Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Lindzen on climate alarmism...

Lindzen on climate alarmism...  If you're not familiar with him, Richard Lindzen is a well-known atmospheric scientist at MIT who's long been cautious about global warming (or climate change) claims.  I just ran across a detailed article he wrote a few days ago.  Here's one sample paragraph:
Sea level rise:

Globally averaged sea level appears to have been rising at the rate of about 6 inches a century for thousands of years. Until the advent of satellites, sea level was essentially measured with tide gauges which measure the sea level relative to the land level. Unfortunately, the land level is also changing, and as Emery and Aubrey note, tectonics are the major source of change at many locations. Beginning in 1979 we began to use satellites to measure actual sea level. The results were surprisingly close to the previous tide gauge estimates, but slightly higher, but one sees from Wunsch et al (DOI: 10.1175/2007JCLI1840.1) that one is in no position to argue that small differences from changing methodologies represents acceleration. Regardless, the changes are small compared to the claims that suggest disastrous changes. However, even in the early 1980’s advocates of warming alarm like S. Schneider argued that sea level would be an easily appreciated scare tactic. The fact that people like Al Gore and Susan Solomon (former head of the IPCC’s Scientific Assessment) have invested heavily in ocean front property supports the notion that the issue is propagandistic rather than scientific.
The whole thing is an excellent and sober summary of the problems with climate alarmism.  No matter what your position or beliefs on climate change are, you'll learn something by reading this piece...

3 comments:

  1. I'd like to see that article - is it online anywhere?

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  2. You forgot link to the article.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, guys - I updated the post with the link...

    ReplyDelete