Climate Models - Not Even Wrong

Watts Up With That has the news the sceptic community has been waiting for. The CERN experiments done by Svensmark et. al. [Update: actually they were done by Kirkby but they validate the Svensmark hypothesis] show that clouds are significantly affected by cosmic rays.

...it appears that a non-visible light irradiance effect on Earth’s cloud seeds has been confirmed. The way it is posited to work is that the effect of cosmic rays (modulated by the sun’s magnetic variations which either allow more or deflect more cosmic rays) creates cloud condensation nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. With more condensation nuclei, more clouds form and vice-versa. Clouds have significant effects on TSI at the surface.

Even the IPCC has admitted this in their latest (2007) report:

“Cloud feedbacks are the primary source of inter-model differences in equilibrium climate sensitivity, with low cloud being the largest contributor”.

If a significant effect has been left out of the models that means in the general sense that they are not even wrong. All the sensitivities used to come up with the current results will have to be adjusted to account for the new cloud factor. Effects once attributed to something else will have to be attributed to clouds. And estimates of future solar activity will have to be added to climate models. And we are not doing such a good job of predicting solar activity. The current decline in solar magnetism was unpredicted. So what does that tell us about the future of the climate? That it is very hard to predict.

CERN Experiment Confirms Cosmic Rays Influence Climate Change.

by Nigel Calder

Long-anticipated results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN in Geneva appear in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature (25 August). The Director General of CERN stirred controversy last month, by saying that the CLOUD team’s report should be politically correct about climate change (see my 17 July post below). The implication was that they should on no account endorse the Danish heresy – Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis that most of the global warming of the 20th Century can be explained by the reduction in cosmic rays due to livelier solar activity, resulting in less low cloud cover and warmer surface temperatures.

There are a a LOT of careers and vast sums of money involved in the "CO2 is going to kill us all eventually" idea. They will not go quietly. In the history of science they never have.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Climate Science Of The Right

Drug Prohibition is the Climate "Science" of the Right.

A Scientist In Congress?

Watts Up With That reports on a primary race in Oregon.

Art Robinson ran in the GOP Primary to represent the Oregon in 4th Congressional District. Wise Republican voters selected Dr. Art Robinson to represent them in the November 2010 Congressional race against Democrat Peter DeFazio.

I saw an online video by Art Robinson at the 4th International Climate Change Conference explaining why he is running. He wants to being some scientific rationality to the discussions on issues in Congress, especially climate change. “Let’s have at least one real scientist in Congress,” he said.

Dr Robertson is an expert on energy and founder of the Oregon Institute of Science & Medicine. He is widely known for his petition signed by more than 31,000 American scientists exposing human-caused global warming as a fraud.

It wouldn't hurt to have more than a few engineers (those well versed in the practical applications of science) in Congress either.

Another list of scientists who are not convinced about man made global warming catastrophe can be found here: The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so

and for those of you not familiar with the other side (it is not warming much and there will be no catastrophe) of the controversy may I suggest: Understanding The Global Warming Hoax: Expanded And Updated

If you want to help Art win the seat against DeFazio visit Art Robinson For Congress.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

I Got A Link

The New York Times linked to my article Climate "Science" Is Ruining Everything. My article was about how the government gets the science it pays for.

I discussed drug war "science" and how it relates to climate "science". The NYTs thinks that the problem with climate science is not dodgy science but a failure to communicate on the part of climate scientists. I'd have to agree.

And so I responded to the NYTs piece thusly:

There is no doubt (in the science community - sceptics and warmists alike) that a doubling of CO2 (absent any other effects) will produce a 1 deg C rise in the Earth's temperature. Not very exciting.

Where it gets tricky is the water vapor amplification factor. Warmists claim it will increase the warming from CO2 by 1.5X to 3 or 4X. i.e. from 1 C from CO2 to 1.5 to 4 C for CO2 plus water vapor. The sceptics say the amplification is around .5 i.e. the 1 C from CO2 is reduced to .5C.

Now the warmist community (as well as the sceptics) admit that the effects of water vapor are the least understood part of climate science. So we are fed alarms based on what is currently incomplete science. And you know what? None of the scientists in the warmist camp explain this to the public.

There is your communication failure.

We are getting partial truth gussied up as certainty. I'm sure that is not the communication failure they were hinting at.

Cross Posted at Classical Values