German Climate Scientist Accuses IPCC Of Alarmism: “In The Red Rev Range Of Ideology And Reality Loss”

A retired German climate scientist says the IPCC has ventured into “the red rev range of ideology and reality loss”, and adds there is no stringent scientific proof of CO2’s influence on climate

At the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), a German climate scientist, wonders if the IPCC and German media have lost their grip on reality as they place the blame for global warming on human CO2 emissions.

Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke writes that the IPCC is in the “red rev range of ideology and reality loss” as the German media and politicians renew their calls to drastically cut back CO2 emissions in order to keep the planet from “dangerously overheating”.

The German climate scientist, however, says CO2’s impact on the climate are exorbitantly overblown.

Germany’s share of global CO2 negligible

First Prof. Lüdecke reminds that Germany’s share of global CO2 emissions is so puny that any reductions efforts by the country will have no detectable effect on global temperatures, and cites a Report of the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

In the report’s Fig. 2.3 we see:

Image (Fig. 2.3): Emissions of climate gases worldwide (here)

As the chart shows, the European Union share of global emissions is only 9%. At 2.5%, Germany is a mere fraction of that.

“Already we see that our share globally is negligible,” Lüdecke writes.

“Fictional” damage

Lüdecke also doubts the large role CO2 is claimed to have on climate, and characterizes the notion the climate is somehow damaged by human CO2 as “fictional”.

“No stringent proof” manmade CO2 influences climate

The retired German professor also says that according to the scientific literature: “To date, there is no stringent proof that the anthropogenic, i.e. human-made (!) CO2 has exerted any influence on the climate which is clearly traceable to this source.”

Lüdecke adds that the temperature increase seen at the end of the 20th century is well within the range of natural variability and is not unusual and that, if anything, CO2 is good for the planet.

94 responses to “German Climate Scientist Accuses IPCC Of Alarmism: “In The Red Rev Range Of Ideology And Reality Loss””

  1. SebastianH

    A retired climate scientist at EIKE … since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science? (link)

    And since when is EIKE a source of actual science? Their blog is even worse than Principia-scientific.

    And what should we think of Mr. Lüdecke for writing articles for this website?

    So the question I’ll ask you is: how skeptic are you of what Horst-Joachim Lüdecke is claiming considering where it and he comes from? On a scale from 0 to 10, 10 making him completely untrustworthy.

    For me it is a clear 10.

    1. Kenneth Richard

      A retired climate scientist at EIKE … since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science? And what should we think of Mr. Lüdecke for writing articles for this website? So the question I’ll ask you is: how skeptic[al] are you of what Horst-Joachim Lüdecke is claiming considering where it and he comes from?

      It would be far more substantive if you were to actually respond to what is written in the article rather than immediately leaping to dismiss what this professor has to say because you do not think he has the requisite credentials or background. Should we dismiss what Dr. Gavin Schmidt has to say because he runs the RealClimate.org blog and has his Ph.D in mathematics, not climate science? (In my opinion, the blogosphere background and non-climate science credentials in no way disqualifies Schmidt.)

      In sum, instead of employing the ad hominem logical fallacy and the softcore bigotry (i.e., focusing on the person’s age, race, religion…) you so often do, why not respond to what was written in the article? For example:

      “The retired German professor also says that according to the scientific literature: ‘To date, there is no stringent proof that the anthropogenic, i.e. human-made (!) CO2 has exerted any influence on the climate which is clearly traceable to this source.'”

      “Lüdecke adds that the temperature increase seen at the end of the 20th century is well within the range of natural variability and is not unusual and that, if anything, CO2 is good for the planet.”

      Do you agree or disagree that there has been a clearly discernible anthropogenic signal amidst the noise of natural variability in the climate changes (i.e., the ocean temperature change of 0.02 C since 1994, the 0.39 of a centimeter added to sea levels from the Greenland ice sheet since 1993, the increase in Antarctic sea ice since 1979…) observed since the late 20th century? That’s what he’s claiming. Is he wrong? If so, provide a substantive analysis explaining why he is.

      That would be a substantive response to this article. Claiming a scientist is wrong because he writes for EIKE or non-preferred websites or because his Ph.D isn’t climate science related…or because he’s old and retired (and white) is not a substantive response.

      1. SebastianH

        In sum, instead of employing the ad hominem logical fallacy and the softcore bigotry (i.e., focusing on the person’s age, race, religion…) you so often do, why not respond to what was written in the article?

        Asking the author of an article how skeptical he is of the person he is quoting and of what he writes is an ad hominem logical fallacy? I think this is your bias talking again …

        “The retired German professor also says that according to the scientific literature: ‘To date, there is no stringent proof that the anthropogenic, i.e. human-made (!) CO2 has exerted any influence on the climate which is clearly traceable to this source.’”

        This is untrue.

        “Lüdecke adds that the temperature increase seen at the end of the 20th century is well within the range of natural variability and is not unusual and that, if anything, CO2 is good for the planet.”

        That is a logical fallacy.

        Do you agree or disagree that there has been a clearly discernible anthropogenic signal amidst the noise of natural variability in the climate changes […] observed since the late 20th century?

        Like this?
        http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_FigTS-6.jpg

        Or the findings in this summary?
        http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

        That’s what he’s claiming. Is he wrong? If so, provide a substantive analysis explaining why he is.

        He is wrong in claiming that a temperature increase needs to be outside the range of natural variability to be caused by something else than natural variability. That is a logic fallacy and I don’t know why you require a “substantive analysis” as to why that is the case.

        That would be a substantive response to this article.

        I was not planning on showing why Lüdecke is wrong in his claims, I was asking if you (Pierre in this case) are skeptical towards his claims.

        But since we are not ad homing anyone here and demand substansive analysis of the content an author writes instead of just saying that you don’t prefer the website, how about allowing skepticalscience.com link and actually discuss what is written there instead of calling it a dishonest website written by a cartoon artist? 😉 That would be substantial and would make a difference in tone here.

        P.S.: Lüdecke has no serious publication in climate science, so how does him critizing climate scientists with baseless claims today make him a climate scientist as well?

        1. spike55

          ‘To date, there is no stringent proof that the anthropogenic, i.e. human-made (!) CO2 has exerted any influence on the climate which is clearly traceable to this source.’”

          “This is untrue.”

          PROVE IT. ze-seb

          Your comment is EMPTY.

          “Lüdecke adds that the temperature increase seen at the end of the 20th century is well within the range of natural variability and is not unusual and that, if anything, CO2 is good for the planet.”

          “That is a logical fallacy.”

          WRONG it is totally logical and totally CORRECT

          Your comment is, as always EMPTY of any evidence.

          Come on, PRODUCE THE EVIDENCE

          Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

          Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

          1. SebastianH

            “This is untrue.”

            PROVE IT. ze-seb

            Perhaps you are not aware of it, but proofs are for math. You can’t prove anything like this, you can amount evidence that increase our confidence that this is the case. And there is solid evidence and high confidency regarding this.

            Maybe you can try to prove that human CO2 hasn’t done anything that is traceable to that source. Good luck!

            We have yet to see a consistent proof from the so called skeptic camp that is actually able to challenge the current state of climate science. Who knows, maybe everyone is wrong and there is a missed and perfectly good explanation for our observations that doesn’t involve CO2 … find it, revolutionize climate science and maybe get a Nobel in the process. Not motivating enough? I’ll praise everything you write for an entire year if you manage to revolutionize climate science as a blog comment expert 😉 Deal?

            WRONG it is totally logical and totally CORRECT

            Nope. It’s same as writing spike55 posts troll comments, therefore once we see a troll comment, it must have been spike55 who wrote it. Unless someone would surpass your troll level and post even more ridiculous stuff, we can never tell if it’s not just you who wrote a troll comment.

            Got it? 😉

            Come on, PRODUCE THE EVIDENCE

            Huh? A therefore B doesn’t mean that A was the cause when we observe B. Assuming this is a logical fallacy. What kind of evidence do you need to understand this?

        2. Kenneth Richard

          Asking the author of an article how skeptical he is of the person he is quoting and of what he writes is an ad hominem logical fallacy?

          No. Let me educate you on what an ad hominem logical fallacy is.

          It’s when someone responds to a claim or quote he disagrees with by pointing out that the person making the claim only has been trained in fluid mechanics, which apparently isn’t sufficiently climate science related. Further, the person making the claim has been associated with EIKE, which is “even worse than Principia Scientific“, and his work has been published in Die Freie Welt, which apparently is an objectionable website (?). To top it off, even though the person making the claim has a Ph.D and is a professor, he is not to be referred to as a Dr., but a Mr. After all, he’s retired, which means he’s old.

          None of these points address the substance of the article. They follow this pattern:

          https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/1/Ad-Hominem-Abusive
          Person 1 is claiming Y. Person 1 is a moron. Therefore, Y is not true.

          P.S.: Lüdecke has no serious publication in climate science, so how does him critizing climate scientists with baseless claims today make him a climate scientist as well?

          Lüdecke et al., 2015
          https://www.clim-past-discuss.net/11/279/2015/cpd-11-279-2015.pdf

          Weber, Lüdecke, and Weiss, 2015
          https://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/esd-2015-63/esdd-6-2043-2015.pdf

          Lüdecke et al., 2016
          http://epic.awi.de/41139/1/polfor_2016_015.pdf

          Lüdecke and Weiss, 2017
          https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASCJ/TOASCJ-11-44.pdf

          Weiss and Lüdecke, 2017
          http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018EGUGA..20.4924W

          “Lüdecke adds that the temperature increase seen at the end of the 20th century is well within the range of natural variability and is not unusual and that, if anything, CO2 is good for the planet.”

          That is a logical fallacy.

          It is becoming more and more apparent, SebastianH, that you do not know what a logical fallacy is.

          1. SebastianH

            No. Let me educate you on what an ad hominem logical fallacy is.

            Oh boy … I am so excited! Kenneth finally doesn’t just repeat what others are saying but has an opinion of his own.

            It’s when someone responds to a claim or quote he disagrees with by pointing out that the person making the claim only has been trained in fluid mechanics, which apparently isn’t sufficiently climate science related.

            Let’s look at what I actually wrote: “since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science?”

            This obviously refers to Pierre calling him a retired climate scientist. Is he a retired climate scientist? No he isn’t. There is no judgement in this except that Pierre wrote the wrong term. That it would be not sufficiently related to climate science is entirely your biased view of whatever I write.

            Further, the person making the claim has been associated with EIKE, which is “even worse than Principia Scientific“, and his work has been published in Die Freie Welt, which apparently is an objectionable website (?).

            It should tell you a lot when someone is only able to publish with a certain “institute” and feels the need to publish on websites like “Die Freie Welt”. Thus the question if you (Pierre) are skeptical of what he writes/claims.

            To top it off, even though the person making the claim has a Ph.D and is a professor, he is not to be referred to as a Dr., but a Mr. After all, he’s retired, which means he’s old.

            *sigh* you bias at work again. None of those publications you list next has a “Prof” or “Dr/Phd” in front of the name and I simply try to be polite enough and not call people by only their last name. It’s pretty common in Germany to do that, even if the person one is referring to has a “Dr.” title.

            The part about him being old is what you are interpreting into what I wrote. I never wrote this, I just repeated what Pierre wrote.

            About your list of publications he did with his buddy Mr. Weiss, I said serious publications. Anyone can publish where those papers got published.

            It is becoming more and more apparent, SebastianH, that you do not know what a logical fallacy is.

            It is the affirming the consequent fallacy. You state that natural variablilty (A) is causing temperature changes in a certain range (B). Because we are seeing temperature changes in that range (B) it must have been natural variability (A).

            This is equivalent to saying: “when it rains the lawn gets wet. It is wet now, therefore it must have rained” … only with the difference that one can actually see water coming out from the garden hose in case of the climate changing and what causes it.

        3. John Brown

          SebH,

          you say:

          “He is wrong in claiming that a temperature increase needs to be outside the range of natural variability to be caused by something else than natural variability. That is a logic fallacy and I don’t know why you require a “substantive analysis” as to why that is the case.”

          You think it is a logic fallacy, well I think it is the only way to be able to separate the human influence from natural processes.

          This is logic and the separation is scientifically necessary.

          1. SebastianH

            Thinking the temperature can only change from one thing, natural variations is a fallacy. And that’s exactly what is happening when you argue that the current temperature change isn’t outside natural variability and therefore can’t be of anthropogenic origin.

            This is similar to someone coming to my home as saying that he doesn’t believe that I have an FTTH connection to the internet because the bandwidth he observed isn’t different from those one gets from a traditional DSL connection.

            I’ll gladly point that person towards where the cables come in from the street. And in case of climate I gladly point people to the research of the effect that CO2 and other GHGs have. If they choose to not belief in actual research or think those cables I showed them are fake, I can only role with my eyes 😉

            Clear?

          2. Kenneth Richard

            Thinking the temperature can only change from one thing, natural variations is a fallacy. And that’s exactly what is happening when you argue that the current temperature change isn’t outside natural variability and therefore can’t be of anthropogenic origin.

            What was the “natural variations” (i.e., the mechanism or mechanisms) that caused the steep temperature change from the (800-1250 AD) Medieval Warm Period to the (1300-1900 AD) Little Ice Age, when global surface temperatures plummeted by about 1-2 degrees C, and ocean heat content (as expressed in temperature) dropped by -0.9 C? Since CO2 concentrations didn’t decline during this transition, but actually rose, we can conclude with some confidence that CO2 conentration change wasn’t the factor in this climate change. So what was the natural mechanism, then? Be specific with your answer and please don’t dodge this question like you usually do (i.e. “Look it up yourself…I’m not doing your science homework for you!”).

            Apparently you’re not understanding what is meant when scientists write about modern climate changes not falling outside the range of natural variability. It means that there is no clear or obvious anthropogenic signal detected in the correlational analysis that emerges from the large attribution uncertainties, meaning an anthropogenic signal is too small to be distinguished from the noise of internal variability, or what does and long has occurred naturally, without human interference. Simply put, this is not about “logical fallacies”, a philosophical construct (nor does your hypotheticl FTTH connection “analogy” in any way pertain, as usual). Natural variability vs. an anthropogenic forcing signal is instead about observational evidence, a scientific construct. Here’s how they put it with observations of sea level rise, for example:

            https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01317607/
            “Building up on the relationship between thermocline and sea level in the tropical region, we show that most of the observed sea level spatial trend pattern in the tropical Pacific can be explained by the wind driven vertical thermocline movement. By performing detection and attribution study on sea level spatial trend patterns in the tropical Pacific and attempting to eliminate signal corresponding to the main internal climate mode, we further show that the remaining residual sea level trend pattern does not correspond to externally forced anthropogenic sea level signal. In addition, we also suggest that satellite altimetry measurement may not still be accurate enough to detect the anthropogenic signal in the 20-year tropical Pacific sea level trends.”

            http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-15A-00004.1
            “Such identification of oscillators and general trends over 160 years would be of great importance for distinguishing long-term, natural developments from possible, more recent anthropogenic sea-level changes. However, we found that a possible candidate for such anthropogenic development, i.e. the large sea-level rise after 1970, is completely contained by the found small residuals, long-term oscillators, and general trend. Thus, we found that there is (yet) no observable sea-level effect of anthropogenic global warming in the world’s best recorded region.”

            http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/084024
            Sea level rates up to three times the global mean rate are being observed in the western tropical Pacific since 1993 by satellite altimetry. From recently published studies, it is not yet clear whether the sea level spatial trend patterns of the Pacific Ocean observed by satellite altimetry are mostly due to internal climate variability or if some anthropogenic fingerprint is already detectable. We show that subtraction of the IPO contribution to sea level trends through the method of linear regression does not totally remove the internal variability, leaving significant signal related to the non-linear response of sea level to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In addition, by making use of 21 CMIP5 coupled climate models, we study the contribution of external forcing to the Pacific Ocean regional sea level variability over 1993–2013, and show that according to climate models, externally forced and thereby the anthropogenic sea level fingerprint on regional sea level trends in the tropical Pacific is still too small to be observable by satellite altimetry. Furthermore, regressed CMIP5 MME-based sea level spatial trend pattern in the tropical Pacific over the altimetry period do not display any positive sea level trend values that are comparable to the altimetry based sea level signal after having removed the contribution of the decadal natural climate mode. This suggests that the residual positive trend pattern observed in the western tropical Pacific is not externally forced and thereby not anthropogenic in origin.”

          3. Kenneth Richard

            in case of climate I gladly point people to the research of the effect that CO2 and other GHGs have.

            What does the real-world observational evidence say about the causal effect of CO2 concentration changes on sea level, or water temperature? How much warming (or cooling) does a 0.00001 (10 ppm) change in CO2 concentration cause in a water body? Cite this observational evidence, please.

            Keep in mind that even the IPCC acknowledges that the uncertainty in observational estimates of CO2–>OHC changes are about 10 times greater (~20 W m-2) than the entire forcing values attributed to CO2 for the 1750-present period (<2 W m-2). So if the uncertainty and error bars are so much larger than the assumed CO2 effect, how can you "gladly" point to the research about the effects of CO2 on climate with any degree of confidence? It's a belief, actually.

            http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-2-1.html
            “Unfortunately, the total surface heat and water fluxes (see Supplementary Material, Figure S8.14) are not well observed. Normally, they are inferred from observations of other fields, such as surface temperature and winds. Consequently, the uncertainty in the observational estimate is large – of the order of tens of watts per square metre for the heat flux, even in the zonal mean.”

            https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter03_FINAL.pdf
            “The overall uncertainty of the annually averaged global ocean mean for each term is expected to be in the range 10 to 20%. In the case of the latent heat flux term, this corresponds to an uncertainty of up to 20 W m–2. In comparison, changes in global mean values of individual heat flux components expected as a result of anthropogenic climate change since 1900 are at the level of <2 W m–2 (Pierce et al., 2006)

          4. Kenneth Richard

            Thinking the temperature can only change from one thing, natural variations is a fallacy. And that’s exactly what is happening when you argue that the current temperature change isn’t outside natural variability and therefore can’t be of anthropogenic origin.

            No one argues that temperature can only change from one thing.

            No one argues that “the current temperature change isn’t outside natural variability and therefore can’t be of anthropogenic origin“.

            You’re just making up fallacious statements (again) and pretending that someone wrote them. Your analogy pertains to the ridiculous straw man you concocted, and therefore it is also irrelevant.

          5. SebastianH

            Since CO2 concentrations didn’t decline during this transition, but actually rose, we can conclude with some confidence that CO2 conentration change wasn’t the factor in this climate change.

            I did not say that CO2 is the only thing that influences the temperature. Why do you nevertheless act like I – or for that matter anyone in climate science – did say that?

            So what was the natural mechanism, then? Be specific with your answer and please don’t dodge this question like you usually do (i.e. “Look it up yourself…I’m not doing your science homework for you!”).

            It obviously wasn’t anthropogenic emissions. Why should I dodge the question? I don’t know what kind of answer you expect. The human influence grew during the industrialisation. Climate science tells us that we du influence the climate. You tell me that this is not possible because the current change doesn’t even exceed past natural variability. Everything looking normal, therefore normal variability is at play. Then I tell you that is a logical fallacy and you come up with questions what caused past climate change if it was not CO2?! How does this work in your head?

            It means that there is no clear or obvious anthropogenic signal detected in the correlational analysis that emerges from the large attribution uncertainties, meaning an anthropogenic signal is too small to be distinguished from the noise of internal variability, or what does and long has occurred naturally, without human interference.

            That is what you tell yourself.

            Here’s how they put it with observations of sea level rise, for example:

            https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01317607/ … you surely read the 300+ pages of this thesis, right? The part you highlighted is about the Pacific and a possible anthropogenic signal.

            in regions of high internal variability,
            the trend due to externally forced signal is
            masked during longer time spans than in regions of
            low internal variability. This is the case of tropical
            Pacific which is a region highly impacted by internal
            variability

            Yep, Pacific … high internal variability region which makes such a detection more difficult.

            Second link looks at the Northwest European Shelf, also a region with high variability. Last one does the Pacific again.

            There is a recent paper I found just by googling “anthropogenic signal”: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0282.1 (Martel, 2018) “Role of Natural Climate Variability in the Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change Signal for Mean and Extreme Precipitation at Local and Regional Scales”.

            The abstract is worth reading to get you to understand what the problem with your examples might be and it pays off to look at the bigger picture 😉

            What does the real-world observational evidence say about the causal effect of CO2 concentration changes on sea level, or water temperature? How much warming (or cooling) does a 0.00001 (10 ppm) change in CO2 concentration cause in a water body? Cite this observational evidence, please.

            Oh, this again. Kenneth, that is an experiment that is near impossible to perform and I think that is why you keep repeating it. The effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas has been known even before this name has been coined. It is not something someone magically invented, it was observed.

            I don’t know why you expect that something dramatically different than what the laws of physics suggest would happen, would happen in your scenary. You can use the relevant equations to calculate the result and in fact, I did that multiple times for you. But again, it’s an impossible experiment as one can never perform it in a controlled manner on the scale required to satisfy your request. In reality everything interacts and even if we could alter the CO2 concentration over a specific area of the ocean just like that, we can’t exclude other regions from that experiment. Thus, near impossible.

            So you win! No observational evidence for this very specific scenario of yours! How does that help your cause?

            So if the uncertainty and error bars are so much larger than the assumed CO2 effect, how can you “gladly” point to the research about the effects of CO2 on climate with any degree of confidence? It’s a belief, actually.

            No, it’s not. I leave it to you to find out how that is possible.

            Hint: can you tell that it is getting warmer or cooler with a badly calibrated thermometer? Or can you tell that the voltage of a circuit is changing with an uncalibrated voltage meter? Mind you those are (simple) hints, please don’t try to argue against those …

          6. Kenneth Richard

            Since CO2 concentrations didn’t decline during this [Medieval Warm Period to Little Ice Age, warming-to-cooling] transition, but actually rose, we can conclude with some confidence that CO2 conentration change wasn’t the factor in this climate change.

            I did not say that CO2 is the only thing that influences the temperature.

            I did not say that you said that “CO2 is the only thing that influences the temperature”. Quit playing the victim. I merely asked you to identify the mechanism or mechanisms that did cause the MWP–>LIA temperature change, a question/challenge which you have, once again, dodged.

            So what was the natural mechanism, then? Be specific with your answer and please don’t dodge this question like you usually do (i.e. “Look it up yourself…I’m not doing your science homework for you!”).

            It obviously wasn’t anthropogenic emissions. Why should I dodge the question? I don’t know what kind of answer you expect.

            Why should you keep dodging this question? You’ve done it again. As the emboldened portion shows, I asked you to specifically identify the mechanism or mechanisms that caused the MWP–>LIA climate change (1 to 2 K surface cooling, -0.9 K OHC drop), since it wasn’t CO2 concentration change (which grew slightly). And, once again, you refuse to answer the question just as you always do.

          7. Kenneth Richard

            Climate science tells us that we du influence the climate. You tell me that this is not possible because the current change doesn’t even exceed past natural variability.

            No, you’ve made up stuff again. I have not said that it is not possible that humans influence the climate. We do influence the climate. The extent to which we do is where there is a chasm between what you believe (100% of warming is human caused!) and what we skeptics think.

            Everything looking normal, therefore normal variability is at play. Then I tell you that is a logical fallacy

            But you haven’t even come close to demonstrating that it is a logical fallacy. A logical fallacy is a philosophical construct. That modern climate changes do not even come close to falling outside the range of the climate changes that have occurred in the past (naturally) is an observation. It doesn’t necessitate that we establish cause or attribution when reporting observations.

            We are not saying that because it was warmer than now in the past, therefore humans aren’t causing warmth now. That’s your made-up straw man, or your attempt to make up a logical fallacy out of something we have not written.

            Instead, we’re saying that the climate naturally swings between warming and cooling independently of an anthropogenic influence that the attribution for modern changes — which are smaller than the ones occurring in the past — cannot be clearly discerned as distinctly caused by human activity.

            During the early Holocene, sea levels rose at rates of 4-6 meters per century (40-60 mm/yr) while CO2 concentrations remained static. During 1901-2010, sea levels rose at a rate of 1.7 mm/yr (0.17 m per century) according to the IPCC. During 1958-2014, the rate was even lower (1.4 mm/yr per Frederiske et al., 2018). Where in these SLR rates is there a clearly-discernible anthropogenic signal? (Notice that it hasn’t been written that humans don’t cause sea levels to rise because the rates are far slower today than during the early Holocene. That’s your made-up straw-man logical fallacy.)

          8. Kenneth Richard

            There is a recent paper I found just by googling “anthropogenic signal”:

            Right, and it says “Nonetheless, natural climate variability can impede the detection of the anthropogenic climate change signal until the middle to late century in many parts of the world for mean and extreme precipitation” in the abstract. How does this help you?

            What does the real-world observational evidence say about the causal effect of CO2 concentration changes on sea level, or water temperature? How much warming (or cooling) does a 0.00001 (10 ppm) change in CO2 concentration cause in a water body? Cite this observational evidence, please.

            No observational evidence for this very specific scenario of yours!

            Correct. We have no observational evidence that tells us how much warming will occur in a body of water with an additional 10 ppm CO2 concentration in the air above it. It could be 0.00000000001 K. It could be 0.000001 K. It could be 0.0001 K. It could be 0.001 K. We have no idea how much heating occurs with additional CO2. For skeptics like us, not having any idea if it’s 0.000000000001 K or 0.001 K or 0.1 K…is a problem. For non-skeptics (like you), not having any idea what the quantified effect of a CO2 concentration change on a body of water is not only not a problem, it’s probably not even worth knowing. For non-skeptics (like you), uncertainty is a minor inconvenience, something that must be dismissed when it gets in the way of what you believe to be true.

          9. John Brown

            Thanks Kenneth for taking up this thread.

            You are awesome in trying to explain your position, and actually also mine, trying to navigate through all the misunderstandings and mental bendings that SebH comes up with.

            For SebH

            You seem to think natural variation is just one thing when you say:

            “Thinking the temperature can only change from one thing, natural variations is a fallacy. And that’s exactly what is happening when you argue that the current temperature change isn’t outside natural variability and therefore can’t be of anthropogenic origin.”

            No, SebH! There is a multitude of separate factors that impact on the temperatures on Earth, it is not one or two, its many.
            If you think that it is easy to extract a human caused signal in this then you have not understood the true size of the problem and the true complexity of the Earth climate systems.

            In order to understand what CO2 might or might not do to the climate, we first have to understand all other factors. And since we are still unsure which ones there are, we cannot possibly say: we know 100% that this is what CO2 does! This is scientifically incorrect.

            There is not single answer for CO2, since the system is so complex that changes on one side trigger other reactions, which you maybe like to call feedbacks, but since there is a mulitude of factors involved, the statement: More CO2 leads to warming, should be met with enough skepticism to question the claim that we have a 100% certainty of its influence.

            Remaining skeptic: John Brown

          10. Yonason

            Not outside natural variability does not mean no other factors are involved. It just means that if they are, that their signal is too weak to be detected.

            In other words, any claims of certainty that elevated [CO2] is even a partial cause are baseless guesswork, and do not conform to scientific norms.

          11. Kenneth Richard

            Not outside natural variability does not mean no other factors are involved. It just means that if they are, that their signal is too weak to be detected.

            Yes. This is the common understanding. SebastianH has decided to try to make up his own fallacious version of what “modern climate not falling outside the range of natural variability” means so that he can claim we are concocting a logical fallacy. It’s really quite sick.

      2. SebastianH

        Besides, do you agree with Lüdeckes claim that 100% of the CO2 increase is human made? Why not? And if not, why are you not skeptical of everything else he says? Especially the part about Germany being insignificant as a CO2 emitting country. Saving CO2 emissions here, won’t change anything he says. So if the individual things people and countries do don’t matter, why don’t we all stop doing those little things? Changing something for the better (or worse) starts with changing yourself. And it’s not like Germany is the only country trying to reduce its CO2 emissions.

        1. Kenneth Richard

          Besides, do you agree with Lüdeckes claim that 100% of the CO2 increase is human made?

          I don’t know what the percentage of human contribution is. Uncertainty abounds, as our understanding of ocean-atmosphere carbon sink-source processes is limited and very poorly observed. I doubt it’s 100% anthropogenic, but haven’t ruled it out.

          According to a Lüdeckes paper, “in about 150 years, anthropogenic CO2 emission will no longer increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere.”

          Saving CO2 emissions here, won’t change anything he says. So if the individual things people and countries do don’t matter, why don’t we all stop doing those little things?

          Well, because China and India and most of the developing world are ramping up their own fossil fuel infrastructure that will quickly overwhelm any net “gains” in CO2 emissions reduction from Germany and other EU countries (which hasn’t reduced CO2 emissions to any significant degree for 10 years now).

          Changing something for the better (or worse) starts with changing yourself.

          So true. I drive highly fuel efficient vehicles and I’ve switched all my incandescent light bulbs. I rarely fly (in planes). Therefore, I am changing the world.

          1. SebastianH

            According to a Lüdeckes paper, “in about 150 years, anthropogenic CO2 emission will no longer increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere.”

            https://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/esd-2015-63/ that’s the link with the review status and review discussion viewable.

            Well, because China and India and most of the developing world are ramping up their own fossil fuel infrastructure that will quickly overwhelm any net “gains” in CO2 emissions reduction from Germany and other EU countries (which hasn’t reduced CO2 emissions to any significant degree for 10 years now).

            So basically it’s others are not cleaning up after they used the toilette, why should I?

            And it’s not like China would not be trying. I strongly believe (yeah, a belief!) they will come out ahead of everyone else and be the leader in renewable energy technologies, storage and adoption of EVs. Well, they probably are already.

            So true. I drive highly fuel efficient vehicles and I’ve switched all my incandescent light bulbs. I rarely fly (in planes). Therefore, I am changing the world.

            Good for you. So let’s compare our bill for electricity and fuel then. After all you a claiming it would be super expensive in Germany. We are paying about 700 € per year for electricity and I paid 423 € for driving 5300 km over half a year in my current vehicle. It is ridiculously cheap to use energy at home and to get around.

          2. Kenneth Richard

            So basically it’s others are not cleaning up after they used the toilette, why should I?

            No, it’s this: No matter how much we continue to try to reduce our emissions, the rest of the world will continue to expand their fossil fuel consumption to the point that it won’t really matter much if we’re trying to reduce. The overall effect will be rising global emissions because the demand for energy worldwide is skyrocketing and the moralized compunction to use intermittent, unreliable energy isn’t there.

            And it’s not like China would not be trying.

            China is “trying” to expand their fossil fuel infrastructure:

            https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45640706
            Building work has restarted at hundreds of Chinese coal-fired power stations, according to an analysis of satellite imagery. The research, carried out by green campaigners CoalSwarm, suggests that 259 gigawatts of new capacity are under development in China. The authors say this is the same capacity to produce electricity as the entire US coal fleet. The study says government attempts to cancel many plants have failed.”

            I strongly believe (yeah, a belief!) they will come out ahead of everyone else and be the leader in renewable energy technologies, storage and adoption of EVs.

            China accounts for 30% of the world’s CO2 emissions. They may be growing their renewable energy sector, but they’re also growing their fossil fuel infrastructure.

            Good for you. So let’s compare our bill for electricity and fuel then.

            I thought perhaps the “Therefore, I am changing the world” (by changing my light bulbs) might be a hint that what I wrote was bathed in sarcasm. The point of this was to respond to your (paraphrased) question “Why should we do anything if it doesn’t really matter?” Of course, when hundreds of coal plants are being built in China right now, it really doesn’t matter that I no longer use incandescent light bulbs. The latter behavior effectively has no consequence.

          3. SebastianH

            No, it’s this: […]

            How is this different from the toilet example? Everyone else is messing the seat up way more than I am, so why should I clean up after me … that’s the spirit.

            But ok, people are entitled to their own opinions.

            China is “trying” to expand their fossil fuel infrastructure:

            From your link:
            However, some researchers believe that the building of these plants has more to do with boosting the local economy in China than with boosting emissions.

            “Coal power plants run only about half the time in China, and one could argue the new capacity is not needed,” said Glen Peters, from the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo, who was not involved with the report.

            “The new coal power plant builds are most probably about keeping the economy ticking along, particularly from a provincial government perspective, rather than being needed for future electricity generation.”

            China accounts for 30% of the world’s CO2 emissions.

            And yet, they still haven’t reached emissions per person that countries like the US or even Germany have reached: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CN-DE-US

            Imagine what happens when the rest of the developing world closes up to the developed world without better and more sustainable electricity generation technology available economically.

            That’s what early adopters are doing … bringing down the cost. And that is still what is happening. At a certain point fossil fuel power generation will become unattractive for anything but backup purposes.

            Of course, when hundreds of coal plants are being built in China right now, it really doesn’t matter that I no longer use incandescent light bulbs. The latter behavior effectively has no consequence.

            Of course it matters. The pure existence of a power plant doesn’t mean it will actually burn coal. Existing power plants in China have a very low capacity factor because the demand is not as high as those power plant would allow it to be. And one consequence of your behaviour is money saving from higher efficiency.

          4. Kenneth Richard

            How is this different from the toilet example?

            Why veer off into talking about toilets when staying on topic and talking about CO2 emissions needs no such “proxy”?

            Everyone else is messing the seat up way more than I am, so why should I clean up after me

            No, once again, that’s not it. Staying on topic, it’s We are reducing our emissions (or at least trying to), but considering most of the rest of the world is expanding their emissions our contribution to emissions reductions will be wiped out and rendered inconsequential. Please refrain from using toilet “analogies” when the subject at hand is CO2 emissions.

            From your link:
            “However, some researchers believe that the building of these plants has more to do with boosting the local economy in China than with boosting emissions.”

            Um, of course fossil fuel infrastructure expansion is about boosting the economy. How does this help support your apparent contention that China is a green leader committed to reducing their emissions?

            China accounts for 30% of the world’s CO2 emissions.

            And yet, they still haven’t reached emissions per person that countries like the US or even Germany have reached:

            That’s because China is still considered a developing country. Per capita emissions have increased by 770% since 1970 in China. In contrast, they’ve decreased by -30% in the US since the 1970s. Which country would appear to be on the more favorable path, SebastianH?

            Imagine what happens when the rest of the developing world closes up to the developed world without better and more sustainable electricity generation technology available economically

            You’re suggesting that wind and solar are better and more reliable than fossil fuels?

          5. SebastianH

            Why veer off into talking about toilets when staying on topic and talking about CO2 emissions needs no such “proxy”?

            The topic was if you (or rather Pierre) are skeptical of what Prof. Dr. Lüdecke writes.

            How does this help support your apparent contention that China is a green leader committed to reducing their emissions?

            They haven’t even reached western levels (per person) but are still leading in EV sales, solar panel installations, battery production (probably, I don’t know) ans so on. They took advantage of the current climate in the US (no pun intended) and basically stole the leadership on this key industry of the future. Europe also missed that train …

            Which country would appear to be on the more favorable path, SebastianH?

            You really think the US is on a favorable path? Or why are you asking me this question?

            The increase in emissions per capita in China can very well level off in the 2020s/2030s … and then? How will the US come down from their leading position with around double the amount per capita as China?

            Besides, why should we subject China to higher standards than ourselves?

            You’re suggesting that wind and solar are better and more reliable than fossil fuels?

            They can be, but that is not what i wrote, right Kenneth?

          6. Kenneth Richard

            The topic was if you (or rather Pierre) are skeptical of what Prof. Dr. Lüdecke writes.

            Then why did you decide to write about toilet seats?

            They haven’t even reached western levels (per person) but are still leading in EV sales, solar panel installations, battery production (probably, I don’t know) ans so on.

            They also lead the world in coal consumption and are currently building more. They’re also rapidly expanding their natural gas infrastructure (and imports). EVs are predominantly powered by coal fired plants, which means driving EVs in China raises CO2 emissions.

            You really think the US is on a favorable path? Or why are you asking me this question?

            Notice which country led the world (again) in CO2 emissions reductions in 2017. (Hint: the US in a landslide.) Notice which country led the world in CO2 emissions increases in 2017. (Hint: China in a landslide.) Which country is more on the “right” path than the other, SebastianH?

            https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/AEI-Chart-with-2017-CO2-Emissions.png

            Besides, why should we subject China to higher standards than ourselves?

            This would appear to be another patronizing, ethnocentric comment. Who is “ourselves” referencing? Aren’t all human emissions the same? In what way are “we” subjecting China to “higher standards” when it comes to CO2 emissions? Who is “we”?

          7. SebastianH

            Then why did you decide to write about toilet seats?

            To get you to realize what I think doing nothing is comparable to in a thread that you opened up by demanding a substantive reply to what Lüdecke is claiming instead of waiting for a reply from Pierre (or anyone really) if there is skepticism towards such claims or not. Since nobody replied to this question and they way you guys all freak out, I am assuming you blindly trust whatever authors like Prof. Dr. Lüdecke say nevermind the sketchy place his publications are coming from …

            The rest of your comment: we’ve been there before. I don’t like to remind you that there are different studies regarding EV CO2 emissions for China and you posting quotes from your favorite studies back and forth. Been there, done that. Will lead to nowhere and in fact this thread is already too off topic.

            China’s population is more than 4 times the US with the US having around 2 times the CO2 emissions per capita as China. I love it how you switch back and forth between absolute values and percentages to make this look like China is the bad one here and the US is acting exemplary because the managed to reduce their emissions from a super high level to still a super high level. And how? By switching the fuel type.

            This would appear to be another patronizing, ethnocentric comment.

            What?

            Who is “ourselves” referencing?

            The western world obviously.

            Aren’t all human emissions the same?

            Exactly, so why should we focus on the absolute emissions of a country with 1.379 billion citizens and demand that they should do more to reduce their emissions? When at the same time we are emitting way more CO2 per capita, especially in the case of the US.

            I am not saying it would be a good thing for China to catch up to us (the western world or at the extreme the US) emission-wise. But who are we to say that a country should cap its CO2 per capita emissions at lower levels than we can achieve right now? Especially in the case of the US vs. China.

            Do you think the US can sustain that trajectory of its CO2 “weight reduction” just by switching to natural gas? Do you think this CO2 emission decrease was all switching natural gas? Just out of curiosity, how much do you think is accountable to wind+solar?

          8. Kenneth Richard

            Then why did you decide to write about toilet seats?

            To get you to realize what I think doing nothing is comparable to

            Who’s talking about “doing nothing”? Again, attempting to mitigate emissions may be “successful” in one country, but if most other countries are growing emissions that offset these reductions, then the net effect of reducing emissions in one country has little to no impact for the globe. And this has nothing to do with toilet seats.

            I am assuming you blindly trust whatever authors like Prof. Dr. Lüdecke say nevermind the sketchy place his publications are coming from …

            Why do you insist that we “blindly trust” whatever is said? Did any of us say that we agree with everything he writes? No. Did anyone say that we trust him…let alone blindly? No.

            why should we focus on the absolute emissions of a country with 1.379 billion citizens and demand that they should do more to reduce their emissions?

            Why is that a question you are posing to me? I honestly would like to see more people rise out of poverty in places like China and India. To do that, they need cheap, reliable energy. Hence, they ramp up their fossil fuel dependence. But it’s a little odd that you routinely praise China and denigrate the US despite their vastly different emissions reductions/increases trajectories…

            https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/AEI-Chart-with-2017-CO2-Emissions.png

            who are we to say that a country should cap its CO2 per capita emissions at lower levels than we can achieve right now? Especially in the case of the US vs. China.

            Huh? I’m not the “we” who is saying that any country should cap its “CO2 per capita emissions”. That’s what your side does. I have no problem at all with China and India and the developing world increasing their emissions. In fact, I’m in favor of it. It’s indicative of economical progress. But I’m also not sold on the belief that increasing CO2 emissions is a bad thing…as you are.

            Do you think the US can sustain that trajectory of its CO2 “weight reduction” just by switching to natural gas?

            Natural gas has played a significant role in the 30% reduction in emissions per capita since 1970.

            Do you think this CO2 emission decrease was all switching natural gas?

            No. I don’t use words like “only” or “all” or “never”.

            Just out of curiosity, how much do you think is accountable to wind+solar?

            https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2017/09/12/climate-group-natural-gas-not-renewables-is-largest-factor-in-emissions-decline/#2a84273a3658
            “natural gas has reduced 50% more emissions since 2005 than wind and solar power combined.”

    2. spike55

      For us, the fact you think its an unreliable source, with ZERO EVIDENCE to back up your claim , of course..

      .. basically PROVES that the source is right on target.

      ZERO-EVIDENCE seb, a NON-ENTITY in any rational discussion.

      just a brain-hosed AGW collaborator WITHOUT A CLUE

      poor ze-seb !!!

      And of course Prof. Lüdecke is TOTALLY correct when he says there is ZERO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

      ze-seb has PROVEN THIS many times with his complete inability to answer questions about the effect of the 15% contributed atmospheric CO2

      Let’s see if ze-seb has found any evidence yet or if ze-seb is stili drifting off in fantasy Never-Never-Land…

      Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

      Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

      1. SebastianH

        For us, the fact you think its an unreliable source, with ZERO EVIDENCE to back up your claim , of course..

        .. basically PROVES that the source is right on target.

        Point 12 on that troll list

        ZERO-EVIDENCE seb, a NON-ENTITY in any rational discussion.

        just a brain-hosed AGW collaborator WITHOUT A CLUE

        poor ze-seb !!!

        Insults as an argument?

        And of course Prof. Lüdecke is TOTALLY correct when he says there is ZERO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

        No, he isn’t.

        ze-seb has PROVEN THIS many times with his complete inability to answer questions about the effect of the 15% contributed atmospheric CO2

        I answered those questions many times now. Reposting them all the time and expecting a different answer is point 5 and 9 on that troll list.

        So long, troll.

        1. spike55

          Still the pathetic use of the “t” word, hey ZE-seb.

          “I answered those questions many times now.

          RUBBISH. You have NEVER provide one bit of evidence, you know you CANNOT

          Only ever MINDLESS BLUSTER and RANTING GIBBERISH

          You have now taken to DELIBERATELY LYING to hide your ineptitude

          More PATHETIC by the day.

          “And of course Prof. Lüdecke is TOTALLY correct when he says there is ZERO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that atmospheric CO2 causes warming.”</blockquote)

          " no he isn't" yaps ze-seb.

          PRESENT THE EVIDENCE THEN, ZERO-EVIDENCE seb!!

          Your comments remain totally MEANINGLESS and waste of everyone's time and space

          But that is your intention, isn't it. ze-seb.

          1. SebastianH

            RUBBISH. You have NEVER provide one bit of evidence, you know you CANNOT

            You don’t like the answer, I noticed that. Such a thing doesn’t make the question magically unanswered though.

            Pathetic is indeed the right word for this charade

          2. spike55

            “You don’t like the answer,”

            Why did you LIE then ???

            RUN and HIDE ze-seb

            Its all you have left

            AVOID answering questions you KNOW you cannot answer.

            Its so FUNNY watching your childish antics. 🙂

            Come on ze-seb.. have the guts to admit that you have ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION of EVER producing any evidence to back up the farce of CO2 warming.

            Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

            Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

        2. spike55

          ROFLMAO. ze-seb STILL hiding behind his own identity and purpose.

          Having cried and whimpered about the use of the “t” word, he delves into the depths of his own personal DECEIT and continues to use it himself. SLIMY and PATHETIC

          We expect nothing more. 😉

          ze-seb, you have LIED in EVERY point you made in that meaningless post. Its all you have left to you.

          And of course Prof. Lüdecke is TOTALLY correct when he says there is ZERO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

          ze-seb LYING again..

          Prof. Lüdecke is TOTALLY CORRECT .

          You have provided ZERO-EVDIENCE to counter that FACT.

          ze-seb has PROVEN THIS many times with his complete inability to answer questions about the effect of the 15% contributed atmospheric CO2

          ze-seb LYING YET AGAIN

          He has NEVER produce anything but meaningless gibberish and ranting

          Let’s all watch as he continues to LIE and DISTRACT from providing evidence 🙂 🙂

          POOR PATHETIC ze-seb. All he has is attention seeking gibberish left.

          Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

          Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE at all that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

        3. spike55

          “So long, troll.”

          Why are you going somewhere, seb ???

          That would be a pity.

          BTW, have you got any evidence of CO2 warming yet, seb?

          We are all still waiting for that evidence.

          Here, I’ll repeat the questions for you, in case you can’t remember them, or haven’t understood them.

          Let’s see how you avoid them this time, seb 😉

          Q1. In what way has the climate changed in the last 40 years, that can be scientifically attributed to human CO2 ?

          Q2. Do you have ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AT ALL that humans have changed the global climate in ANYWAY WHATSOEVER?

    3. spike55

      “since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science?”

      OMG are you serious, ze-seb?

      Fluid dynamics is the very basis of aerodynamics and hydrology.

      It is ultimately suited to atmospheric understanding.

      You are making it more and more obvious to EVERYONE that you really are basically DEVOID of anything but a childlike naivety and wilful ignorance of ANYTHING to do with science, physics, climate… or ANYTHING at all for that matter.

      You are proving that you really are just a nil-educated fool !!

      I find your continued use of “old”, “retired” etc in an attempt to denigrate people to be extremely rude and childish.

      If it continues I will ask Pierre to allow me to use the words “puppy” and “troll” as I see fit…

      … and stuff your juvenile SJW whinging and hyper-sensitivity where it belongs..

    4. Yonason

      SebH writes:

      “A retired [i.e., he’s “old,” and so not worth paying attention to for that reason] climate scientist at EIKE … [swerving off-road he now asks] since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science?

      Two comments on that interesting revelation of the activist perennial attack persona.

      1. Wasn’t SebH warned to NOT use words like “retired” as a pejorative? And why is he referring to Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke as “Mr. Lüdecke,” if for no other reason than to demean him?

      2. Since when has “fluid dynamics” NOT included gasses? (He should have looked it up BEFORE posting)

      fluid dynamics
      n. (used with a sing. verb) —
      The branch of fluid mechanics concerned with the movement of gases and liquids.

      Anyone who doesn’t think fluid mechanics is ESSENTIAL to understanding climate has no business lecturing others about their alleged lack of understanding of “the science” of climate.

      And that’s just his first sentence.

      How ignorant and boorish can one get?

      1. SebastianH

        SebH writes:

        “A retired [i.e., he’s “old,” and so not worth paying attention to for that reason] climate scientist at EIKE … [swerving off-road he now asks] since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science?

        No, Pierre wrote that. I am repeating what he wrote. Your interpretation of this sentence when I write it vs. when Pierre writes it is pretty enlightening.

        1. Wasn’t SebH warned to NOT use words like “retired” as a pejorative? And why is he referring to Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke as “Mr. Lüdecke,” if for no other reason than to demean him?

        Same bias towards what I write displayed here.

        2. Since when has “fluid dynamics” NOT included gasses? (He should have looked it up BEFORE posting)

        What kind of weird defense is that? He is not a climate scientist, period. He is an activist for the horrible EIKE thing. But yeah, because he published in fluid dynamics and because that also covers gasses, he actually knows what causes the CO2 increase. So there you have it … 100% human made increase. Do you still want to defend him?

        How ignorant and boorish can one get?

        That my friend, you can ask yourself. You are so blinded by the name of the commentee that you automatically go into rant/troll mode no matter what I post.

        1. Yonason

          Speaking of “enlightening,” Pierre also wrote about “Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke,” “Prof. Prof. Lüdecke” and also “Lüdecke.” Nowhere does he call him “Mr. Lüdecke.” SebH only refers to him as “retired” and “Mr.” It’s clear that SebH doesn’t want to acknowledge his academic credentials, and by doing so to demean him in the readers’ eyes.

          speaking of “weird,” SebH runs from confronting the fact that he clearly appeared to have no understanding of the fact the fluid dynamics applies to gasses. Then he says the professor is not a climate scientist (neither are Al Gore, John Cook, or Gavin Schmidt and lots of other of his heroes, if their degrees are the measure), although knowledge of fluid dynamics is essential to understanding weather and climate. Then he calls him an “activist for the horrible EIKE,” without providing any accessible evidence to support those allegations (as usual). NOTE – I tried the link he provided, but was prevented from viewing it without turning off my ad blocker (ain’t gonna happen).

          Ad Hominem attacks and evasion, followed by “moving the goal posts, claiming victory, etc., etc.) 😉

          1. SebastianH

            Speaking of “enlightening,” Pierre also wrote about “Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke,” “Prof. Prof. Lüdecke” and also “Lüdecke.” Nowhere does he call him “Mr. Lüdecke.”

            What exactly are you trying to tell us? He likes titles, that is not new information.

            SebH only refers to him as “retired” and “Mr.”

            I am no more referring to him as “retired” as Pierre is and I also used Mr. just once. What exactly are you trying to accomplish by this “please write out all titles of a person when you write his/her name” thing? Will you do that next time you write an ad hominem rant about John Cook? 😉

            speaking of “weird,” SebH runs from confronting the fact that he clearly appeared to have no understanding of the fact the fluid dynamics applies to gasses.

            Huh? Now you are revving in the red range.

            Then he says the professor is not a climate scientist (neither are Al Gore, John Cook, or Gavin Schmidt and lots of other of his heroes, if their degrees are the measure), although knowledge of fluid dynamics is essential to understanding weather and climate.

            *sigh* he did anything but climate science before he retired and he published in questionable journals … if you are able to read German, read https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Joachim_Lüdecke for a quick summary. Written by leftist AGW hoaxsters of course /sarcasm.

            Then he calls him an “activist for the horrible EIKE,” without providing any accessible evidence to support those allegations (as usual).

            He is actually their public relations officer. Do you really need evidence to learn what EIKE is? It’s an actual climate denial “institute”/website. They post “papers” in all honesty that claim the average received amount of sunlight per m² is not 1360 devided by 4, but only devided by 2 … for reasons. Arguing that this is why there can be no backradiation because the energy budget wouldn’t allow it. The non existing backradiation, even though we can easily measure it, is a repeating theme over there.

            NOTE – I tried the link he provided, but was prevented from viewing it without turning off my ad blocker (ain’t gonna happen).

            What link do you mean? I didn’t post a link to EIKE or “accessible evidence” that EIKE is horrible. I find it horrible! It’s on par with principia scientific. Their slogan is (translated) “Not the climate is at risk, but our freedom! Environmental protection: Yes! Climate protection: No.”

            Ad Hominem attacks and evasion, followed by “moving the goal posts, claiming victory, etc., etc.) 😉

            The only ones attacking a person here and ignoring the question is you guys.

          2. Yonason

            “I also used Mr. just once.” – sebh

            Once is enough to indicate contempt for him.

            “What link do you mean?” – sebh

            The one to a newspaper (see next quote).

            “…since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science? (link)” – sebh

            “What exactly are you trying to accomplish by this “please write out all titles of a person when you write his/her name” thing? Will you do that next time you write an ad hominem rant about John Cook?” – sebh

            1. – I did NOT ask him to write out all titles. That’s just his par for the course putting his weasel words into someone else’s mouth. If he wants to show his contempt for someone, he should at least show just cause. He never does.

            2. – John Cook is a proven liar, as is sebh; also, Cook’s “research” is garbage

            SebH is just here to waste our time. I’ve already wasted entirely too much on him.

          3. SebastianH

            “I also used Mr. just once.” – sebh

            Once is enough to indicate contempt for him.

            It does that only in your interpretation of what I wrote. You going off on this is super weird for me btw …

            “What link do you mean?” – sebh

            The one to a newspaper (see next quote).

            The part I was referring to in that newspaper article is: Eikes Pressesprecher: Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, ein pensionierter Professor für Strömungsmechanik. “Wir brauchen keine Klimaforscher”, sagt Lüdecke
            It means he was a professor for fluid mechanics (which includes gasses, yes). He started venturing in climate science when he retired and the quote in there is him saying “we don’t need climate scientists/researchers” the reason being that there would be no scientific proof that CO2 warms up the atmosphere.

            That newspaper site works perfectly well with an adblocker, but the text is in German.

            1. – I did NOT ask him to write out all titles. That’s just his par for the course putting his weasel words into someone else’s mouth. If he wants to show his contempt for someone, he should at least show just cause. He never does.

            Of course you did. You freak out because I didn’t write Prof. Dr. Lüdecke and cite examples where Pierre wrote it.

            2. – John Cook is a proven liar, as is sebh; also, Cook’s “research” is garbage

            I see, in those instances baseless ad hominem attacks are ok. Why didn’t you write Mr. Cook to show your contempt? You should write Prof. Dr. Cook btw … since that is his title nowadays, right? (I don’t know if research assistant professor is a profession that has this title, there are countries like Austria where school teachers have the title professor attached to their names, so …).

            SebH is just here to waste our time. I’ve already wasted entirely too much on him.

            I am here to correct you where you are wrong and defuse your wild accusations. Doing this 1-to-many conversations is probably a huge waste of time, but you guys are contributing the most to it by replying to everything I write the way you do. It’s never been a constructive discussion, it is always attacks and insults and ridiculous claims.

            If you don’t want to be part of this huge waste of time, just don’t comment the way you do and post more constructive stuff.

          4. Kenneth Richard

            SebastianH: “I am here to correct you where you are wrong and defuse your wild accusations.”

            How’s that working out for you? Do you think you’ve been successful?

          5. Yonason

            @Kenneth Richard 12. October 2018 at 4:24 AM

            Until Pierre reins him in, SebH is just going to keep getting worse.

            I didn’t insist on him calling Lüdecke as “Prof. Dr. Lüdecke.” My point, which he twisted as he does EVERYTHING anyone writes that he doesn’t agree with, was that by calling him “Mr.” he was showing contempt.

            No, the link didn’t work at all with my ad blocker in place. But so what? Why should I put any more trust in the words of a newspaper article than in SebH? I’ve been lied to by both.

            My calling Cook a liar for passing himself off as Lubos Motl (see reference I provided) was not a gratuitous insult, but perfectly justified, because identity theft is by definition a lie. Also, I can’t ever remember calling Cook “Mr. Cook,” though I couldn’t swear to it in court. But if I ever refer to him as “Dr.” it will be in quotes, considering the deceptive work he does. Shame on those who made a mockery of an advanced degree by awarding him one.

            Also, Kenneth, I still think that allowing SebH so much freedom to interfere is a mistake. You are providing him with the training he needs to develop his style, i.e., you are enabling him to learn how to deceive others more efficiently. You can see it in the way his crude arguments have become more sophisticated over time. Same deceitful techniques, but with a smoother delivery. When he first began posting, he was clearly a liability to them. Now, he’s becoming an asset, thanks to you. Big mistake, IMO.

          6. Kenneth Richard

            you are enabling him to learn how to deceive others more efficiently.

            I have a hard time believing that anyone here is persuaded by SebastianH, much less deceived by him. I anticipate his responses before he even writes them. In my opinion, he makes his side look worse, not better.

            When he first began posting, he was clearly a liability to them. Now, he’s becoming an asset, thanks to you.

            Thank you for the feedback (not sarcasm), Yonason. I don’t agree that SebastianH has become an asset to those who believe in catastrophic CO2-driven climate change. His arrogant style and perpetual disingenuousness is off-putting, not attractive.

            If you had your choice, what would be your recommendation? Delete most of his posts? Edit them heavily? Ban him altogether? As a staunch advocate of free speech, I wouldn’t think that’s the answer (unless he became more abusive).

            I’m curious if others think SebastianH has become an “asset” to his side’s cause. I think the opposite is true.

          7. Yonason

            @Kenneth Richard 12. October 2018 at 7:05 AM

            “If you had your choice, what would be your recommendation? Delete most of his posts? Edit them heavily? Ban him altogether? As a staunch advocate of free speech, I wouldn’t think that’s the answer (unless he became more abusive).”

            Well, I obviously wouldn’t delete any of his already recorded posts, as that would reek havoc with the responses to them. As to future posts, perhaps limiting him to a fixed number per article, give or take. But then that would waste your time monitoring them, if it demanded more than you already do.

            If it were me, I would probably either ban him outright from now on, or allow him one or two posts every now and then, at random. You know, annoy him as much as he does us. But I wouldn’t edit out more than what you’ve already threatened him with. If you allow him to post, allow him to post a whole thought or not at all.

            I would be interested in what other readers have to say on the matter, as in how much more or less likely they’d be inclined to comment if he were limited or banned. You can take my opinion as being the first vote. Oh, and how many come here less often because of him (or anyone else, for that matter).

            And you may be correct that he’s still arrogant in in-your-face enough to not be an asset, but that may just be deliberate provocation to see how we react. If he posts elsewhere it would be interesting to compare his style there vs here. And that brings up a curious thing, that his online footprint as SebastianH seems to be pretty much, though not entirely, confined to NTZ. (Perhaps some German blogs?) I would think anyone who manifests the apparent bias and zeal that he does would be crusading widely. But he doesn’t seem to be. Just an observation. Not sure what, if anything, it means.

            OK, that’s my 37&1/2 cents worth.

          8. John Brown

            For everyone.

            SebH says:

            “…EIKE is? It’s an actual climate denial “institute”/website. They post “papers” in all honesty that claim the average received amount of sunlight per m² is not 1360 devided by 4, but only devided by 2 … for reasons. …”

            There is a common misconception with the calculations, something even SebH with basic math skills should be able to understand.

            Mathematically there is no difference if you take 1360 W/m2 divided by 4 to come up with an average of what the solar insolation on all of Earth surface is or if one takes half the Earth surface and only half of the insolation value.

            The amount of energy received by Earth is the same.

            Physically it is more correct to use the second version of the calculation, because it reflects the physical reality which is in question. And nobody can honestly argue against the given fact that at any given time it is only half of the Earth surface that receives solar energy.

            This would be part of “…for reasons” that SebH seems not to understand.

    5. Apafarkas Agmánd

      Talk is cheap.
      If you disagree, please feel free to prove him wrong.

      1. SebastianH

        Apafarkas Agmánd, I do disagree, but the point of my comment was not to repeat what everyone already knows I am thinking. The point of my comment was a question or rather multiple questions. None have been answered so far.

        Proving him wrong is easy, the usual skeptics fallacy of demanding a temperature change outside of what can be expected from natural variability (something unusual) was presented. This is wrong: B follows from A, therefore if we see B … A must be the cause.

        It is also wrong to claim that trying to save emissions is futile because others aren’t doing it. That’s maybe an opinion one can have, but I don’t have to agree with it or call it not wrong. Oh, and he is also claiming that this would be a green campaign of destruction (“Vernichtungsfeldzug”, a word with a very bitter connotation in the German language) against all heavy industries and finally threatens his perceived enemies.

        This and the comments make EIKE even worse than principia-scientific. Prove me wrong!

  2. Brian G Valentine

    “IPCC Tipping Points”

    Of all the ridiculous things the human mind has contrived, the “IPCC Tipping Point” has to be the most absurd and I defy anyone to produce an equal to it

  3. Jl

    SebastianH- you sound like you write for Desmogblog, as their typical hit-piece mearly mentions where someone works, what they’ve said, who they hang with, ect., but never refutes the data they put forth.

    1. SebastianH

      SebastianH- you sound like you write for Desmogblog, as their typical hit-piece mearly mentions where someone works, what they’ve said, who they hang with, ect., but never refutes the data they put forth.

      I posted that comment to ask if Pierre is skeptical of what Lüdecke writes or not. I didn’t write it to have a discussion about the ridiculous claims Lüdecke makes and Pierre found important enough to translate for you guys.

      But I was fully expecting the pitchfork mob to come out again. Imagine what would have happened if I had not commented. You would all be very unskeptically celebrating “the truth” like spike55 is doing in the comment right below yours 😉 Instead, you have a common enemy now where you can reply with your outrage about a non-existing ad hominem attack and a simple question that remains unanswered.

      1. Kenneth Richard

        But I was fully expecting the pitchfork mob to come out again.

        …you have a common enemy now where you can reply with your outrage about a non-existing ad hominem attack

        Shocking. SebastianH once again fails to address the substance of the article, preferring to claim that dismissing a Ph.D professor because of what outlets publish his results as well as his not-climate-science-enough academic credentials is not an example of employing the ad hominem logical fallacy. Perhaps he doesn’t know or understand what it is?

        https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/1/Ad-Hominem-Abusive
        Person 1 is claiming Y. Person 1 is a moron. Therefore, Y is not true.

        My opponent suggests that lowering taxes will be a good idea — this is coming from a woman who eats a pint of Ben and Jerry’s each night!

        And then, to top it off, SebastianH characterizes my response to his post as the equivalent of a “pitchfork mob”. Once again, SebastianH has characterized himself as a victim.

        1. SebastianH

          SebastianH once again fails to address the substance of the article

          There is no substance to the article.

          preferring to claim that dismissing a Ph.D professor because of what outlets publish his results as well as his not-climate-science-enough academic credentials is not an example of employing the ad hominem logical fallacy.

          I am asking if you guys and Pierre in particular are skeptical of what he claims. Nothing more, nothing less.

          Instead of writing a simple answer and/or a substansive explanation why you accept his claims without doubt, you go on and on how this is an ad hominem attack and that I should first write about why exactly he is wrong.

          Just to be super clear, he is not wrong because he “is a moron”. He is wrong because what he claims is objectively wrong. The only place where he can publish is at EIKE and right-wing publications, because they also believe in this kind of stuff. It’s wrong to call him a climate scientist in light of what he did in his active career.

          And then, to top it off, SebastianH characterizes my response to his post as the equivalent of a “pitchfork mob”.

          You are not the only one who replied. Don’t be so damn self-centered all the time.

          Once again, SebastianH has characterized himself as a victim.

          The truth is the victim here. I don’t care how aggressive you guys present yourselves towards perceived intruders. I am not new to the way you guys operate. Suddenly everything here is about me and how trollish and dishonest I would be. A basic ad hominem attack while claiming that I would be the ad hominem attacker. That makes you guys (as supporters of Lüdecke) the victims in this story. And I don’t think you will ever realize the irony of that 😉

          1. Kenneth Richard

            Just to be super clear, he is not wrong because he “is a moron”. He is wrong because what he claims is objectively wrong.

            Oh. So he’s wrong because he’s objectively wrong. Now that’s substantive.

            The only place where he can publish is at EIKE and right-wing publications

            So then why has he been publishing climate-related papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals?

            Lüdecke et al., 2015
            https://www.clim-past-discuss.net/11/279/2015/cpd-11-279-2015.pdf

            Weber, Lüdecke, and Weiss, 2015
            https://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/esd-2015-63/esdd-6-2043-2015.pdf

            Lüdecke et al., 2016
            http://epic.awi.de/41139/1/polfor_2016_015.pdf

            Lüdecke and Weiss, 2017
            https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASCJ/TOASCJ-11-44.pdf

            Weiss and Lüdecke, 2017
            http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018EGUGA

            you go on and on how this is an ad hominem attack

            SebastianH, you wrote that his comments should be dismissed because of the publications his work is published in, and because he’s not academically trained in climate science. Those are personal factors that have nothing to do with what he actually wrote.

            Don’t be so damn self-centered all the time.

            I apologize, then. I thought the “pitchfork mob” reference was characterizing my response to your original comment.

          2. SebastianH

            Oh. So he’s wrong because he’s objectively wrong. Now that’s substantive.

            So this discussion became about me not providing a substansive reply to his claims that you – by now – must know people outside your bubble don’t support. He claims nothing new, why does this require a substansive analysis of what he is saying when all I want to know is, if you are skeptical of what he claims or not. Are you?

            <blockquote<So then why has he been publishing climate-related papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals?
            Review status first paper:
            “This discussion paper is a preprint. It has been under review for the journal Climate of the Past (CP). The revised manuscript was not accepted.”

            Same goes for the second one. I don’t even want to bother reading the reviews of the other papers you presented here.

            In case you don’t know how to read reviews on these “journals”:
            https://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/esd-2015-63/ (and then click on the “Discussion” tab) …

            SebastianH, you wrote that his comments should be dismissed because of the publications his work is published in, and because he’s not academically trained in climate science.

            No I didn’t. Please refer to what I actually wrote and not what your biased imagination makes of it.

          3. Kenneth Richard

            In case you don’t know how to read reviews on these “journals”

            Oh, I see. So now even the journals that he publishes his papers in are not real journals (hence the quotes).

            Lüdecke, 2011
            http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.22.6.732

            Lüdecke et al., 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183111016798

            Link and Lüdecke, 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183111016361

          4. SebastianH

            Oh, I see. So now even the journals that he publishes his papers in are not real journals (hence the quotes).

            I case you haven’t registered this on your radar, there was a scandal involving scientists publishing in questionable predatory journals: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/5000-german-scientists-have-published-in-predatory-journals/3009341.article

            But those two I mentioned above didn’t publish the papers at all or what do you think “the manuscript was not accepted” means?

            Lüdecke, 2011
            http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.22.6.732

            Lüdecke et al., 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183111016798

            Link and Lüdecke, 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S012918311101

            Very influential science right there … have you looked at the citations? 😉

          5. Kenneth Richard

            I case you haven’t registered this on your radar, there was a scandal involving scientists publishing in questionable predatory journals:

            Even the “non-predatory” peer-reviewed journals can be considered suspect. After all, an experiment to see if peer-reviewers would spot a ridiculously flawed “hoax” paper found that 70% of peer-reviewed journals accepted it.

            https://wakeup-world.com/2017/08/17/the-failure-of-peer-review-especially-in-medicine/
            “Any reviewer with more than a high-school knowledge of chemistry and the ability to understand a basic data plot should have spotted the paper’s shortcomings immediately. Its experiments are so hopelessly flawed that the results are meaningless. … The hoax paper was accepted by a whopping 157 of the journals and rejected by only 98. Of the 106 journals that did conduct peer review, 70% accepted the paper…”

            Very influential science right there … have you looked at the citations?

            I hadn’t noticed the two papers were “not accepted”. But didn’t you claim that “the only place where he [Lüdecke] can publish is at EIKE and right-wing publications”? Were you right or wrong about that?

            Lüdecke et al., 2016
            http://epic.awi.de/41139/1/polfor_2016_015.pdf

            Lüdecke and Weiss, 2017
            https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASCJ/TOASCJ-11-44.pdf

            Weiss and Lüdecke, 2017
            http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018EGUGA

            Lüdecke, 2011
            http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.22.6.732

            Lüdecke et al., 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183111016798

            Link and Lüdecke, 2011
            https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S012918311101

        2. spike55

          Let’s face it K,

          he is very much a “victim” ..

          of himself. !!

          Notice how he still uses the “t” word, despite saying he doesn’t like it

          That’s pretty pathetic, wouldn’t you say . 😉

          Despite all his arrogance and attempted BULLYING, he is really a very weak sensitive little child inside.

          1. spike55

            OK Pierre.

            You are on your own

            Good luck getting any facts or evidence out of ze-seb.. he has NONE.

            If you allow him to continue to SLIME all over your blog..

            ..He wins, YOU lose. !

  4. spike55

    Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke writes..

    the notion the climate is somehow damaged by human CO2 as “fictional”.

    To date, there is no stringent proof that the anthropogenic, i.e. human-made (!) CO2 has exerted any influence on the climate which is clearly traceable to this source.”

    Its SO GREAT to see someone willing to state THE TRUTH !!! 🙂 🙂

    1. Yonason

      @spike

      Add to that what Motl writes in regard to Murry Salby’s material, as I’ve posted before:

      “Of course [CO2] was the consequence [of temperature change, not the cause of it]. Whoever still acts as if he were misunderstanding these basic issues is either a hopelessly brainwashed moron or an amazingly dishonest demagogue or both.”
      https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/06/murry-salby-co2-is-integral-of.html

      [my additions in brackets for clarity]

      It’s no wonder that those trolling us can’t provide any evidence for a CO2 effect, because there is none. And it’s also no wonder they can’t produce a mechanism, for the same reason.

  5. Don from OZ

    Thanks yet again Kenneth for a cool, calm,collected and rational response. Some people just never learn and never advance the topic under discussion

    1. SebastianH

      Thanks yet again Kenneth for a cool, calm,collected and rational response.

      And yet it misses the point entirely and demands that I put time in something he likes me to do for him (first point on the troll list). We still don’t know if he or Pierre is skeptical of what Lüdecke says or if they are just repeating what he claims unreflected.

      Some people just never learn and never advance the topic under discussion

      Question: what would have advanced the topic? The article itself is a step backwards. What should we learn from Pierre translating claims like those above in an attempt to support his skepticism?

      1. John Brown
        1. SebastianH

          So you cannot point us to a science paper, that discusses the contributions of CO2 on the warming of the Earth?

          If there was such a paper would you not quote from it any time you get the question? Have the link ready every time you are being asked?

          There is an entire report referring to lots of papers available to read. It gets updated every few years or so. Someone at the SKS blog has a weekly post of new papers regarding climate change. I am sure you can find lots of papers touching the subject there.

          There is no one paper that does what you demand. There are a few that clearly show what effect CO2 has. Take this one for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240 (Feldman et al, 2015) “Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010” (PDF link)

          I stopped quoting from it because skeptics seem to be very very skeptic towards something like this and will do everything to call it fake or anti-science and whatnot. Ironically by being completely unskeptical towards whatever they come up with to “counter” a paper like that 😉

          But since I wrote the knowledge would be over a century old, well … here is a paper from 1861:
          http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf (Tyndall) “On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and vapours, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction”

          And here is that 1896 paper by Svante Arrhenius:
          http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground”

          So it is significant and it is capable of altering the temperatures at the surface. I won’t explain relativity to you though, that was a rethorical question.

          1. Kenneth Richard

            There is no one paper that does what you demand. There are a few that clearly show what effect CO2 has. Take this one for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240 (Feldman et al, 2015) “Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010”

            Feldman et al. (2015) indicate that the CO2 forcing from the 22 ppm increase during 2000-2010 was just +0.2 W m-2. Compare this tiny forcing value from CO2 to the much larger forcing value (2.7 W m-2) attributed to the decrease in global cloud cover over 1979-2011…

            http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/8505/2013/acp-13-8505-2013.html
            “[T]here has been a global net decrease in 340 nm cloud plus aerosol reflectivity [1979-2011]. … Applying a 3.6% cloud reflectivity perturbation to the shortwave energy balance partitioning given by Trenberth et al. (2009) corresponds to an increase of 2.7 W m−2 of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface and an increase of 1.4% or 2.3 W m−2 absorbed by the surface.”

            …and we can see that even if we accept that CO2 contributed 0.2 W m-2 to the radiation budget, it was overwhelmed by the natural changes in cloud cover.

          2. Yonason

            @Kenneth

            RE the Feldman paper.

            I wanted to see more of what was going on, so I did some searches. One area they looked at was the Southern Great Plains. Well, if the downwelling heat radiation is “measurably” going up, I would think that temperatures should be, as well.

            So, I picked a town they had marked, Cordell OK, and looked up it’s temperature history on Wolfram Alpha. It’s average temp now is about 8 deg F LOWER than in the 1940’s.

            If I wanted to be complete, I would sample some others, and I may yet, but my experience is that it’s probably not worth the bother. I have so many more things to waste my time on than fact checking some anonymous disruptive commenter.

            What they have in the paper are instrumental readings, but I’m pretty sure they probably don’t know what those readings mean in the real world.

          3. Kenneth Richard

            The global atmosphere cooled slightly during 2000-2010: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:2000/to:2010/plot/uah6/from:2000/to:2010/trend

            For that matter, there was a pause in the CO2 greenhouse effect from 1992-2014 according to Song et al., 2016.

            Third, according to Stephens et al. (2012), the radiation budget was positive at 0.6 W m-2 per decade during 2000-2010. So if the CO2 contribution was 0.2 W m-2 (claimed by Feldman et al., 2015), the 0.4 W m-2 difference was attributed to something other than CO2. But, again, the 0.6 W m-2 radiation imbalance did not produce an increase in atmospheric temperatures.

            In sum, there is no conclusive evidence that CO2 drove temperature changes during 2000-2010. Interestingly, the uncertainty in the forcing values and causal mechanisms is 10-100 times greater than the forcing attributed to CO2 during this period!

            But we have someone here who believes it anyway…and thinks those who don’t agree with his certainty should be called “deniers”.

          4. Yonason

            @Kenneth Richard 12. October 2018 at 4:21 AM

            CORRECTION

            In my last I stated that the temps at Cordell, OK dropped. That was based in the information provided by Wolfram Alpha. It turns out that it couldn’t find any Cordell info, so it replaced it with the last location I searched for about a month or two ago. It couldn’t just say “not found.” Thanks a lot W.A.!

            I’ll look at some more tomorrow.

            Sorry for the misinformation.

          5. Yonason

            “The global atmosphere cooled slightly during 2000-2010:” – Kenneth Richard 12. October 2018 at 6:50 AM

            So, more IR radiation is being “trapped,” and the temps are going down? Makes perfect sense, …if you don’t think about it too hard.

  6. sunsettommy

    It appears that once again Sebastian didn’t make a single comment normally called a counterpoint to the posted article, being too busy derailing the thread with baloney and deliberate fogging of the topic.

    He spends most of his time posting childish ad homs, ridiculous attacks on publication sources and denigrates the authors education.

    Yet he thinks he proved the article wrong, this is usually considered delusional by most who expect rational disagreements to show up.

    Heck go back to the very top of this comment thread, read what Sebastian has to say about the Author….., it is a whole bunch of baloney.

    1. SebastianH

      It appears that once again Sebastian didn’t make a single comment normally called a counterpoint to the posted article

      You and your counterpoint thing. You are referring to the very first comment I made here … did that comment sound like I was trying to argue against what the author/professor says? I want to know if you guys are skeptical when it comes to what sources like this author say/write. Nothing more, nothing less.

      He spends most of his time posting childish ad homs, ridiculous attacks on publication sources and denigrates the authors education.

      Actually I spend all of my time here replying to comments that didn’t answer my question the slightest. The other points: do you think publishing in predatory journals is a good thing? Does that not make you skeptical? Do you think presenting papers as peer reviewed which are marked as rejected and with the actual peer review visible is something one should do? Does that not make you skeptical of the motives of the one doing that?

      And what does denigrating the authors education even mean? Are you now on that same crazy trip as Yonason? Don’t do that to yourself!

      Yet he thinks he proved the article wrong

      No, I don’t! The author is wrong in many things, but I didn’t even try to prove something wrong. I just asked a simple question that nobody wants to answer. My conclusion is you guys are not skeptical of a source like this, not at all. Is that correct?

      If that is the case, this begs the follow up question why you only present selected points this author makes. If you blindly believe in what he writes, then obviously him writing that humans are responsible for the CO2 concentration increase should be trusted without skepticism as well. Wouldn’t you agree?

      Or is the skepticism only directed at certain things? Can someone like that even be called a skeptic?

      this is usually considered delusional by most who expect rational disagreements to show up.

      The dilusion is what’s happening in replies to my comments. You are all arguing straw men, evading a simple question and try to make it about me being whatever (an ad hominem attack btw.).

      read what Sebastian has to say about the Author….., it is a whole bunch of baloney.

      Yeah? So let’s quote my first comment at the top then.

      A retired climate scientist at EIKE … since when is fluid mechanics part equivalent with climate science? (link)

      I repeat what Pierre wrote and noted that he worked in fluid mechanics and not climate science. Since it was directed at Pierre I thought it would be ok to link to a German news paper article about EIKE/Lüdecker to support this claim. It’s a fact. Where is the baloney part in this?

      And since when is EIKE a source of actual science? Their blog is even worse than Principia-scientific.

      You might not like these categorisations and think differently of those blogs, but the first sentence was a question, wasn’t it? And the second one is my personal opinion. If you are able to understand German as well, you can read the EIKE blog and might come to a similar conclusion. Anyways, what is the baloney part in this?

      And what should we think of Mr. Lüdecke for writing articles for this website?

      This included a link to a right wing “news” website. Doesn’t that make you uncomfortable that a scientist choses to publish articles in such an opinionated fashion surrounded by what else this site writes? But since I learned that skeptics see the topic of climate change as a left/right problem and you might be leaning right, maybe you like the fact that he published there. That’s why it was also a question. So what is the baloney part in this?

      See? You guys could have just replied in a normal fashion and answered the questions in your own way. I might not have likey what you might have answered, but at least it would have been a normal discussion. Instead the pitchforks came out and people write that I would not be addressing what the author says, attack and insult me while simultanously claiming I would be doing an ad hominem attack, and so on. That’s on you guys!

      You guys didn’t even try to discuss whether what the author says has any merrit, yet accuse me of not offering counterpoints when I clearly not even tried to do that. Now waiting for someone to reply with a misinterpretation of that last sentence. Maybe a quote out of context? I know one of you guys can do it!

      1. Kenneth Richard

        My conclusion is you guys are not skeptical of a source like this, not at all. Is that correct? If that is the case, this begs the follow up question why you only present selected points this author makes. If you blindly believe in what he writes, then obviously him writing that humans are responsible for the CO2 concentration increase should be trusted without skepticism as well. Wouldn’t you agree?

        So your straw man argument appears to be that if we don’t directly respond to your question about how skeptical we are about what a physicist writes because he is affiliated with EIKE (worse than Principia Scientific!) and isn’t sufficiently trained in climate science, therefore we are “not at all” skeptical and we “blindly believe in what he writes”.

        You are all arguing straw men, evading a simple question

        It’s rather amusing that you are here accusing us of using straw men and evading questions.

        1. SebastianH

          So your straw man argument appears to be that if we don’t directly respond to your question about how skeptical we are

          Not an argument, it’s an educated guess. What other reason could their be that you are just not replying: “yeah, we are very skeptical about what Lüdecke says, too”. You are probably afraid to admit that you aren’t skeptical at all.

          Instead of making up a straw argument yourself, just answer the question. Is my suspicion correct? If not, how skeptic are you of what Professor Dr. Lüdecke writes?

          It’s rather amusing that you are here accusing us of using straw men and evading questions.

          It could be possible that you don’t recognize what you are doing yourself. Ever thought of that? A common theme amongst the comment folks here. You guys accuse others of what you do yourselves in an effort to achieve moral superiority. You even accuse others that they would do that too. A strange circular thing that is fascinating to watch.

          1. Kenneth Richard

            how skeptic are you of what Professor Dr. Lüdecke writes?

            It’s skeptical. Please identify what Dr. Lüdecke writes that you believe I should express skepticism about so as to meet this qualification. What would a demonstration of skepticism look like in written form? Is saying “I am skeptical of what Dr. Lüdecke writes because he has his work published by EIKE and he doesn’t have a degree in climate science” satisfy this requirement?

            When you read blogs that say the “hide the decline” using Mann’s Nature Trick e-mails were not actually about hiding the decline in temperatures from the public, are you skeptical about these explanations, or do you just believe them?

  7. Bob Weber

    There’s no reason for carbon action as the climate drives CO2:

    https://i.postimg.cc/qvfYLvG8/Had-SST3-leads-12mo-CO2-change.jpg

    The worst case scenario is people never learn this en masse and fall for anything… are we there yet?

    The best case scenario is people learn there is no such thing as a CO2 driven climate and therefore ECS estimates, CO2 emission mitigation proposals, and carbon taxes are irrelevant.

    1. SebastianH

      Or, an even better scenario, people like you finally learn how to understand science and don’t imagine stuff up because they have no clue.

      Temperature leads CO2 as well as CO2 causes temperature changes. Too much to process? Then go educate yourself, ask more knowledgable friends.

      1. Bob Weber

        I’ve already educated myself Sebastian.

        I’ve learned everything you project is science fiction.

        Do you believe today’s CO2 can control the SST of 10 months ago?

        Since CO2 lags ocean temperatures by 10 months, it cannot be a driver of ocean warming nor the climate. <<>>

        My graphic link above closely confirms “The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature”, Humlum etal. 2013

        Also, since the changes in CO2 so closely follows the short and long-term trends in sea surface temperature, man-made emissions must therefore be a tiny blip on top of what ocean outgassing does via Henry’s Law, meaning man-made emissions are nowhere near the major factor in driving CO2 concentrations higher as is usually claimed.

        Whether or not we reach 1.5 or 2 C or more someday is entirely independent from future man-made emissions. They can only occur if solar activity is high enough long enough, a real possibility.

        CO2 is sensitive to the climate, not the other way around.

        There is no TCR or ECS for carbon dioxide because CO2 lags ocean warming by 10 months, meaning CO2 doesn’t warm the climate, therefore any discussion about the climate being sensitive to CO2 is science fiction.

        As far as I am concerned comments like yours enforce the BIG LIE.

        1. SebastianH

          This deserves a reply as well …

          I’ve learned everything you project is science fiction.

          So automatic refusal of what I write because I write it. Very smart!

          Do you believe today’s CO2 can control the SST of 10 months ago?

          Since CO2 lags ocean temperatures by 10 months, it cannot be a driver of ocean warming nor the climate. <>

          What? Are you suggesting I am writing about time travel?

          Nope, the CO2 today causes warming tomorrow as well as warming today causes CO2 concentration to (slighty) increase.

          Also, since the changes in CO2 so closely follows the short and long-term trends in sea surface temperature, man-made emissions must therefore be a tiny blip on top of what ocean outgassing does via Henry’s Law, meaning man-made emissions are nowhere near the major factor in driving CO2 concentrations higher as is usually claimed.

          Do you also believe that nothing changes the daily temperatures because of the close phase relation between the day and night cycle and temperatures? 😉

          Outgassing from the – so far- small temperature increase is the “tiny blip”. What we added by burning fossil fuel is everything else of the concentration increase.

          Whether or not we reach 1.5 or 2 C or more someday is entirely independent from future man-made emissions. They can only occur if solar activity is high enough long enough, a real possibility.

          Why do you say you educated yourself and then write something like this? This is incorrect.

          CO2 is sensitive to the climate, not the other way around.

          It’s both.

          There is no TCR or ECS for carbon dioxide because CO2 lags ocean warming by 10 months, meaning CO2 doesn’t warm the climate, therefore any discussion about the climate being sensitive to CO2 is science fiction.

          Sorry, but you are wrong with this assertion. CO2 lags temperature and at the same time causes temperature change. That change is smaller than what would be required to cause the CO2 increase that causes the change. Once you begin introducing human emitted CO2 to the system the temperature changes accordingly. Again, this change doesn’t release enough CO2 from nature to sustain this process. It’s not an endless loop like so many of you skeptics seem to imagine.

          As far as I am concerned comments like yours enforce the BIG LIE.

          I didn’t call what you replied a lie so far, but considering this one sentence, I’d conclude that you are either intentionally lying or you really don’t understand the mechanism and are arguing out of ignorance. I leave it to you to decide which is worse …

      2. John Brown

        SebH, or now SebastiaH.

        You make a statement as follows:

        “Temperature leads CO2 as well as CO2 causes temperature changes.”

        This, I would think is only plausible if the temperature change as noted in the second part of the statement means cooler temperatures.

        I otherwise perceive this as a logical fallacy.

        Couple this with the arrogant tone of you reply I believe that you would need some self reflection, but PRONTO.

        You are slipping! Please explain the reasoning behind your statement.

        Or do you actually mean CO2 causes cooling?

  8. Yonason

    IN A NUTSHELL

    “The Environmental Scam: One Quick and Easy Response

    by Sean Gabb

    Once you cut through their verbiage, the enemies of bourgeois civilisation have two demands. These are:

    * Put me and my friends in charge of preferably a one-world government with total power over life and property; or, until then, or failing that,

    * Give us a lot of money.”

    https://antigreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-environmental-scam-one-quick-and.html

    1. SebastianH

      the enemies of bourgeois civilisation […] one-world government

      Wow, you are really scared of all those other not so conservative people …

    2. Yonason

      TO: THE ROTTEN KNOWITALL NUT INSIDE THE SHELL

      Yes, lets give up our freedom and become slaves to unaccountable socialist atheist megalomaniacs with a radical social agenda based on bogus science. What could possibly go wrong?

  9. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #331 | Watts Up With That?

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy

Close