[Vision2020] Anthropogenic Warming Skeptic Richard Lindzen Deconstructed Via Peer Review

[Ted Moffett]

The facts regarding Richard Lindzen's distortions of climate science, the
failure of some of his main scientific theories to pass peer review (the
"Iris Effect" which attempted to present a special mechanism for heat
dissipation to space that could cool the climate), and his avoidance of
putting his money where his mouth is regarding bets on future warming or
cooling of the climate, won't make any difference to those who have an
agenda to deny the scientific evidence for anthropogenic warming of the
climate.  Lindzen will continue to be listed and quoted as an awe inspiring
authority demonstrating the world's scientists are in error regarding the
well established science that anthropogenic warming is occurring:

Richard Lindzen on Fox News stated a blatant falsehood:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195551,00.html

"But there is no agreement that the warming we've seen is due to man.
Moreover, the warming we've seen is much less than we would have expected on
the basis of the models that produce alarm."

Lindzen can say whatever he wants, and dissent and disagree.  But the facts
are clear that among scientists publishing in peer reviewed journals who
specialize in climate science, there is overwhelming consensus ("agreement")
climate is warming due to human impacts.  To document this consensus is a
large scale research project, and the following effort from
Logicalscience.com is one of the most extensive I have read.  Some of the
sources below regarding the consensus on climate change are dated after
Lindzen's May, 2006 comment on FOX News, others before:

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm#Journals

------------

>From the so called "liberal" media, National Public Radio featured a
"debate" in 2007 titled "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis" featuring Lindzen,
info on which is at the website below.  It's amazing given the coverage
Lindzen receives in the media that we hear the claim over and over that
skeptics of anthropogenic warming are being "censored":

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9082151

Some of Lindzen's comments in this "debate" were misleading on basic climate
science:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/shear-turbulence/

>From website above:

In the NPR debate Lindzen talked about polar amplification reducing
hurricanes. He said something of the tune “hurricanes are powered by the
temperature difference between the pole and the equator and global warming
will reduce that difference.” How much credibility is there to that
argument? Is the polar amplification argument different than the windshear
argument or are those two one in the same?

[*Response:* (from climate scientist Michael Mann, bio at:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-mann/ )

The poleward temperature gradient in middle latitudes leads to the
phenomenon of 'baroclinic instability', which governs the strength of
*mid-latitude
cyclones* (i.e. the winter storms that influence the extratropical regions
of the world with their alternating cold fronts and warm fronts that come
through every few days on the average). This is fundamentally different from
the dynamical and thermodynamic factors which govern *tropical
cyclones*(and Hurricanes, which are just strong versions therefore).
In this case,
the factors have a lot more to do with the vertical stability properties of
the tropical atmosphere, and things such as atmospheric wind shear. We
generally lecture on this key distinction in intermediate level
undergraduate courses on weather and the atmosphere. It is possible that
Richard Lindzen, who was in his day arguably one of the leading atmospheric
dynamicists, simply doesn't happen to know this. The other possibility is
that he was intentionally misleading the audience to score some cheap
rhetorical points. I'll leave it to you to decide. -mike]

----------------
>From NASA, read about the results of scientists testing Lindzen's "Iris
Effect" theory:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Iris/iris2.php

“Our results are based upon actual observations that are used to drive
global climate models,” Lin concludes. “And when we use actual observations
from CERES we find that the Iris Hypothesis won’t work.”

-------------

Lindzen has backed away betting serious money with climate scientists
regarding his predictions on climate change.

Betting pools on climate change are proposed to address economic mistakes.
Those who promote costly action to address climate change will pay if
climate change does not happen, offsetting the costs that were not
necessary; those negatively impacted from climate change will win bets from
those who deny it will happen, if it does.

>From climate scientist and researcher James Annan's website, regarding
Lindzen's backing away from placing serious money on a bet on future
climate:

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/index.html

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/betting.html

>From website above:

Professor Richard Lindzen <http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm> is a
prominent sceptic who claims that the anthropogenic influence on our climate
is close to negligible and that in fact cooling is about as likely as
warming over at least the next 20 years. Now, although there must be
somenon-zero chance of cooling on this time scale (due to the natural
decadal-scale variability of the climate, and the possibility of large
volcanic eruptions), this opinion certainly seems to be well to one extreme
of what most climate scientists think is likely.

Recently, my attention was drawn to some comments attributed to
Lindzen<http://www.reason.com/rb/rb111004.shtml>:
"Richard Lindzen says he's willing to take bets that global average
temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now." (thanks
to William Connolley <http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/> for the tip). Given
his widely-promulgated views, I took this quote at face value and contacted
him to arrange a wager. A payoff at retirement age would be a nice top-up to
my pension.

Now here's the kicker. Richard Lindzen will indeed accept a bet - but only
if offered odds of 50:1 in his favour! He actually started out quoting 100:1
- but came down to 50:1 in what he described as a "special favor" to me. If
the temperatures went down, I was to hand over $10,000, but in the event of
a rise, I'd get a whopping $200. That's worth around $8 per year on my
pension. Whoop-de-doo. That's not really quite what I had in mind. In fact,
not only is $200 too small a win to be worth bothering with, but moreover I
think that his side of the bet is probably more attractive than mine. Note
that I certainly do not consider myself to be a sceptic, but on the contrary
am just a bit-part player in climate research who thinks that the IPCC
TAR<http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/>(by which I really mean
Working Group 1, "The Scientific Basis" which is the
only bit I know much about) has basically got it right. Yet here is one of
the most prominent sceptics who is apparently less confident about the
chances of medium-term cooling than I am myself!

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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