Lindzen: Reconsidering the Climate Change Act

James Delingpole set up a beautiful introduction for a speech by Richard Lindzen to the UK House of Commons.

Professor Richard Lindzen is one of the world’s greatest atmospheric physicists: perhaps the greatest. What he doesn’t know about the science behind climate change probably isn’t worth knowing. But even if you weren’t aware of all this, even if you’d come to the talk he gave in the House of Commons this week without prejudice or expectation, I can pretty much guarantee you would have been blown away by his elegant dismissal of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.

Dick Lindzen does not need to raise his voice. He does not use hyperbole. In a tone somewhere between weariness and withering disdain, he lets the facts speak for themselves. And the facts, as he understands them, are devastating.

Professor Lindzen knocks down the absurd notion of “settled science”.

Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC. It is crucial to be aware of their implications.

1.  A doubling of CO2 by itself contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models there are positive feedbacks from water vapour and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain.

2. If one assumes that all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of climate to a doubling of CO2, is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.

Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasised by the IPCC.

UPDATE: