The Great Global Warming Blunder
New book from Dr. Roy Spencer
23
04
2010
I have been remiss at posting reviews on several books that people have sent me. I hope to get some of them up in the next week. Dr. Spencer’s announcement below is a start, though his is the one book I don’t have. – Anthony
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The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists
By Dr. Roy Spencer
click for previews at Amazon.com
Today (April 20) is the official release date of my new book entitled: “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists“, published by Encounter Books.
About one-half of Blunder is a non-technical description of our new peer reviewed and soon-to-be-published research which supports the opinion that a majority of Americans already hold: that warming in recent decades is mostly due to a natural cycle in the climate system — not to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.
Believe it or not, this potential natural explanation for recent warming has never been seriously researched by climate scientists. The main reason they have ignored this possibility is that they cannot think of what might have caused it.
You see, climate researchers are rather myopic. They think that the only way for global-average temperatures to change is for the climate system to be forced ‘externally’…by a change in the output of the sun, or by a large volcanic eruption. These are events which occur external to the normal, internal operation of the climate system.
But what they have ignored is the potential for the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior.
As I travel around the country, I find that the public instinctively understands the possibility that there are natural climate cycles. Unfortunately, it is the climate “experts” who have difficulty grasping the concept. This is why I am taking my case to the public in this book. The climate research community long ago took the wrong fork in the road, and I am afraid that it might be too late for them to turn back.
NATURE’S SUNSHADE: CLOUDS
The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.
How could the experts have missed such a simple explanation? Because they have convinced themselves that only a temperature change can cause a cloud cover change, and not the other way around. The issue is one of causation. They have not accounted for cloud changes causing temperature changes.
The experts have simply mixed up cause and effect when observing how clouds and temperature vary. The book reveals a simple way to determine the direction of causation from satellite observations of global average temperature and cloud variations. And that new tool should fundamentally change how we view the climate system.
Blunder also addresses a second major mistake that results from ignoring the effect of natural cloud variations on temperature: it results in the illusion that the climate system is very sensitive. The experts claim that, since our climate system is very sensitive, then our carbon dioxide emissions are all that is needed to explain global warming. There is no need to look for alternative explanations.
But I show that the experts have merely reasoned themselves in a circle on this subject. When properly interpreted, our satellite observations actually reveal that the system is quite IN-sensitive. And an insensitive climate system means that nature does not really care whether you travel by jet, or how many hamburgers or steaks you eat.
CARBON DIOXIDE: FRIEND OR FOE?
The supposed explanation that global warming is due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide from our burning of fossil fuels turns out to be based upon little more than circumstantial evidence. It is partly a symptom of our rather primitive understanding of how the climate system works.
And I predict that the proposed cure for global warming – reducing greenhouse gas emissions – will someday seem as outdated as using leeches to cure human illnesses.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that scientific knowledge is continually changing, it is increasingly apparent that the politicians are not going to let little things like facts get in their way. For instance, a new draft climate change report was released by the U.S. yesterday (April 19) which, in part, says: “Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced … Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.”
You see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But in Blunder I address what other scientists should have the courage to admit: that maybe putting more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing. Given that it is necessary for life on Earth, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is surprisingly small. We already know that nature is gobbling up 50% of what humanity produces, no matter how fast we produce it. So, it is only logical to address the possibility that nature — that life on Earth — has actually been starved for carbon dioxide.
This should give you some idea of the major themes of my new book. I am under no illusion that the book will settle the scientific debate over global warming.
To the contrary — I am hoping the debate will finally begin.
wattsupwiththat.com
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CRS, Dr.P.H. (11:38:32) :
Spencer says “The climate research community long ago took the wrong fork in the road, and I am afraid that it might be too late for them to turn back.”
These folks didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that (a) this approach would be fun, (b) they could shill some good research dollars, or (c) both.
These are true believers who actually buy into the end-of-the-world stuff that we lampoon, and who also see this as a great way to re-engineer society away from dreaded fossil fuels & onwards to something else, all the while instituting new government controls.
They won’t go into the night quietly, I can guarantee that much. I’m in and amongst these types in my chosen field of public health, and even a glacier plopping down on top of the Sahara would be due to “climate change.”
Check out the presentation slides from Dr. John Holdren’s talk at the Chicago Grand Challenges Summit, I can’t recommend them enough for you folks to see where the Obama administration is taking this (nowhere that you want to go, believe me):
whitehouse.gov
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I think a lot of people NEED to have a reason to stoke apocalyptic fears ... Christians can get obsessed with the immanence of the Second Coming and some do .... secular folks need a secular substitute - we've seen fears of a new ice age (not necessarily unfounded, it will happen sometime), over-population induced famine, acid rain, loss of the rain forest etc etc and today we have global warming, oceans turning acid, methane releases taking us to a 'tipping point' where warming will keep escalating on its own.
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Layne Blanchard (11:52:01) :
The AGW movement isn’t even about reducing C02. It’s a swirling vortex of Marxist/Communist Ideologues, Religious zealots, anti Capitalist/ Anti American /Anti Industrial Nutballs, Rent seekers and idiots. Did I forget anyone?
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Charles Higley (11:58:21) :
Dr Spencer is being generous in presenting that the scientists were fooled by their thinking, ignorance, or circular logic.
The basics of their aberrant science is a collage of junk science that arrives at the conclusion that they want – climate change is our fault – and produces the political clout to impose radical economic, wealth, and social changes in the name of saving the planet.
This is a political effort and a specific agenda, not a group of scientists that went astray. They were purposely sent astray by the mandate (a la Maurice Strong) to show that global warming is manmade (a la Trofim D Lysenko). They knew the answer, and just needed to fabricate the science.
The more that the real science can be nailed down and demonstrated and the jun science revealed and debunked, the greater the chance of shooting down this agenda as word spreads of the supportable science and the planet continues to do its own thing.
It is quite convenient, I must say that they used the latest warming period to begin to sell manmade global warming. It took them so long to get going that by the time they were ready to close the deal/scam (Gore released his movie, Copenhagen), the planet had already begun to cool.
I cringe at the idea that, if the natural cycle was longer or happened to skip a cycle, the reality of the planet would not have been realized until it was too late and the idiots had taken over. Of course, that does not mean that they will not continue to try.
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Of course, the internet Gore invented has helped spread the word on his scam. Thats irony.
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