[ExI] Richard Lindzen on climate hysteria

[Alfio Puglisi]

On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 12:34 AM, John K Clark<jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> "Alfio Puglisi" <alfio.puglisi at gmail.com>
>
>> If you want to criticize models, you better make sure that you know how
>> they work.
>
> Climate models work? That's news to me. Let me ask you something, if the
> world's temperature increases will that create more clouds or fewer clouds?

We don't know.

> It's a very simple question with profound consequences because clouds
> regulate the amount of solar energy that runs the entire climate show.
> Increased temperature means more water evaporates from the sea, but it also
> means the atmosphere can hold more water before it is forced to form clouds.
> So who wins this tug of war? Nobody knows. So how do these marvelous climate
> models you speak of deal with this? They ignore it.
>
> And then there is the important issue of global dimming. For reasons that
> are not clearly understood at any given temperature it takes longer now for
> water to evaporate now than it did 50 years ago. How do these marvelous
> climate models deal with this interesting fact? They ignore it, every
> fucking single one of them.

First, "ignore" is the wrong term. These areas are actively
researched, for the very reasons that they are among the few missing
pieces after the easy ones (CO2, other GHG gases, water vapor,
volcanic eruptions, glacier retreat, ice feedback, ocean-atmosphere
coupling, thermoaline circulation,... should i continue?) are now
pretty well known.

Second, you might not be aware that global dimming apparently stopped
in the 1990s and is now reversing. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming   If this trend continues,
estimates will need to be revised upward, but probably not by much.

Third, I find it interesting that you take the few unknowns in the
models and use them to invalidate the entire story. There must be a
name for this rhetorical trick that escapes me now.


> And you are asking billions of people to quite literally bet their lives on
> the accuracy of these two bit climate models.

I don't, see previous post. You, instead, appear to discount any
evidence of warming, relying on some magical clouds that will appear
just in the right quantity to keep you cool even when you put on a
jacket. Who's betting here?


Alfio