Professor Fritz Vahrenholt’s and Dr. Sebastian Lüning’s skeptic book Die kalte Sonne has succeeded in exposing something unsettling, something that the established German climate scientists have been harboring for quite some time now: an acute phobia of climate science debate.
This phenomenon is now being exposed by a recent flurry of newspaper articles.
For example, yesterday I wrote about a Spiegel report on how a recent 38-page study by the German Academy of Sciences and Engineering reached the conclusion that climate warming is not a catastrophe and that it will be completely manageable. But because the study involved Fritz Vahrenholt, a professor of chemistry and an expert on renewable energy, 4 warmist scientists resigned in order to protest the non-conforming view. Spiegel wrote:
There was a dispute about the reliability of climate prognoses. Because of the involvement of RWE Innogy supervisory board chairman Fritz Vahrenholt (Social Democrat Party), four scientists resigned from the Committee. The former Senator of Environment of Hamburg accused established climate science of exaggerating man’s share in causing climate change.”
Meanwhile, veteran German journalist Ulli Kulke found the reaction of the 4 resigning scientists peculiar and not at all in the spirit of the scientific approach. At his blog he published a piece called: The debate-phobia of the climate alarmists. In his essay, Kulke writes:
This is not the first time this phobia of debate flares up. One after another the hardliners, those who worship the reports of the IPCC, always refuse to show up when critical climate scientists are invited to podium discussions or other events, also on television. They avoid the public discussion. They are suffering from acute debate phobia.
What is most aggravating about this, is that it is precisely the scientists who have set down the basis for the sun’s influence using extremely sophisticated datasets, and have made great strides, are not only being shut out from the public discussion, but also from the IPCC process. This involves renowned scientists, who for example are working at the CERN atomic research centre in Geneva, an institute of the Danish government, and others. And then in a condescending manner, we only hear talk about how the sun does not show the necessary fluctuations to be responsible for the climate changes of the past.”
That was yesterday.
Today we find an interview with Fritz Vahrenholt in the online daily of the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ). Earlier this year, Prof. Vahrenholt had been invited by the University of Osnabrück to give a speech – that is until word of his new, controversial skeptic book Die kalte Sonne got out. The University promptly disinvited Vahrenholt – once again non-conforming views not welcome!
In today’s NOZ interview, Vahrenholt is asked about that particular disinvitation. His reply:
Back then that decision from the Uni Osnabrück was tough. I had been invited by a German university to present a certain topic, but they bowed to pressure and disinvted me. But at least I was invited by the University of Oslo, the Royal Society in London, to Vienna and Bern. With the thinking and acting of the University directors in Osnabrück, the findings of Alfred Wegener would have never seen the light of day. He would have been scorned, ridiculed and disinvited. Unfortunately it was not until after his death that his theory of continental drift became accepted. I hope I’ll live long enough to get an apology from the University for their gag order.”
Like the Berlin Wall was an admission of a failed political system, the climate scientists’ phobia of public debate is an admission of a failed science.
This science failed because academics accepted the Aarhenius hypothesis, that the Earth emits IR as an isolated black body in a vacuum. Any competent scientist should know radiative equilibrium is based on radiation from the cooler body reducing the emissivity of the hotter body. In the case of the Earth’s surface, GHG band IR from thermal radiation in the atmosphere selectively reduces surface emissivity in those bands; the real GHE.
Because of this there can be no CO2-AGW. Surface IR is biased towards the ‘atmospheric window and side-bands. Absorption of CO2 IR TOA is self-absorption of thermal IR from the atmosphere. The GHE is fixed by the first ~1000 ppm water vapour and tsi. The text books need rewriting. The discipline needs new leadership.
How do explain the warmer climates of the past?
The sun.
For German readers: 2 of the 4 scientists that resigned were Mr. Honest Broker Hans von Storch and Paul Becker (VP DWD). http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.gutachterstreit-raue-see-in-der-klimaforschung.24446a7c-176c-49b5-8c9a-a7d49527051b.html
Would it possible to send a copy of ‘Die kalte Sonne’ to each and everyone person in/of the Swedish Parliament ( =”Riksdag”) ?
If necessary, I can certainly translate the content into Swedish, this assurance based on ~ 26 years of living/working in Hamburg – btw. one of the best [major] cities in the World. Plenty mny txs to You, all, ‘Hamburgers’…
Viele und warme Gruesse aus der Bestkueste Schwedens
//TJ
” btw. one of the best [major] cities in the World. ”
Mileages vary. One of the nuttiest and loudest cities in the world IMHO; me coming from Braunschweig, 200km farther south. Hamburg is the German equivalent to NYC.
How could man’s share in climate change be exaggerated, when we are pimping 30 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere each year for decades; and the percentage in ppm of CO2 have increase 40% since the industrial revolution, exacerbated by the growing population of cattle belching out tons of methane and burning down swaths of the amazon forest every year?
Joe Instead of using the warmist words like “Billions metric tons”, which makes it sooooo scary,use( % ) and you will understand how small of a quantity you are talking about.
CO2 = .018% (attributed to human) CO2 is about .018% of the .038% Co2 content of the Atmosphere . Your 30 billion metric tons is around .000006% of this .018%. Why the use of TONS is so wildly use by the anti CO2 advocates. If the public was given these small figures? reality would kick in and the AGW theory would cease to exist overnight. 30 BMT is an insignificant small amount.
[…] Professor Fritz Vahrenholt's and Dr. Sebastian Lüning's skeptic book Die kalte Sonne has succeeded in exposing something unsettling that the German established climate scientists have been harboring for quite some time … […]
Pierre,
Just wanted to say thanks for the trouble you go to in finding these articles, your translation of them, and posting on your blog. Very much appreciated.
Robin
My pleasure, Robin. Thanks!