Presentation at Censored Workshop on Climate Change Controversy

Fred Singer: IPCC is finished. No warming sinc 1970, IPCC warming is fake. Doesn't exist.

My presentation at the SEII Think Tank Workshop Critical Thinking and Complex Systems Analysis applied to the Climate Change Controversy Sept 1-2 in Brussels, is now available as

• CO2 Climate Alarmism Debunked by Mathematics.

Follow the drama on World News Net, American Thinker, EIKE, NoTricksZone, Il Foglio, The Telegraph and a recorded broadcast of the seminar.

For the background see IPCC Censorship. It is not the first time I am censored because of my mathematics: In Dec 2010 my own university KTH under massive media attention burned one of my math books including some analysis of basic climate models, an event which I have documented as KTH-gate.

The last time a math book was burned was in 1632, then with the motivation that the book was "vehemently suspect of heresy". The suppression of scientific mathematical analysis by KTH thus has historic dimensions and the motivation was also the same.

Political correctness is not a virtue of science and in combination with active suppression of scientific discussion and burning of math books, it is could be viewed as alarming, maybe showing the real meaning of climate alarmism.

Cf article by Stephen Wilde on Unifying Theory of Earth's Climate.

EU as Green Peace Project

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele who managed to suppress a planned seminar with Fred Singer and myself at SEII/Fondation Universitaire in Brussels, is not only Vice Chair of IPCC but also closely connected to Greenpeace, as evidenced in his report Impacts of Climate Change in Belgium commissioned by Greenpeace:

The Foreword to the report delivers the following frank message:

• The fight against climate change will require deep changes in the Belgian energy system
• It is urgent that Belgium also develops a long-term political vision enabling it to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% between now and 2050.
• This long- term policy must include efforts in all sectors (industry, electricity production, households and transport).
• It must therefore also be perceived as an opportunity for Belgium to reduce its energy dependency and increase the safety of its supplies.
• Belgium currently imports almost all its primary energy sources (oil, gas, coal and uranium) and this puts the Belgian economy at the mercy of fluctuations in world raw material prices and the expected rise in the costs of fuels as a result of their increasing scarcity.
• Oil dependence and the associated geopolitical tensions are well known. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and has no place in a low-carbon economy.
• As for nuclear energy, it has proven a source of insolvable problems (in terms of waste, in particular), unreliable, very expensive and dangerous. Terrorist threats only reinforce the risks. Nuclear energy is also unable to compete with other sources of energy without the backup of enormous subsidies.

No questioning of this verdict is allowed, not in Belgium and neither in Germany, where the complete reformation of society demanded by Greenpeace has already started.

The following questions present themselves:

• Is EU a green peace project?
• Is suppression of freedom of speech the solution of the EU economic crisis, with inspiration from the Chinese economic wonder?

PS From the shocking report to Greenpeace by van Ypersele, preparing for a totalitarian EU:

• A rise in sea level and temperature could cause serious difficulties at certain tourist destinations.
• Winter sports resorts in the Alps could be affected by a serious lack of snow, particularly at low altitude.
• In Belgium, snow on the ground could become increasingly rare but there would be plenty of grey sky and rain in winter.
• Initially, agriculture would not be damaged and certain crops could even profit from a small heat increase.
• In terms of the 21st century and for Belgium, the initial effects of climate change will probably be relatively limited.

The projected lack of snow in the Alps gives Sarkozy the mission to command the people to get green.

Pushing a Swing: Essence of Blackbody Radiation

Satyr pushing a Nymph on a swing as part of the Dionysian cult.

The essence of blackbody radiation can be understood from a model of a swing containing the elements of

1. swing or oscillator
2. resistance (radiative or viscous dissipation)
3. forcing (exterior force)

from the following balance of forces:

• swing force + resistive force = forcing.

The essence connects to the interaction of the forcing with the swing, more precisely if the forcing is (i) in-phase with with the swing velocity or (ii) out-of-phase with the swing velocity.

In case (i) the swing is pushed by the exterior force when moving in the direction of the force. The force thus changes direction at the extreme positions of the swing.

In case (ii) the phase is shifted by a quarter of a period so that the force changes direction when the swing is in its bottom position.

The interaction between the swing and the forcing according to (i) or (ii) is determined by the size of the resistive force:

• large resistive force gives (i) with little interaction between swing and forcing; exterior force balanced mainly by resistive force,
• small resistive force gives (ii) with possible interaction between swing and forcing; exterior force balanced mainly by swing force.

The catch is now that in blackbody radiation the resistive force is small which means that

there is an interaction between the swing and the forcing as in (ii): Under increasing forcing the amplitude of the swing increases until the energy of the radiation balances the energy of the forcing, with the swing acting as reservoir of (heat) energy.

In other words, under increasing forcing a blackbody heats up until the radiance balances the energy of the forcing.

The interaction between the swing and the forcing can be turned around so that the resistance acts as input forcing and the exterior forcing is considered as the outgoing forcing with the swing acting as an amplifying resonance board allowing considerable output under small resistive forcing (from the strings of a piano or guitar).

In this perspective, there is a cut-off of high frequencies in outgoing forcing, which can be understood as an inability of the resonance board to amplify sufficiently high frequencies.

The mathematics of the above scenario of blackbody radiation is presented in my Sky Dragon article Computational Blackbody Radiation. Also recall Piano as Blackbody.

The basic idea is to understand blackbody radiation in an educated way as a wave mechanics phenomena and not in a primitive way as a particle mechanics phenomenon of massless photons streaming in an out.

A blackbody in equilibrium with some forcing radiates what is absorbed. What is then the distinction from reflection which also sends out whatever comes in?

Yes, you are right: In reflection there is no swing acting as a recervoir of heat energy, which can change under changing forcing:

• A blackbody absorbs the incoming waves into its interior (into the swing) before radiating out what is not stored in its interior recervoir.
• A reflecting body simply sends back what comes in without changing its interior state.
• A blackbody thus represents real interaction between matter and light/radiation (electromagnetic waves), while in reflection there is no such interaction.

The beauty of many blackbodies interacting by radiation, as opposed to many bodies interacting by reflection, is that the internal states of the blackbodies become harmonized to the same common temperature, while the reflecting bodies keep their initial temperatures.

You may compare with the following student reactions to teaching:

1. The student understands, absorbs and re-emits what the teacher says.
2. The student does not understand anything, absorbs nothing and only repeats like a parrot what the teacher says.

It is clear that 1. is more interesting than 2., that blackbody absorption/emission is more interesting than reflection.

IPCC Censorship

This article has been published in Contrepoints (translated into French). A comment makes a quite funny parallel to a plastic ball Earth in the hands of a great man.

Here is a fresh example how IPCC suppresses science which does not support the CO2 alarmism IPCC presents to the world and its leaders:

I was invited to participate in discussions on climate science in Brussels Sept 1-2 with the following letter of August 20:

SEII (Société Européenne des Ingénieurs et Industriels, Prof Henri Masson) organizes a conference for Fred Singer and Claes Johnson at the Fondation Universitaire in Brussels on September 1, at 18 h00. Official invitation from SEII follows by E-mail.

The next day 2 September there will be a workshop with some of our Think Tank . Our preliminary programme looks as follows:

• 18h15 S. Fred Singer : What is new in climate change?
• 19 h 00 Claes Johnson : Blackbody radiation and Climate Thermodynamics
• 19 h45 to 20 H30 : Questions and Answers

We are very happy to have this opportunity to bring together scientists and some politicians (we hope) and get some useful and interesting discussions.

No official invitation by SEII followed. Instead the following letter was sent on August 22 by Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Vice-Chair of IPCC, Membre de l'Académie royale de Belgique, on mission in the US, to Fondation Universitaire:

Objet : La SEII et l'honnêteté scientifique

Monsieur le Secrétaire général,

La SEII soutient-elle implicitement le déni climatique, à la veille du congrès mondial des ingénieurs à Genève consacré aux défis énergétiques (où j'aurai l'honneur de donner une "keynote lecture") ?

L'utilisation du papier à lettres de la SEII par votre administrateur M. Masson pour l'invitation ci-jointe le suggère malheureusement, malgré une phrase hypocrite pour indiquer que la SEII ne "sponsorise" pas l'événement.

Vous devez savoir que MM Fred Singer est une personne dont l'honnêteté scientifique laisse fortement à désirer. Ses activités de désinformation sont financées par les lobbies des combustibles fossiles (voir XXXXXXXXXXXXXX) , et il est scandaleux qu'une telle personne puisse être associée, de près ou de loin, à la SEII et à la Fondation universitaire.

Des collègues éminents m'ont écrit que M. Johnson ne valait pas mieux. Un de ses "textbooks" récents, où il parlait à tort et à travers des changements climatiques, publié par le Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Suède), a dû être rétracté par ce dernier tellement il contenait d'erreurs.

Merci de me dire très rapidement quelles mesures la SEII compte prendre pour se distancier de cet "événement"? Je serais heureux également de savoir quel est le mandat de ce "think tank" de la SEII sur les changements climatiques que Mr Masson préside (alors que son CV n'est pas disponible sur le site de l'Université d'Antwerpen, et que je n'ai jamais entendu parler de ses compétences en matière de climat).

Cordialement, Prof. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele

The effect of the letter was that the SEII/Fondation Universitaire seminar was cancelled, stopped, censored. IPCC managed to suppress questioning of the science presented by IPCC, by a forceful intervention by one of its vice-presidents.

What to say about this? Well, I am not surprised. I read that the burning of my mathematics book by KTH supported by media and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (documented as KTH-gate), is now used to motivate to also mute my voice.

But why these hysteric reactions from IPCC? There must be something in what I am saying (and/or Fred Singer), which is very dangerous to IPPC.

What is it? Van Ypersele knows. He must have previewed my presentation: CO2 Climate Alarmism Debunked by Mathematics. See also later post with program.

But will van Ypersele succeed in preventing IPCC from collapse under scientific scrutiny?

To burn books because they contain some incorrectnesses would be an overwhelming task: All books contain something which is incorrect. The only real reason to burn a book or suppress an oral presentation is that what is presented is correct, but unpleasant to some.

For a summary of my criticism of IPCC climate science, see also my presentation at the annual meeting of the Stockholm Initiative.

PS1 Here is a reaction from Fred Singer:

• Why am I not surprised by this disreputable action of this IPCC officer.After all, we know from Climategate emails that these people will go to any length to suppress scientific dissent. Even to libel and to use bald-faced lies.
• Of course, I am not supported by fossil-fuel industry. That is complete nonsense and invention
• My Europe visit is paid by the Ettore Majorana Foundation -- to give an invited talk at a climate conference in Erice. I am using the occasion to accept additional invitations to speak (without lecture fees) at the Univ of Hamburg, Imperial College, Univ of Paris - Jussieu, and of course at the KNMI in De Bilt. By happenstance I was also invited to address 100+ engineers in Zurich.
• Our IPCC colleague van Yp also questions my honesty. Well now -- the IPCC has been using me as a scientific reviewer, I publish regularly in peer-reviewed journals and am an elected Fellow of several scientific societies. So there must be some who disagree with van Yp.

PS2 The cancelled meeting will resurface as a strictly private meeting at a strictly private location after a strictly private invitation of a strictly private group of guests through a strictly private letter. Hopefully these precautions will make it impossible for IPCC to stop the discussion...but there are some strange 1984 vibrations...

PS3 The following letter from Founding President of SEI Michel van Hecke to meeting organizer Henri Masson, exhibits political correctness in full swing suppressing academic

scientific inquiry:

Mon cher Henri,

En ce qui concerne le problème climatique, il est très clair, et ce n'est
pas nouveau, que l'animosité s'accroît de jour en jour entre les deux
parties en présence. La politique s'en mêlant, les arguments échangés
deviennent de plus en plus violents et de moins en moins rationnels.
L'émotivité s'accroît et le débat, qui devrait n'être que scientifique,
devient un conflit destructeur.

Il est évident que la SEII doit se tenir à l'écart de ce genre de conflit
destructif. Elle ne peut prendre parti, d'autant plus qu'elle se veut être
le lien entre le monde de l'industrie et le monde académique, comme cela
apparaît bien dans ses statuts. Ses premières années d'existence lui ont
permis de bâtir une image et un réseau de relations qui s'avèrent bénéfiques
et prometteurs. Il n'est évidemment pas souhaitable de mettre cela en
danger.


Dans le cas qui nous occupe, tu as été amené à décider de l'organisation
d'une réunion et du lancement des invitations dans une certaine urgence qui
a empêché toute concertation avec le bureau. Cela aurait pu n'avoir aucune
conséquence ennuyeuse si le sujet n'avait pas été d'une telle sensibilité.
Malheureusement, les diverses réactions, totalement négatives, que nous
avons immédiatement enregistrées, émanent de personnes (van Yperzele, Paul
Vandenplas, André Berger, Fondation Universitaire, ...) avec qui nous avons
eu, et avons encore, des relations de qualité que nous considérons comme
importantes à sauvegarder.C'est une des raisons pour lesquelles les
décisions d'entreprendre des activités, ou d'organiser des événements, sont
prises de façon collégiale par le bureau. C'est une règle qui a été suivie
depuis le début et qui n'est pas remise en question pour le moment bien
qu'elle entraîne quelquefois une certaine lenteur dans l'exécution.

Il en résulte que la seule décision judicieuse à prendre par la SEII, pour
sauvegarder ses acquis d'image et de réputation, est d'annoncer
immédiatement que cette réunion n'est, en aucune façon, patronnée par elle.
Le mieux serait, d'ailleurs, d'annoncer, sans commentaire, l'annulation de
la réunion (qui ne peut, d'ailleurs, plus avoir lieu à la Fondation
Universitaire) et, éventuellement, une postposition après examen plus
approfondi. Cette annonce devrait être faite aux destinataires de
l'invitation, et à eux seuls, ce qui implique que tu t'en charges
directement. Il est évident que tu es libre d'organiser cette évènement sous
ton propre nom sans que la SEII soit nommée en aucun cas et sous aucune
forme.

Je regrette vivement ces circonstances car, comme tu te souviendras
certainement m'avoir entendu le déclarer, je suis partisan convaincu du
droit de chacun d'exprimer ses opinions (pour autant, bien entendu, que cela
se fasse sans porter atteinte à autrui). Je pense que nous sommes tous
d'accord sur ce point de vue mais il est clair que c'est au bureau de
décider collégialement.


Je souhaite vivement recevoir tes commentaires, le plus vite possible, sur
la façon de mettre fin, comme suggéré ci-dessus, à cette situation
regrettable.

Bien amicalement.

Michel Van Hecke

Are There Any Photons At All?

The idea of light as a stream of particles or photons has been questioned and still is:

• Lamb: Only a comedy of errors and historical accidents led to its popularity among physicists and optical scientists.
• Moret-Bailly: Quantum electrodynamics corrects miscalculations of classical electrodynamics, but by introducing the pseudo-particle "photon" it is the source of errors whose practical consequences are serious.
• Xavier-Borg: "All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken" (Einstein, 1951). Sixty more years have passed, theories have been revised and updated, new technologies have surfaced, and yet it seems that nobody has had the guts to tackle this challenging issue again. Scientists seem satisfied enough reciting the wave-particle duality.

In Mathematical Physics of Blackbody Radiation I analyse a wave model of radiation and derive Planck's law from a principle of finite precision computation as an alternative to Planck's original derivation based on particles or quanta.

The basic idea is that atomic or molecular vibrations of a radiating body must be coordinated to deliver a coherent signal, like a swarm of crickets oscillating in unison, and that the required coordination requires a certain temperature to be effective.

Radiation is in this perspective an emergent phenomenon resulting from coordinated in-phase oscillations by many atomic oscillators , and not as in a particle model the result of photons emitted by particles without phase coordination. '

Recall that many out-of-phase oscillators cancel each other and emit nothing.

The primitivism of the particle model of radiation as streams of photons, has made it very popular, but there is little scientific evidence that it describes physics better than phlogistons.

There is no reason that all observed phenomena of radiation including absorption, emission and transmission cannot be explained from wave mechanics without particles. This was the view of Schrödinger and the late Einstein.

See also the previous post: Light: Waves of Particles?

Are There Photons of Infrared Radiation?

In the discussion on Planetary Energy Budget on Climate Etc. Eli Rabbet makes the observation:

• The wavelength of IR light from the surface ranges from about 5 microns to about 50 microns. The space between molecules at atmospheric pressure is about a tenth of a micron. The size of a molecule is about .0002 microns.

I respond by

• To explain IR by photons does not make sense. If you read my treatise on blackbody radiation or my Sky Dragon article, then you will find IR as a collective wave phenomenon involving many atoms which may give a better picture of the physics than mysterious giant photons being captured by miniscule atoms.

The idea of blackbody radiation as a collective phenomenon is also presented in the blog post

Blackbody Radiation as a Generic Emergent Phenomenon. In this perspective absorption and emission of IR cannot be explained by looking at properties of single atoms or molecules, but results from the interaction of many atoms.

The energy of IR radiation seems to be too small to result from electronic transitions.

The radiative properties of the atmosphere may thus not be explainable solely in terms of so-called greenhouse gases with specific atomic absorption/emission spectra.

The idea of photon particles as carriers of heat energy is primitive, confusing and has led to the unphysical concept of back radiation. Radiation as wave phenomenon makes much better sense.

What Judy Curry Teaches Students

Judy refers me on her blog to Lecture 25 of the course Atmospheric Radiative Transfer to learn myself what Georgia Tech teaches its students.

I see that the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget with its massive back radiation of 333 W/m2 is highlighted on page 2, and on page 15 a greenhouse effect G is defined as

• G = sigma T_s^4 - F_TOA = 390 - 235 = 155 W/m2

where T_s is surface temp and F_TOA top of the atmosphere outward flux.

Judy says that she prefers not to use the term back radiation, yet it is presented to the students as a pillar of CO2 alarmism, resulting in a massive greenhouse effect of 155 W/m2.

According to Kuhn the current paradigm is represented in text books and university courses forming the minds of the next generation of scientists.

Judy thus points me to an example of indoctrination into CO2 alarmism at a major US university, for which Judy is responsible.

Is this fair to the students, Judy? Is it fair to the readers of your blog Judy to feed them with double-speak?

To Be or Not To Be a Sky Dragon Slayer

I have decided to take a step back from the Sky Dragon Slayer group. I will keep contact as consultant but should not be viewed to belong to the core.

The reason is that I want to stay fully independent as scientist and not be restricted by group thinking or group loyalty.

Resume of Debate on Fiction of Backradiation 2

Summing up the new thread Slaying the Greenhouse Dragon, Part IV on Judy Curry's blog including 700 comments, on my work Computational Blackbody Radiation showing that "back radiation" is fiction, gives the following net result:

Vaughan Pratt (blog post):

• ... I’d like to propose a strengthening of the skeptic argument that downward longwave radiation or DLR, popularly called back radiation, cannot be held responsible for warming the surface of the Earth.
• ... what I’m claiming is not that there is no back radiation but that the only sense in which back radiation warms the Earth is the same sense in which a block of ice next to you warms you.

Judy:

• Back radiation is a phrase, one that I don’t use myself, and it is not a word that is used in technical radiative transfer studies.
• Lets lose the back radiation terminology, we all agree on that.
• I give up back radiation as a misleading phrase.
• Claes has some serious credentials, he is widely published and cited in applied mathematics.

settledscience:

• ... denial of back radiation is such an awkward example to use to illustrate Skepticism. It’s actually an example of denial.

Philip:

• Perhaps part of the reason for his (Claes) skepticism is the belief that a purely reductionist approach is not the best way to approach physics. If so, he is in good company (even if many do take vigorous exception).

Jeff Glassmann:

• How far should we go when we lose the back radiation terminology ? We will have to throw out Kiehl & Trenberth, Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget, 2/1/1997. AR4, FAQ 1.1, Figure 1, p. 96.
• And since The term “radiative forcing” has been employed in the IPCC Assessments to denote an externally imposed perturbation in the radiative energy budget of the Earth’s climate system. (TAR, ¶6.1 Radiative Forcing, ¶6.1.1, p. 353), we will have to throw out radiative forcing, too.
• You (Judy) imply we should rely on radiative transfer instead. 8/13/11, 10:10 am. Yet, the uncertainty in RF is almost entirely due to radiative transfer assumptions. AR4, ¶2.3.1, p. 140.
• Your recommendation looks like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.
• I endorse your notion to throw out back radiation, but don’t stop there. We should return to the lost art of estimating climate with a thermodynamic model. In that domain, heat is a flow variable, the greenhouse gases are a variable, passive resistance, and feedback can be modeled rationally and productively.

There may be more comments to be high-lighted, but the above capture some essence.

In any case, the net result appears to be that "back radiation" has now passed best-before-date and can be put into the wardrobe of pseudoscience together with phlogistons and luminiferous aether.

How much of CO2 alarmism based on back radiation, will have to go the same way?

What Judy Curry Suddenly Understands

In the new thread Slaying the Greenhouse Dragon, Part IV, on Judy Curry's blog, Judy suddenly confesses that:

• Back radiation is a phrase, one that I don’t use myself, and it is not a word that is used in technical radiative transfer studies.
• The argument is made technically from the spectral infrared absorption and emission of CO2 and other gases.
• Lets lose the back radiation terminology, we all agree on that.

This is a stunning revelation, because CO2 alarmism is based on massive back radiation as the carrier of the greenhouse effect. If back radiation is a phrase, so is CO2 global warming. A phrase, not science. The difference is huge.

What made Judy change her mind? Was it the debate on her blog on my chapter in Slaying the Sky Dragon showing that back radiation is not physics, because it is unstable?