Revisiting Global Warming...
What follows is Rush Limbaughs interview of Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. He's the recipient of NASA's medal for exceptional scientific achievement, principally known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society Special Award. He is also a vocal supporter of intelligent design and denies the predominant scientific view that human activity is responsible for global warming.
For those wanting to read the whole thing you'll need to make use of the Here's More link...
Facts, Science Smash the Global Warming Myth
February 28, 2007
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We had a call yesterday. The last call of the day was from a guy calling himself "Roy," and he wanted to talk about the whole global warming controversy. What a great Global Warming Stack we have today, too. (Laughing.) Let me just give you a little heads-up. "Climate Panel Recommends Global Temperature Ceiling, Carbon Tax." Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. I told you all of this is coming. What kind of arrogance is this? “A panel of scientists has presented the United Nations a detailed plan for combating climate change. [Voice of America]'s correspondent at the U.N. Peter Heinlein reports the strategy involves reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling.” Which means that these scientists are going to tell the weather how hot it can get. That has to be what a global temperature ceiling is, as though we have any way of controlling this.
Oh, by the way, I had a lot of people thanking me for my detailed explanation yesterday of the Algore hypocrisy -- and Schwarzenegger, too, registering his jet with some carbon registry -- and explaining these carbon offsets. One of the best ways to explain it to people I think is to say, “I have concocted the Algore Gore diet. It's a variation of the old Marie Antoinette diet.” Basically, Dawn, let's say that you and I live together, all right? Hypothetically here. And you tell me that you think I need to go on a diet. "Okay, I totally agree. I'm going to go on a diet. We're going to do the Algore diet, which is I eat whatever I want, and you starve. That way, I eat what you would normally be eating, and I call it a diet." It's also known as the Marie Antoinette diet. At any rate, lots more coming up in the Global Warming Stack today. Did you get a hold of Roy, Mr. Snerdley? Is he ready for one o'clock?
The last caller of the day yesterday was Roy Spencer, who is a highly acclaimed climatologist who used to work for NASA. I am really looking forward to talking to him. If you didn't hear his call yesterday, we only had about a couple minutes with him. I asked him for permission to get back to him, and he gratefully granted us that. His theory, among many... I've now done Wikipedia searches, Google searches on Mr. Spencer. He's truly a brilliant man. He started talking yesterday that the one thing that nobody can factor in when it comes to global warming, the effect on global warming and the temperature on the earth, is precipitation. He's made a career of studying this. He also is not a global warming advocate. He thinks it's basically a hyped crisis. He also, for example, used to believe in evolution and has become an ardent believer of intelligent design combined with evolutionary things, because evolution does take place, but it doesn't explain Creation. Obviously, it can't. I'm just giving you a heads-up on who he is. He also said precipitation and clouds have been a great factor.
But the whole point -- as I have astutely, instinctively pointed out over many, many broadcasts on this program -- is the climate of the earth is so, so complex that we may not even be able to as human beings to craft computer models that can factor in all the variables and come up with anything that's reasonable which results in scientists having to make guesses -- and why do they make guesses? They make guesses because they get funded to make guesses. It's all politics. There are scientists who have, in the manufacture of semiconductors, studied atmospherics in a closed environment which limits the complexity of the variables -- and even those model predictions are wrong, and those are tiny compared to climate models. Anyway, we'll talk with him in great detail at the top of the next hour. I'm really looking forward to it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It's time to move on to the latest in global warming. We had a caller in the last segment of the program yesterday identifying himself as "Roy." We asked if we could get back to him today. He's on hold, and we'll be getting to him here in mere moments. I just want to introduce him. His name is Roy Spencer, and he is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. He's the recipient of NASA's medal for exceptional scientific achievement, principally known (I'm reading here from Wikipedia. Sometimes there are errors there, so he can correct this) for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society Special Award. He is also a vocal supporter of intelligent design and denies the predominant scientific view that human activity is responsible for global warming. You are Dr. Spencer. You should have identified yourself that way. Welcome to the program, Roy.
DR. SPENCER: Hey, Rush. Well, nobody calls me doctor.
RUSH: Well, I'm honored to call you doctor. Does Wikipedia have it right here?
DR. SPENCER: Yeah. Yeah. I've always been scared of going to Wikipedia to read about myself, because, you know, people can put in some bad stuff in there if they don't like you. So I just stay away from it.
RUSH: Well, everything here is good. The only thing I noticed is you've been awarded something from the American Meteorological Society, a special award, and there is a climatologist at the Weather Channel who thinks people like you should be decertified.
DR. SPENCER: Oh, yeah, that's right.
RUSH: Heidi Cullen.
DR. SPENCER: I guess that's what happens when meteorologists get tied too closely to the media.
RUSH: You called yesterday and you wanted to say that my instincts on this global warming as you've heard me discuss them, are accurate. You started a discussion of the calculations here, these climate models, saying that they do not factor -- because it's not easy to do or maybe it's not even possible to factor -- in the role of precipitation and clouds. Could you start there, and basically whatever you were going to say yesterday, go ahead and launch.
DR. SPENCER: Well, I feel like -- and there are a few of us that are like this -- that the Earth has a natural air-conditioning process which occurs that is mainly through precipitation systems. Now, people will think, “Oh, well, you mean when they come by they cool off the air,” and that's not what I'm talking about. It's about the Earth's natural greenhouse effect which is mostly water vapor and clouds. The Earth has a natural greenhouse effect that keeps the surface of the Earth warm.
RUSH: Isn't it true that the majority of greenhouse gases do come from the sources you just mentioned, not manmade sources?
DR. SPENCER: Well, yeah, that's true. Carbon dioxide is a relatively small part of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect. Now, the party line on this whole thing is that what we're doing is, with the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we're enhancing the greenhouse effect, and by now it's like about 1%. And since we're changing what's called the radiation budget of the Earth -- you know, like how much sunlight comes in and how much infrared radiation goes back out to space, since we're changing the radiation budget of the Earth -- the temperature has to change. This is the way you'll hear scientists explain the greenhouse effect. From a simple physics standpoint, it's a very attractive way of looking at climate change. There's a big problem with it, though. It makes it sound like the greenhouse effect is what determines the temperature of the Earth, and actually the truth is it's more the other way around. Given a certain amount of sunlight coming in, that is mostly absorbed at the surface of the Earth, weather processes happen which create the greenhouse effect because most of the greenhouse effect is from evaporated water which then turns into clouds, and of course water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas.
RUSH: I dare say I have to interrupt you at this point because most people who only pay attention to the crisis mongers, believe that there is no greenhouse effect other than that created by man. The whole notion of the greenhouse effect has led people to believe that man has totally manufactured this and that it's totally harmful. What you're saying is it's a natural thing that helps keep the Earth's temperatures moderate?
DR. SPENCER: Yeah, that's right. That's right. All the scientists agree with that. What you're talking about is the fact that the media distorts things so much that people don't get the right information. If you're using the media to rely on to get the science about this issue, you won't.
RUSH: Well, but the media is only relying on the scientists that they want to believe, and that to me is evidence of the political agenda that's attached to this. Let me get your reaction to this. There's a story that ran on the Reuters wire today -- and I want your reaction as an awarded climate scientist from the University of Alabama at Huntsville and NASA -- declaring the global warming debate over. “An international team of scientists urged the world's nation on Tuesday to act now to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe.” Companion story: “Panel of scientists has presented the UN a detailed plan for combating climate change. The VOA correspondent reports the strategy involves reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling.” Now, how in the hell do we do that? How do we tell the world we're only going to allow it to reach a certain high temperature and then the global warming debate's over? What does that do to you as a scientist who doesn't buy into it?
DR. SPENCER: Well, yeah, that is a problem for people that really worry that we need to do something now because if we decide that all we're going to do now is policy, then we don't need to support the science anymore. But what I'd like to emphasize is sort of the bottom line of this whole debate -- and it's sort of what you've talked about -- which is, it all depends on how fragile you think the climate system is. The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models. Those climate models have a history of drifting. It took them a lot of years before they kept them from drifting too warm or too cold over time. That tells you it doesn't have the stabilization processes.
The point I wanted to make about precipitation was that it's precipitation systems that condition the rest of the air on the Earth. All of the air on the Earth is being slowly cycled through precipitation systems, which then gives that air its moisture characteristics. So when you're out on a beautiful sunny day golfing with not a cloud in the sky, you can thank a precipitation system somewhere for the weather you're having. In other words, they control the weather everywhere including the weather over the dessert where you don't have any rain. Precipitation systems control everything, and I think that they have a stabilizing effect. I'm not the only one that has this theory. There’s a few other scientists, too, that have written on it. I think that's where the answer is in terms of climate sensitivity and whether we have much of an impact on it at all or not.
RUSH: Now, if you're right, I look at the ten-day, 15-day forecasts that you get from various weather sites, AccuWeather, the various weather services. They're not going to go much longer than three to five days on precipitation forecasts because they can't. If your theory is correct, the whole notion of predicting global warming 30 to 50 or even a hundred years out cannot possibly be done because predicting precipitation cannot be done on that scale.
DR. SPENCER: Here's where you have to be careful, Rush. The forecasting of weather is called "an initial value problem." You measure the atmosphere today, what it's doing, and you sort of extrapolate out in time with equations, of course. That's only good five or ten days out. For global warming forecasting, those models, what you're doing is sort of changing the rules by which the atmosphere operates. You're changing the greenhouse, one of the minor greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and trying to figure out how it's going to change average weather over a long period of time. So climate forecasting and weather forecasting are sort of two different things.
RUSH: Okay. I'm talking with Roy Spencer here from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, a former NASA scientist. Can you hang on through the break for a couple more questions?
DR. SPENCER : Sure.
RUSH: Before we go to the break, let me just ask. Is there catastrophic manmade global warming occurring?
DR. SPENCER : Well, I certainly don't believe so.
RUSH: All right. We'll take a brief break and discuss that in detail when we come back. Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville with us.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Hi. Welcome back, folks. We're talking with Roy Spencer, principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville, also a former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and a skeptic on the concept of manmade global warming. Roy, in trying to learn about you last night, I came across a piece in a blog that I like called the American Thinker written by Jerome J. Schmitt who is president of NanoEngineering corporation, and he has worked in the process equipment and instrument engineering industries for 25 years. He mentions you and your work on precipitation, your theories on precipitation as it relates to limiting the properties of precipitation systems and how they change with warming and so forth. Let me just tell you basically what his theory is here, or what his point is. He says that to model the climate of the Earth is so complex as to be practically impossible. He talks about how the semiconductor manufacturing business works, that they also try to control precipitation in a closed atmosphere within a vessel during the manufacturing process, and as such, they're very similar to climate models except that all the variables are controlled because they can be: it's a much smaller universe. The number of variables is way, way smaller, but even then, these models that use atmospherics to manufacture semiconductors are not reliable because they have so many limits.
He goes on to describe some of the things, factors that have to be included in a computer model of climate change -- and this by no means scratches the surface. He mentions things like solar flux and gravity and pressure, temperature, density, humidity, the rotation of the Earth, the currents in the ocean like the Gulf Stream, greenhouse gases, CO2 dissolved in the oceans. His basic point is this. He quotes you as writing that “the role of precipitation is not fully accounted for in global warming models, and unless we know how greenhouse limiting properties of precipitation systems change with warming, we don't know how much of our current warmth is due to mankind, and we can't estimate how much future warming there will be, either.” Of course it was only back in the seventies that everybody, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, was warning us about global cooling and the coming of a new ice age. So people are confused about this but they're being scared to death. Kids are being told that they're destroying the animals; their parents are not doing enough, and they're having trouble sleeping at night! I know you look at this on a scientific basis, but how does all this impact you as a human being in addition to being a scientist?
DR. SPENCER: Well, it does bother me that so many people are worried about it, and I wish more meteorologists, atmospheric science types that really do have major reservations about how serious global warming is going to be, I wish they would speak up. The trouble is scientists are human, too, and there's this groupthink amongst climate scientists that global warming has created careers. It brings in money.
RUSH: That's the key.
DR. SPENCER: Well, that's part of it. Let me give you an example of the bias. Scientists have no way to be totally impartial, and let me give you an example of the bias. You've probably heard the phrase that the Earth's greenhouse effect keeps the Earth habitably warm. Have you ever heard that?
RUSH: Yes.
DR. SPENCER: Okay. In fact this is one of the very first things that was figured out about the climate system back in the 1960s, so I'm not making this up. It turns out that there's a actually a more accurate phrase than that related to the greenhouse effect, and that's that weather systems help keep the Earth habitably cool because they short-circuit 60% of the greenhouse effect warming that the greenhouse effect is trying to make on the surface of the Earth. If it weren't for the cooling effects of weather, the average surface temperature over the whole Earth would be about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
RUSH: Wow.
DR. SPENCER: So, now, why is it that we only hear about the greenhouse effect and how it keeps the Earth habitably warm?
RUSH: Because the United States is being blamed for this. The people of the United States are being blamed so they'll be taxed.
DR. SPENCER: Yeah, but we never hear the fact that's more quantitatively accurate, that weather systems actually keep the Earth habitably cool. It's an inherent bias in the way people think, including climate scientists.
RUSH: About science, Michael Crichton once wrote that any time you see the word "consensus" associated with science that there cannot possibly be science, and his point is that we have all these UN scientists and others who are getting funding from various nations and institutions to do their work, and, of course, they produce results favorable to that desired by those who are making the grants. Then you have scientists like yourself who don't buy into it at all, but yet we're told "a consensus of the world's scientists believe X." That doesn't make it science, correct? There is not science here that has confirmed any of this.
DR. SPENCER: Well, that's absolutely true. Scientific truth isn't determined by a vote. You're reminding me of two Australian medical researchers who, for ten years, had to put up with ridicule over their theory that there was a bacterial basis for stomach ulcers. Bback then they were known as nitwits, and now they're known as Nobel Prize winners in 2005. So there's an example.
RUSH: Let me ask you about this. Again this is from Jerry Schmitt’s piece in the American Thinker. This I didn't know. You ever heard of somebody named Vannevar Bush?
DR. SPENCER: No.
RUSH: Well, he writes, “Vannevar Bush's seminal 1944 policy paper unleashed the Federal government's unprecedented post-war investment in R&D in the hard sciences and engineering. Science was seen as the way to avoid (or at least win) another catastrophic war.” Apparently the federal government getting involved in funding science research and development for the purposes of winning and not losing a war led to the whole concept here of governments funding various projects that they like. When you mentioned the money of many of these global warming scaremongers, I just wondered if that was not the origin of this. But since you've not heard of this man I'll leave that for another time.
DR. SPENCER: Well, from a scientific standpoint I have to admit that global warming is a legitimate area of study. I mean, I could be totally wrong. I don't think I am, and I understand why some scientists are really concerned. But like I told you earlier and what you've said before, it comes down to how much faith you have that you know enough about the physics to be able to model it accurately. Like you said, the problem is with models.
RUSH: You used the word "faith," and it's a religion with these people. It has replaced a religion to so many people. “We're destroying the planet. We've gotta do something about it. It's our fault.” The parallels to this belief system and so many others which require faith are incredible. But the whole thing about this that is disturbing to me. You could be wrong, you say. They could be wrong, but they won't admit that they could be wrong. They have this knocked down, and they're using 150 years of research, Roy, when we cannot study... Well, we do know. We do know there have been ice ages without manmade input to global warming. We know there's been warming and cooling as natural cycles of the Earth. The presumptuousness and the arrogance of people today who think that we, human beings, in the twenty-first century are destroying the planet is something that offends my sensibilities. The vanity that these people have to think we have that kind of power over this massively complex creation is one of the things that I just instinctively use to disbelieve them.
DR. SPENCER: Yeah. I can understand that.
RUSH: All right. I know you don't want to talk about it because that's not in the area of science.
DR. SPENCER: (Laughing.) Well, there's a lot more faith involved in science than people realize.
RUSH: I appreciate that. Look, I really appreciate you letting us get back to you. This has been a tremendous opportunity for me to talk to you. I'm glad you called yesterday.
DR. SPENCER: Well, thanks. And we also made a special page for you. I have a weather website, and if you Google EIB Southern Command Weather, you'll find your weather page.
RUSH: Thank you. We'll find it!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
There's also a great passage from Michael Crichton in his novel, Jurassic Park that puts all this global warming balderdash into perspective. I'll see if I can find it, and post it later.
For those wanting to read the whole thing you'll need to make use of the Here's More link...
Facts, Science Smash the Global Warming Myth
February 28, 2007
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We had a call yesterday. The last call of the day was from a guy calling himself "Roy," and he wanted to talk about the whole global warming controversy. What a great Global Warming Stack we have today, too. (Laughing.) Let me just give you a little heads-up. "Climate Panel Recommends Global Temperature Ceiling, Carbon Tax." Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. I told you all of this is coming. What kind of arrogance is this? “A panel of scientists has presented the United Nations a detailed plan for combating climate change. [Voice of America]'s correspondent at the U.N. Peter Heinlein reports the strategy involves reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling.” Which means that these scientists are going to tell the weather how hot it can get. That has to be what a global temperature ceiling is, as though we have any way of controlling this.
Oh, by the way, I had a lot of people thanking me for my detailed explanation yesterday of the Algore hypocrisy -- and Schwarzenegger, too, registering his jet with some carbon registry -- and explaining these carbon offsets. One of the best ways to explain it to people I think is to say, “I have concocted the Algore Gore diet. It's a variation of the old Marie Antoinette diet.” Basically, Dawn, let's say that you and I live together, all right? Hypothetically here. And you tell me that you think I need to go on a diet. "Okay, I totally agree. I'm going to go on a diet. We're going to do the Algore diet, which is I eat whatever I want, and you starve. That way, I eat what you would normally be eating, and I call it a diet." It's also known as the Marie Antoinette diet. At any rate, lots more coming up in the Global Warming Stack today. Did you get a hold of Roy, Mr. Snerdley? Is he ready for one o'clock?
The last caller of the day yesterday was Roy Spencer, who is a highly acclaimed climatologist who used to work for NASA. I am really looking forward to talking to him. If you didn't hear his call yesterday, we only had about a couple minutes with him. I asked him for permission to get back to him, and he gratefully granted us that. His theory, among many... I've now done Wikipedia searches, Google searches on Mr. Spencer. He's truly a brilliant man. He started talking yesterday that the one thing that nobody can factor in when it comes to global warming, the effect on global warming and the temperature on the earth, is precipitation. He's made a career of studying this. He also is not a global warming advocate. He thinks it's basically a hyped crisis. He also, for example, used to believe in evolution and has become an ardent believer of intelligent design combined with evolutionary things, because evolution does take place, but it doesn't explain Creation. Obviously, it can't. I'm just giving you a heads-up on who he is. He also said precipitation and clouds have been a great factor.
But the whole point -- as I have astutely, instinctively pointed out over many, many broadcasts on this program -- is the climate of the earth is so, so complex that we may not even be able to as human beings to craft computer models that can factor in all the variables and come up with anything that's reasonable which results in scientists having to make guesses -- and why do they make guesses? They make guesses because they get funded to make guesses. It's all politics. There are scientists who have, in the manufacture of semiconductors, studied atmospherics in a closed environment which limits the complexity of the variables -- and even those model predictions are wrong, and those are tiny compared to climate models. Anyway, we'll talk with him in great detail at the top of the next hour. I'm really looking forward to it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It's time to move on to the latest in global warming. We had a caller in the last segment of the program yesterday identifying himself as "Roy." We asked if we could get back to him today. He's on hold, and we'll be getting to him here in mere moments. I just want to introduce him. His name is Roy Spencer, and he is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. He's the recipient of NASA's medal for exceptional scientific achievement, principally known (I'm reading here from Wikipedia. Sometimes there are errors there, so he can correct this) for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society Special Award. He is also a vocal supporter of intelligent design and denies the predominant scientific view that human activity is responsible for global warming. You are Dr. Spencer. You should have identified yourself that way. Welcome to the program, Roy.
DR. SPENCER: Hey, Rush. Well, nobody calls me doctor.
RUSH: Well, I'm honored to call you doctor. Does Wikipedia have it right here?
DR. SPENCER: Yeah. Yeah. I've always been scared of going to Wikipedia to read about myself, because, you know, people can put in some bad stuff in there if they don't like you. So I just stay away from it.
RUSH: Well, everything here is good. The only thing I noticed is you've been awarded something from the American Meteorological Society, a special award, and there is a climatologist at the Weather Channel who thinks people like you should be decertified.
DR. SPENCER: Oh, yeah, that's right.
RUSH: Heidi Cullen.
DR. SPENCER: I guess that's what happens when meteorologists get tied too closely to the media.
RUSH: You called yesterday and you wanted to say that my instincts on this global warming as you've heard me discuss them, are accurate. You started a discussion of the calculations here, these climate models, saying that they do not factor -- because it's not easy to do or maybe it's not even possible to factor -- in the role of precipitation and clouds. Could you start there, and basically whatever you were going to say yesterday, go ahead and launch.
DR. SPENCER: Well, I feel like -- and there are a few of us that are like this -- that the Earth has a natural air-conditioning process which occurs that is mainly through precipitation systems. Now, people will think, “Oh, well, you mean when they come by they cool off the air,” and that's not what I'm talking about. It's about the Earth's natural greenhouse effect which is mostly water vapor and clouds. The Earth has a natural greenhouse effect that keeps the surface of the Earth warm.
RUSH: Isn't it true that the majority of greenhouse gases do come from the sources you just mentioned, not manmade sources?
DR. SPENCER: Well, yeah, that's true. Carbon dioxide is a relatively small part of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect. Now, the party line on this whole thing is that what we're doing is, with the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we're enhancing the greenhouse effect, and by now it's like about 1%. And since we're changing what's called the radiation budget of the Earth -- you know, like how much sunlight comes in and how much infrared radiation goes back out to space, since we're changing the radiation budget of the Earth -- the temperature has to change. This is the way you'll hear scientists explain the greenhouse effect. From a simple physics standpoint, it's a very attractive way of looking at climate change. There's a big problem with it, though. It makes it sound like the greenhouse effect is what determines the temperature of the Earth, and actually the truth is it's more the other way around. Given a certain amount of sunlight coming in, that is mostly absorbed at the surface of the Earth, weather processes happen which create the greenhouse effect because most of the greenhouse effect is from evaporated water which then turns into clouds, and of course water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas.
RUSH: I dare say I have to interrupt you at this point because most people who only pay attention to the crisis mongers, believe that there is no greenhouse effect other than that created by man. The whole notion of the greenhouse effect has led people to believe that man has totally manufactured this and that it's totally harmful. What you're saying is it's a natural thing that helps keep the Earth's temperatures moderate?
DR. SPENCER: Yeah, that's right. That's right. All the scientists agree with that. What you're talking about is the fact that the media distorts things so much that people don't get the right information. If you're using the media to rely on to get the science about this issue, you won't.
RUSH: Well, but the media is only relying on the scientists that they want to believe, and that to me is evidence of the political agenda that's attached to this. Let me get your reaction to this. There's a story that ran on the Reuters wire today -- and I want your reaction as an awarded climate scientist from the University of Alabama at Huntsville and NASA -- declaring the global warming debate over. “An international team of scientists urged the world's nation on Tuesday to act now to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe.” Companion story: “Panel of scientists has presented the UN a detailed plan for combating climate change. The VOA correspondent reports the strategy involves reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling.” Now, how in the hell do we do that? How do we tell the world we're only going to allow it to reach a certain high temperature and then the global warming debate's over? What does that do to you as a scientist who doesn't buy into it?
DR. SPENCER: Well, yeah, that is a problem for people that really worry that we need to do something now because if we decide that all we're going to do now is policy, then we don't need to support the science anymore. But what I'd like to emphasize is sort of the bottom line of this whole debate -- and it's sort of what you've talked about -- which is, it all depends on how fragile you think the climate system is. The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models. Those climate models have a history of drifting. It took them a lot of years before they kept them from drifting too warm or too cold over time. That tells you it doesn't have the stabilization processes.
The point I wanted to make about precipitation was that it's precipitation systems that condition the rest of the air on the Earth. All of the air on the Earth is being slowly cycled through precipitation systems, which then gives that air its moisture characteristics. So when you're out on a beautiful sunny day golfing with not a cloud in the sky, you can thank a precipitation system somewhere for the weather you're having. In other words, they control the weather everywhere including the weather over the dessert where you don't have any rain. Precipitation systems control everything, and I think that they have a stabilizing effect. I'm not the only one that has this theory. There’s a few other scientists, too, that have written on it. I think that's where the answer is in terms of climate sensitivity and whether we have much of an impact on it at all or not.
RUSH: Now, if you're right, I look at the ten-day, 15-day forecasts that you get from various weather sites, AccuWeather, the various weather services. They're not going to go much longer than three to five days on precipitation forecasts because they can't. If your theory is correct, the whole notion of predicting global warming 30 to 50 or even a hundred years out cannot possibly be done because predicting precipitation cannot be done on that scale.
DR. SPENCER: Here's where you have to be careful, Rush. The forecasting of weather is called "an initial value problem." You measure the atmosphere today, what it's doing, and you sort of extrapolate out in time with equations, of course. That's only good five or ten days out. For global warming forecasting, those models, what you're doing is sort of changing the rules by which the atmosphere operates. You're changing the greenhouse, one of the minor greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and trying to figure out how it's going to change average weather over a long period of time. So climate forecasting and weather forecasting are sort of two different things.
RUSH: Okay. I'm talking with Roy Spencer here from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, a former NASA scientist. Can you hang on through the break for a couple more questions?
DR. SPENCER : Sure.
RUSH: Before we go to the break, let me just ask. Is there catastrophic manmade global warming occurring?
DR. SPENCER : Well, I certainly don't believe so.
RUSH: All right. We'll take a brief break and discuss that in detail when we come back. Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville with us.
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RUSH: Hi. Welcome back, folks. We're talking with Roy Spencer, principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville, also a former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and a skeptic on the concept of manmade global warming. Roy, in trying to learn about you last night, I came across a piece in a blog that I like called the American Thinker written by Jerome J. Schmitt who is president of NanoEngineering corporation, and he has worked in the process equipment and instrument engineering industries for 25 years. He mentions you and your work on precipitation, your theories on precipitation as it relates to limiting the properties of precipitation systems and how they change with warming and so forth. Let me just tell you basically what his theory is here, or what his point is. He says that to model the climate of the Earth is so complex as to be practically impossible. He talks about how the semiconductor manufacturing business works, that they also try to control precipitation in a closed atmosphere within a vessel during the manufacturing process, and as such, they're very similar to climate models except that all the variables are controlled because they can be: it's a much smaller universe. The number of variables is way, way smaller, but even then, these models that use atmospherics to manufacture semiconductors are not reliable because they have so many limits.
He goes on to describe some of the things, factors that have to be included in a computer model of climate change -- and this by no means scratches the surface. He mentions things like solar flux and gravity and pressure, temperature, density, humidity, the rotation of the Earth, the currents in the ocean like the Gulf Stream, greenhouse gases, CO2 dissolved in the oceans. His basic point is this. He quotes you as writing that “the role of precipitation is not fully accounted for in global warming models, and unless we know how greenhouse limiting properties of precipitation systems change with warming, we don't know how much of our current warmth is due to mankind, and we can't estimate how much future warming there will be, either.” Of course it was only back in the seventies that everybody, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, was warning us about global cooling and the coming of a new ice age. So people are confused about this but they're being scared to death. Kids are being told that they're destroying the animals; their parents are not doing enough, and they're having trouble sleeping at night! I know you look at this on a scientific basis, but how does all this impact you as a human being in addition to being a scientist?
DR. SPENCER: Well, it does bother me that so many people are worried about it, and I wish more meteorologists, atmospheric science types that really do have major reservations about how serious global warming is going to be, I wish they would speak up. The trouble is scientists are human, too, and there's this groupthink amongst climate scientists that global warming has created careers. It brings in money.
RUSH: That's the key.
DR. SPENCER: Well, that's part of it. Let me give you an example of the bias. Scientists have no way to be totally impartial, and let me give you an example of the bias. You've probably heard the phrase that the Earth's greenhouse effect keeps the Earth habitably warm. Have you ever heard that?
RUSH: Yes.
DR. SPENCER: Okay. In fact this is one of the very first things that was figured out about the climate system back in the 1960s, so I'm not making this up. It turns out that there's a actually a more accurate phrase than that related to the greenhouse effect, and that's that weather systems help keep the Earth habitably cool because they short-circuit 60% of the greenhouse effect warming that the greenhouse effect is trying to make on the surface of the Earth. If it weren't for the cooling effects of weather, the average surface temperature over the whole Earth would be about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
RUSH: Wow.
DR. SPENCER: So, now, why is it that we only hear about the greenhouse effect and how it keeps the Earth habitably warm?
RUSH: Because the United States is being blamed for this. The people of the United States are being blamed so they'll be taxed.
DR. SPENCER: Yeah, but we never hear the fact that's more quantitatively accurate, that weather systems actually keep the Earth habitably cool. It's an inherent bias in the way people think, including climate scientists.
RUSH: About science, Michael Crichton once wrote that any time you see the word "consensus" associated with science that there cannot possibly be science, and his point is that we have all these UN scientists and others who are getting funding from various nations and institutions to do their work, and, of course, they produce results favorable to that desired by those who are making the grants. Then you have scientists like yourself who don't buy into it at all, but yet we're told "a consensus of the world's scientists believe X." That doesn't make it science, correct? There is not science here that has confirmed any of this.
DR. SPENCER: Well, that's absolutely true. Scientific truth isn't determined by a vote. You're reminding me of two Australian medical researchers who, for ten years, had to put up with ridicule over their theory that there was a bacterial basis for stomach ulcers. Bback then they were known as nitwits, and now they're known as Nobel Prize winners in 2005. So there's an example.
RUSH: Let me ask you about this. Again this is from Jerry Schmitt’s piece in the American Thinker. This I didn't know. You ever heard of somebody named Vannevar Bush?
DR. SPENCER: No.
RUSH: Well, he writes, “Vannevar Bush's seminal 1944 policy paper unleashed the Federal government's unprecedented post-war investment in R&D in the hard sciences and engineering. Science was seen as the way to avoid (or at least win) another catastrophic war.” Apparently the federal government getting involved in funding science research and development for the purposes of winning and not losing a war led to the whole concept here of governments funding various projects that they like. When you mentioned the money of many of these global warming scaremongers, I just wondered if that was not the origin of this. But since you've not heard of this man I'll leave that for another time.
DR. SPENCER: Well, from a scientific standpoint I have to admit that global warming is a legitimate area of study. I mean, I could be totally wrong. I don't think I am, and I understand why some scientists are really concerned. But like I told you earlier and what you've said before, it comes down to how much faith you have that you know enough about the physics to be able to model it accurately. Like you said, the problem is with models.
RUSH: You used the word "faith," and it's a religion with these people. It has replaced a religion to so many people. “We're destroying the planet. We've gotta do something about it. It's our fault.” The parallels to this belief system and so many others which require faith are incredible. But the whole thing about this that is disturbing to me. You could be wrong, you say. They could be wrong, but they won't admit that they could be wrong. They have this knocked down, and they're using 150 years of research, Roy, when we cannot study... Well, we do know. We do know there have been ice ages without manmade input to global warming. We know there's been warming and cooling as natural cycles of the Earth. The presumptuousness and the arrogance of people today who think that we, human beings, in the twenty-first century are destroying the planet is something that offends my sensibilities. The vanity that these people have to think we have that kind of power over this massively complex creation is one of the things that I just instinctively use to disbelieve them.
DR. SPENCER: Yeah. I can understand that.
RUSH: All right. I know you don't want to talk about it because that's not in the area of science.
DR. SPENCER: (Laughing.) Well, there's a lot more faith involved in science than people realize.
RUSH: I appreciate that. Look, I really appreciate you letting us get back to you. This has been a tremendous opportunity for me to talk to you. I'm glad you called yesterday.
DR. SPENCER: Well, thanks. And we also made a special page for you. I have a weather website, and if you Google EIB Southern Command Weather, you'll find your weather page.
RUSH: Thank you. We'll find it!
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There's also a great passage from Michael Crichton in his novel, Jurassic Park that puts all this global warming balderdash into perspective. I'll see if I can find it, and post it later.
from the mind of... Eric | 1:32 PM
3 Comments:
(Yawn). One scientist comes up with a crackpot hypothesis, and everyone on the Right falls all over themselves trying to pile on.
Meanwhile, decades of honest research keeps bringing in evidence that global warming is real, is having serious effects, and is human-caused. It is, in fact, beyond any reasonable doubt (nothing in science is ever considered beyond all doubt- we can always challenge theories and propose new explanations).
But no matter how strong the evidence gets, it will continue to be rejected by the Right because they are incapable of believing in any threat that doesn't involve some outside group of people that they can demonize.
Sounded quite reasonable to me... not at all crackpotted.
I referenced a piece on global warming on my site. Take a look.
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