't read them. If you did you would not be professing an admiration for Richard Lindzen. Take a look at this article on RealClimate.org. In case you are wondering, RealClimate is written by working climate scientists. As for the amount of money Lindzen makes from the fossil fuel industry, take a look at this summary of news reports on the subject:

In a biographical note at the foot of a column published in Newsweek in 2007, Lindzen wrote that "his research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies." (Emphasis added).^[7]
Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author, wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan reports Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."^[8]
A decade later Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam reported, based on an interview with Lindzen, that "he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the 1990s, and has taken none of their money since."^[9]

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. - See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/about/#sthash.sZuAQipA.dpuf

I estimate Lindzen received in excess of $1 million from the fossil fuel industry, all the while stating over and over that he did not receive any fossil fuel funds for his research. It is clear that he was being very careful in his wording in order to hide the fact he was on the fossil fuel payroll. The lie of omission is still a lie. He now works at the Cato Institute, a well-known denier organization funded by the fossil fuel industry.

Nor would you have accepted that graph above without skepticism. If, as you claim, you have read hundreds of papers on climate change, then one single look at that plot should have told you it was falsified. The literature is very clear about the accuracy of models and, based on those papers you claim to have read, at least some of the models should have been within the range of the data. But, not a single one approaches the data after 2005. That simply does not reflect what the literature says. Why is that? You should have known right off the bat that this graph was not accurate.

But, to argue models as evidence against man made global warming is a completely false argument in any event. Models are not climate change. They are only one tool out of a whole tool bag we have to investigate the climate. Global warming is the reality of nature, not some set of mathematical equations. I did a posting about models and the false arguments that are invoked. This posting includes a discussion about the analysis of the above plot along with a link to the original analysis.

But, in the end, you never proposed any argument or evidence to show man made global warming is not real, so this never even qualified as a submission.

You did not prove man made global warming is not real.