John Coleman

GregP507 · Nov 2, 2014

Perhaps my biggest disappointment is the apparent trend nowadays towards character attacks instead of engaging the actual issues. Whatever you think of him personally, examine his claims before casting judgement on his character.

austingreen · Nov 2, 2014

tochatihu said: ↑

Bengtsson's manuscript may be here:
klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/2013/03/lennart-bengtsson-global-climate-change.html

But dangit, websites that include 'blogspot' are not accessible in all countries

Somebody please take a look and perhaps make it available by other means.
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Its a webpage not a pdf so I am not sure a good way to send it. I am not sure if this is the paper refered to in the latest der spiegel, but certanly can see the phrases that made people cll bengtsson, and shun him. Anyway here is my brief cut and paste. The gist

Among meteorologists and well educated people the role of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is relatively well understood such that an increased concentration leads to higher temperatures at the surface and a cooling of the lower stratosphere. This has also been observed. The problem is not the direct effect of the greenhouse gases that is relatively minor, with about 1° warming for each doubling of the CO2 concentration, but the feedback processes in the climate system. Some of these are likely to be positive such as water vapour; others such as clouds are still not well understood. The feedbacks of the climate system dominate the outcome but are unfortunately so far not well handled by models. It is the main cause to the large differences between models.

However, the really important question is to know how much warmer it will be and how fast this is likely to happen as this determines a realistic and sensible cause of action. In spite of all research and modelling experimentation we are actually less sure what will happen than what might appear from all reassuring reports that dominates the media. Irrespective of all worrisome media report on the drama of climate change, climate is in fact warming much slower than anticipated. The very first climate simulations that were made almost a quarter of a century ago and at least according to the simulation by the MPI model in Hamburg, the global warming today should rather be 1.25°C than the present 0.75°C. And this is spite of a relatively large (cooling) aerosol effect of the Hamburg model that at the time was larger than the present view of IPCC today. The tropics are a crucial area as it is here where the greenhouse effect is largest. During the period 1979-2012 for which we have reliable observations, the warming of the lower tropical troposphere, 20°S – 20°N, has only got about a third of the warming compared to what is predicted by present climate models.

Figure 2. Tropical temperature changes at different pressure levels for 1979-2012 and for different observing systems and for a range of model experiments used in IPCC AR5 (courtesy J. Christy) The warming trend my the models is about 3 times larger than the observations.
There is no simple explanation to this, except that the planet is capable to get rid of the heat more effectively than in the models. This can be due to errors in handling the clouds or that the water vapour effect is overestimated and that in reality the atmosphere is loosing heat to space in regions of very dry air that is not well represented in models. Alternatively more heat is effectively transported into the depth of the oceans. However, the observational records are clear and the global warming is proceeding much slower than generally is anticipated.
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This is certainly not breaking any new ground but framing a discussion. Those models do overestimate warming, so either we are storing future warming as he said with heat in the ocean, or the sensitivity is too high. Either way the models need to be looked at.

Here is the more controversial part of the manuscript.

Instead of being grateful for this comforting result the reaction is rather the opposite. In the almost hysterical climate hype of today a less dramatic warming is not very well received as all political correct members of the public would prefer to hide this uncomfortable fact by following the popular maxim of letting the ends justify the means. From the standpoint of the green movement all political efforts, even extreme ones, are required as they wish to abandon fossil energy as well as nuclear energy and this at a time when the world population is increasing and where the lack of suitable energy is a primary obstacle towards a better life. To achieve this in a short period of time is like the squaring of the cube. Even Germany with its considerable economical and technical resources has been forced to build a number of fossil fuel power stations (using lignite) to replace nuclear power stations, as this is the only way to assure a steady supply of electricity in a time scale of a few decades. Renewable energy can only serve as complements as there is presently no way to store electricity effectively in the amounts required.

The global climate policy has unfortunately been a failure mainly because of an inconsistency in the carbon tax policy. A carbon tax is an effective way to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. However, the effect of carbon tax in the EU has had the effect to transfer the production of goods that emit large amount of CO2 to countries that did not sign the Kyoto agreement such as the countries in the developing countries. Goods demanding use of fossil energy can therefore be produced outside the Europe and than be exported to Europe. The consequence is at best an unchanged amount of CO2 emission as it has only moved outside the EU. The consequence is loss of jobs and production capabilities in the EU with no effect at all on the global emission of CO2. As a minimum a corresponding import tax should be levied on relevant imported goods. As this has not been the case the Kyoto agreement has in this crucial aspect been a failure.

During the next 50 years the global primary energy must at least be increased by a factor of two that means that both fossil energy and nuclear energy will have to increase. The renewable energy is insufficient although not in theory but in practise. The reason is its low energy density and huge variation in time because of the weather. A central crucial factor is the insufficient capabilities of storing energy. The most positive development in recent years is the exploration of huge amounts of shale gas in the United States that is rapidly reducing the emission of CO2. A complete replacement of coal by gas will make it possible to half the CO2emission. A similar possibility might be possible also in China that has huge amounts of shale gas as well.
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wjtracy · Nov 2, 2014

If we entered a new ice age, we would still have a bitter energy debate, in the US at least I think.
It's a political debate about energy choices, IMHO, and global warming is in part the latest tool to argue for change to alternate energy sources.

What has happened over the last decade IMHO, we have gone away from a bipartisan effort to find alternate fuels. The earlier Bipartisan effort to start to encourage alternate fuels during Bush-II admin was due to the perception fossil fuels were running out fairly quickly. Since then the whole energy picture had changed drastically. Now some feel we could still rely on fossil fuels (from a supply side) but that's an anathama to some who say, well if there is a good supply of fossil fuels, we still need to leave it in the ground.

tplife · Nov 18, 2014

I only have 3 co-authored publications in Genetics, none in Meteorology...But I know the difference between Peer-Reviewed and Agenda-Driven.

Global Warming Petition Project

GregP507 · Nov 18, 2014

tplife said: ↑

I only have 3 co-authored publications in Genetics, none in Meteorology...But I know the difference between Peer-Reviewed and Agenda-Driven.

Global Warming Petition Project
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I have similar credentials, but I know the difference between dismissing evidence on sight because of where it came from; versus judging it based on it's own merits.

tplife · Nov 19, 2014

I guess you mean the latest satellite estimates showing big increases of ice on both polar caps...You Funny!

Trollbait · Nov 19, 2014

Don't confuse ice surface area with ice mass.
Just because a lake is frozen over doesn't necessarily mean you won't fall through if go out on it.

John Coleman

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Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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John Coleman

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Trollbait It's a D&D thing