Summary of Debate on the Greenhouse Effect

Here is a summary of the recent debate about the existence or non-existence of a physical phenomenon named "greenhouse effect", including the following groups:

1. Alarmists: There are "ghosts" and they are dangerous.
2. Inside Skeptics: There are "ghosts" but they are not so dangerous.
3. Outside Skeptics/Deniers: No real "ghosts" have been identified.

Lindzen, Spencer, Singer, Monckton and Watts belong to group 2, and myself to 3.

There are many possible incarnations as "ghosts" besides "greenhouse effect", like "terrorists", "viruses", "marsians", "islamists", "jews", "drugs", "comets", "aliens"...

Note that from scientific point of view, 3 is the position which is best or easiest to defend, since it puts the burden of proof on 1 and 2 who claim that ghosts exist. Position 2 is most difficult to defend since it both requires identification of ghosts and quantitative assessment of their degree of dangerousness. Position 1 has the advantage of connecting danger and ghost and compensating lack of proof of existence by inflating danger.

One may argue that good science has good defense, and that bad defense gives bad science.

Why Skeptics Need a "Greenhouse Effect"

The Basic Postulate of CO2 alarmism is the existence of no-feedback climate sensitivity of global warming of 1 C as the result of a "Greenhouse Effect" from doubling of atmospheric CO2, which by postulated positive feedback is increased to an alarming 3 C.

Leading skeptics including Dick Lindzen, Fred Singer and Roy Spencer applauded by Lord Monckton and Anthony Watts, start from the same Basic Postulate of 1 C and their skepticism is expressed by negative feedback instead of the positive feedback of alarmism, reducing climate sensitivity to harmless 0.5 C. The trademark of their skepticism is thus negative feedback.

In recent posts I have documented an attack by this leading group of skeptics on other skeptics including myself, which question the Basic Postulate. I have asked for reasons for this form of auto-immune reaction and have by a commenter been led to the following answer:

Lindzen at al have invested heavily in negative feedback as special scientific competence, which however is not really needed without the Basic Postulate. The relentless attack can thus be understood as a reptile brain reaction under a perceived threat to core values, a threat which is not real because the real threat is CO2 alarmism and not skepticism to its Basic Postulate.

Why Are Skeptics Attacking Skeptics?

My recent sequence of posts describe an attack by the leading skeptics Roy Spencer and Fred Singer on other skeptics under the name "deniers", an attack formulated under the following harsh headlines directed to the world:

• Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics Bad Name
• Slaying the Slayers with the Alabama Two-step.

The attack is supported by Richard Lindzen under the code word "bizarre" and of course by WUWT describing my work in particular "as pointless and fatally flawed".

I belong to the group of "deniers" under attack and I have tried to initiate a debate with my fellow skeptics in order to understand the reasons for their apparent auto-immune reaction, with skeptics killing skeptics instead of the common enemy of CO2 alarmists, but I have only been met by silence and ridicule.

I again ask Spencer, Singer and Lindzen to come out to a fair debate on the web instead of sniper shooting from protected positions, a fair debate about the central question:

• What is the "greenhouse effect"?
• Can it be detected?

I await input!

Why Do Skeptics Accept the Basic Dogma of Alarmism?

Leading skeptics including Lindzen, Singer, Spencer and Lord M, all adhere to the Basic Dogma of "radiative forcing" of 4 W/m2 from doubled CO2 which by Stefan-Boltzmann in the form dQ = 4 dT gives a global warming of 1 C.

Skeptics thus jump on the same band wagon as alarmists giving CO2 the alarming capacity of driving global climate. A doubled dose of a trace gas is thus attributed the amazing power of "forcing" global temperature to change by 1 C, and if 1 C why not 3 C?

Why are skeptics giving alarmists the advantage to set the agenda from the beginning with CO2 as the chosen evil to beat?

If we accept from the beginning a dogma that certain people are evil, what does it help then to argue that they are not so evil after all?

When I ask Lindzen, Singer and Spencer, why they are promoting alarmism in this way, by uncritically accepting the basic dogma of alarmism, I get silence or ridicule as response.

If leading skeptics used science to question the basic dogma of alarmism, then the debate would soon be over. Now it can continue for ever. Is this really the objective?

Greenhouse Effect from "Radiative Forcing"

The Basic Postulate of CO2 alarmism is a no-feedback climate sensitivity of 1 C as global warming from doubling atmospheric CO2 according to Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law in the form

dQ = 4 dT with dQ = 4 W/m2 the estimated "radiative forcing" from doubled CO2.

The Basic Postulate is the pillar of IPCC alarmism and has also been accepted as a valid starting point by leading skeptics such as Lindzen, Singer, Spencer and Lord M. From this common no-feedback sensitivity of 1C the debate between alarmists and skeptics then concerns whether feedbacks are positive increasing 1 C to alarming 3 C by IPCC, or negative decreasing 1 C to 0.5 C

by Lindzen et al.

The result is a never-ending debate about feedbacks, positive or negative.

But there is another approach, which I advocate and makes me into a denier in the eyes of my fellow skeptics, namely to question the Basic Postulate with its "radiative forcing".

What is then wrong with the Basic Postulate? Two basic things:

1. It is based on a extremely simplistic model as the simple algebraic model dQ = 4 dT of a very complex climate system.
2. It assumes that the climate system is driven by radiation rather than thermodynamics of winds, vertical convection, gravitation, rotation and evaporation/condensation.

The Basic Postulate thus puts radiation in the drivers seat and uses a extremely simplistic model to let "radiative forcing" drive temperature as a starting point. The focus is then cleverly shifted to the question of how to stop a supertanker already in motion, which is not easy to answer.

The Basic Postulate has been invented by IPCC to drive CO2 alarmism, but if this is not your goal then there is no scientific reason to adopt the Basic Postulate.

If you you don't accept the Basic Postulate then you have to start from scratch without any preconceived idea of what drives the climate system. And then it is not even clear that a bit more CO2 will cause warming. The only thing which is clear is that there is no scientific evidence indicating that it can have any observable effect.

I have asked the leading skeptics including Lindzen et al, why they all cling to the Basic Postulate, which lacks scientific rationale, and thus give IPCC a free ticket to sell CO2 alarmism.

The only answers I get is silence or ridicule. Reasonable?

Note the clever use of the term "radiative forcing":

• Can you question that the Earth + atmosphere is subject to "radiative forcing" from the Sun? No, this would be unreasonable.
• Can you question that the transfer of heat energy from the Earth surface to the top of the atmosphere is driven by "radiative forcing"? Yes, this is reasonable to do.

Note that Lindzen's greenhouse effect from 1997 is driven by a terrible "radiative forcing" with an Earth surface temperature of + 80 C. Is this really reasonable Prof Lindzen? Isn't this a bizarre idea?

Who knows, Prof Lindzen does not descend to answer a simple question from a simple professor of simple applied mathematics in simple little country close to the Polar circle, where radiative heating is not the driver of society nor science except, possibly, during the short Midsummer.

Richard Lindzen's Greenhouse Effect 2

In the previous post we met a bizarre "greenhouse effect" presented by Richard Lindzen in 1997.

Maybe this presentation is now outdated, and so let us take a look at how Lindzen describes the "greenhouse effect" today in

• Reconsidering the Climate Change Act Global Warming: How to approach the science. (Climate Models and the Evidence?)
• Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms Westminster, London 22nd February 2012.

Slide 43 presents Lindzen's central argument:

• Adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere must elevate the average emission level, and because of the first point, the new emission level is colder than the original emission level.
• This reduces the outgoing infrared radiative flux, which no longer balances the net incoming solar radiation.
• Note that this mechanism leads to the simple result that doubling CO2 gives rise to warming of about 1C.

Lindzen here refers to the Basic Postulate of CO2 alarmism of a climate sensitivity of 1C resulting from an application of Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation Law in the form dQ = 4 dT with

dQ = 4 W/m2 of "radiative forcing" from doubling of CO2.

We see that Lindzen no longer puts forward his idea from 1997 of a surface temperature of + 80 C with radiation alone, but instead uncritically adopts the Basic Postulate of CO2 alarmism used by IPCC.

I have argued at length that the Basic Postulate should not be accepted as a starting point, because it is based on a way too simplistic model of the climate system as the simple algebraic

equation dQ = 4 dT setting dQ = 4 by a wild guess and obtaining a dT = 1 without scientific significance.

Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Fred Singer and Lord Monckton all seem to confess to the Basic Postulate and thus give IPCC a free ticket to sell CO2 alarmism.

When I try to discuss the nature of the "greenhouse effect" and the scientific relevance of the Basic Postulate, I meet silence or ridicule from leading skeptics. Reasonable?

I have asked Prof Lindzen for a comment or clarification without any response.

Lindzen's Bizarre Greenhouse Effect

Richard Lindzen describes the greenhouse effect as follows (1997):

• The most important consequence of the convective heat transport is that the surface is much cooler (15 C) than it would be in pure radiative equilibrium (80 C).
• The surface is still receiving about 240 W/m2 from the Sun and even larger amount of backradiation from the atmosphere, but it is losing most of the energy by convection, not by radiation.
• The actual operation of the greenhouse effect is much more complicated and subtle than is usually recognized. However, excellent treatments have existed in the literature for many years.

OK, so Lindzen claims that the surface temperature would be + 80 C if not convection took it down to a livable + 15 C. Radiation is by Lindzen presented as a frightening monster which is somehow tamed by benevolent convection.

Lindzen views the discussion of the greenhouse effect requested by Pierre Latour and myself as being bizarre.

To me it is Lindzen's greenhouse effect which is bizarre.