Richard Lindzen's cries about alarmism are often made and seldom substantiated, writing about Lindzen's UK testimony Gavin Schmidt notes that: > Throughout his testimony, Lindzen refers to the global warming 'alarmists'. In my dictionary an 'alarmist' is defined as 'a person who alarms others needlessly'. However, Lindzen appears to define as 'alarmism' anything that links human activities to climate change. For instance, when discussing the statement from the NRC (2001) report (which he co-authored): The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability., he states that "To be sure, this statement is leaning over backwards to encourage the alarmists". To my mind, this statement is actually a fair assessment of both the NRC report, and IPCC report to which it was referring. To claim that this is 'alarmist' is such a gross overuse of the term as to make it useless except as a rhetorical device. < http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/#more-222 Few comments on the Lindzen writes in the Opinion Journal: > To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. < Yet he completely fails to tell us why we should not think man is responsible. What he is probably after is this (from the same RealClimate page): > Lindzen accepts the main principle of the greenhouse effect, that increasing greenhouse gases (like CO2) will cause a radiative forcing that, all other things being equal, will cause the surface to warm. He uses an odd measure of its effectiveness though, claiming that a doubling of CO2 will lead to a '2%' increase in the greenhouse effect. How has he defined the greenhouse effect here? Well, a doubling of CO2 is about a 4 W/m2 forcing at the tropopause, which is roughly 2% of the total upward longwave (LW) (~240 W/m2). But does that even make sense as a definition of the greenhouse effect? Not really. On a planet with no greenhouse effect (but similar albedo) the upward LW would also be 240 W/m2, but the absorbed LW in the atmosphere would be zero, so it would make much more sense to define the greenhouse effect as the amount of LW absorbed (~150 W/m2). In which case, doubling of CO2 is initially slightly more*, but as soon as any feedbacks (particularly water vapour or ice albedo changes) kick in, that would increase. Due to the non-linearities in the system, you certainly can't multiply the total greenhouse effect of ~33 C by 2% to get any sensible estimate of the climate sensitivity. So it's not clear what relevance the '2%' number has except to make the human additions to the greenhouse effect seem negligible.< Lindzen continues: > It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming. > If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. < There is considerable debate on whether increased hurricane activity can be linked to global warming, precisely because it doesn't exactly fit the models. That this is a reason to ditch the models all together is nonsense, compare to what RealClimate once again writes with Lindzen's claims of alarmism: > Basically, although everyone acknowledges that there are data problems early in the record, it seems clear that there has been a global rise of the most intense hurricanes over the last 30 years and the most obvious explanation is that this is related to the contemporaneous increases in tropical SST [sea surface temperature] in each basin. However, the magnitude of the correlation cannot yet be explained in terms of our basic theoretical understanding, and is significantly stronger than some modelling work has suggested it should be. Possibly the theory needs work (hurricanes are a complicated business!) or there are other factors at play that haven't yet been considered. Since the SST changes are global, and almost certainly tied to greenhouse gas driven global warming, there are the beginnings of a corroborated link between increases in hurricane intensity and GW - however, so far there are only a couple of ducks in a row. < Lindzen also digs up the good old Barton questions to Mann: > Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. < Compare the last statement, that he refused to "release the details" to Mann's detailed response to Barton at http://www.realclimate.org/Mann_response_to_Barton.pdf And so on. Lindzen is one of the few skeptics who is actually a respectable researcher, which is the only reason people even bother to read him. However, I see no reason to take him seriously as a commentator on politics of climate change, and ironically enough he seems to fit the cariacature he paints of a scientist twisting the science for political ends. Cheers, Teemu Helsinki, Finland --- Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > From the wall street journal > > http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 > > Climate of Fear > Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting > scientists into silence. > > BY RICHARD LINDZEN > Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT > > p > > ########## > Paul Stone > pas@xxxxxxxx > Kingsville, ON, Canada > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, > vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit > www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html