While the US Congress ponders costly measures to restrict emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the belief that by so doing they will save the planet from "catastrophic" global warming (as the doomsayers like to proclaim), the evidence that convincingly debunks the entire global warming theory upon which the climate change hysteria is based continues to mount. The latest devastating nail in the global warming coffin comes from Dr. Richard S. Lindzen of MIT, considered by many to be the world's foremost atmospheric physicist/meteorologist.
Deconstructing Global Warming A Presentation by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, MIT
Dr. Lindzen's presentation requires an hour to watch, but it is very interesting, designed for all audiences, and well worth your time.
One of Lindzen's charts is particularly instructive as it puts today's global warming hysteria in an interesting context. Lindzen quotes from a report:
“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot. Reports all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees, 29 minutes. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”
Sounds like something from Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" (truly, "A Convenient Lie"), doesn't it? It also sounds like more hysterical testimony of Dr. James E. Hansen, NASA's funding spigot for billions of dollars each year based on his climate scare campaign in Congress!
However, the material quoted is actually taken from a statement by NOAA. Well, not exactly NOAA, but NOAA's predecessor, the US Weather Bureau ... in ... 1922.
They were quite worried in the 1920 to 1940 period as natural warming grew steadily, peaking in the 1930s before beginning a 25-year decline to the mid-1970s.
The Lindzen presentation's concluding coup de grâce is a discussion of the keystone for the "human emissions of CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming" theory. Namely, that while warming from additional emissions and natural increases of CO2 will be minimal (the claim is for 1°C warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 over the next 100 years), the great threat is asserted to be from the positive feedback that comes from more atmospheric water vapor and clouds as a consequence of the slightly warmer atmosphere. About this postulated positive feedback, Lindzen writes:
Embarrassingly, the estimates of the equilibrium response to a doubling of CO2 have basically remained unchanged since 1979. They are that models project a sensitivity of from 1.5°-5°C. Is simply running models the way to
determine this? Why hasn’t the uncertainty diminished?
There follows a much more rigorous determination using physics and satellite data.
We have a 15-year (1985–1999) record of the earth radiation budget from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE;
Barkstrom 1984) nonscanner edition 3 dataset. This is the only stable long-term climate dataset based on broadband flux
measurements and was recently altitude-corrected (Wong et al. 2006). Since 1999, the ERBE instrument has been replaced by the better CERES instrument. From the ERBE/CERES monthly data, we calculated anomalies of LW-emitted, SW-reflected, and the total outgoing fluxes.
We also have a record of sea surface temperature for the same period from the National Center for Environmental Prediction.
Finally, we have the IPCC model-calculated radiation budget for models forced by observed sea surface temperature from the
Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Program at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of the DOE.
...
The idea now is to take fluxes observed by satellite and produced by models forced by observed sea surface temperatures, and see how these fluxes change with fluctuations in sea surface temperature. This allows us to evaluate the feedback factor.
Remember, we are ultimately talking about the greenhouse effect. It is generally agreed that doubling CO2 alone will cause about 1°C warming due to the fact that it acts as a ‘blanket.’ Model projections of greater warming absolutely depend on positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds that will add to the ‘blanket’ – reducing the net cooling of the climate system.
The fact that all models show a negative slope corresponding to a positive feedback, has led virtually all scientific bodies including the IPCC to declare this property to be ‘robust.’ But, what does the data show?
We see that for models, the uncertainty in radiative fluxes makes it impossible to pin down the precise sensitivity because they are so close to unstable ‘regeneration.’ This, however, is not the case for the actual climate system where the sensitivity is about 0.5°C for a doubling of CO2. From the brief SST record, we see that fluctuations of that magnitude occur all the time.
What we see is that the very foundation of the issue of global warming is wrong.
Did you notice any headlines about this fantastic good news?
Have you seen: "Global Warming Natural! Fossil Fuels Vindicated!"? Perhaps you've seen: "Gore Wrong, Planet Not in Danger!"?
Neither have I.
Isn't it absolutely astonishing how our "objective" media are completely blind to good news about climate change while continuing to promote the rubbish that pours unrestrained from the proponents of human-caused global warming?
Please contact your Senators and demand they oppose the costly Cap & Trade bill (disguised as a "clean air" or "national defense" measure!).
The cost to our weakened economy of a measure designed to enrich liars like Al Gore and make our energy and fuel costs skyrocket may be the death blow to any economic recovery. We cannot allow that to happen.
Nobody needs a costly, economy-busting climate bill when we now know there is nothing to be gained from it!
Author of "Looking Out the Window", an evidence-based examination of the "climate change" issue, Bob Webster, is a 12th-generation descendent of both the Darte family (Connecticut, 1630s) and the Webster family (Massachusetts, 1630s). He is a descendant of Daniel Webster's father, Revolutionary War patriot Ebenezer Webster, who served with General Washington. Bob has always had a strong interest in early American history, our Constitution, U.S. politics, and law. Politically he is a constitutional republican with objectivist and libertarian roots. He has faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and reason over deception and emotion. He is a strong believer in our Constitution as written and views the abandonment of constitutional restraint by the regressive Progressive movement as a great danger to our Republic. His favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and believes it should be required reading for all high school students so they can appreciate the cost of tolerating the growth of unconstitutional crushingly powerful central government. He strongly believes, as our Constitution enshrines, that the interests of the individual should be held superior to the interests of the state.
A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.
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