Swiss Climate Institute Director: “Absurd” To Call CO2 “Pollutant…Main Culprit Behind Climate Change”

A new research institute in Switzerland set to rock the climate science boat…will investigate natural causes of climate change. Director calls claims CO2 the main driver and a pollutant “absurd”.

Swiss institute director and climate scientist Hans-Joachim Dammschneider says natural factors in large part behind recent climate change. Photo credit: IFHGK

The Swiss Basler Zeitung (BZ) reported on April 13, 2018, that a new research institute opened at Lake Aegeri in Switzerland last year: the Institute for Hydrography, Geo-ecology and Climate Sciences (IFHGK), which will focus on the natural causes of climate change.

Contrary to the other government-funded institutes, the IFHGK focusses on the natural causes of climate change: the Institute for Geo-ecology and Climate Sciences wishes to show that CO2 is not necessarily the main driver behind global warming and thus goes against the alleged broad consensus among mainstream researchers, the Baseler Zeitung writes.

A real climate scientist

The new institute, founded at the start of 2017, is located in Oberägeri, Switzerland is directed by Hans-Joachim Dammschneider. who according to the BZ explained:

Unlike many others who speak on the subject of global warming, I’m actually a climate scientist.”

The institute consists of scientists who work on a volunteer basis and operates on a shoestring. Decisive in the founding of the institute was Dr. Hans-Joachim Dammschneider’s encounter with Dr. Sebastian Lüning, who together with Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt wrote the Spiegel bestseller “Die kalte Sonne“,  which upset German mainstream climate science. Lüning also runs the Die kalte Sonne climate site, where he posts daily.

Looking at climate science with “calm, common sense and reason”

Dr. Lüning, a geologist, long ago concluded that the mainstream climate scientists have navigated themselves into a dead end. Dammschneider told the BZ that the institute will look at the issues with “calm, common sense and understanding.”

Dammschneider, who considers himself a climate realist, says that it is absurd that CO2 has been designated a pollutant and that the substance is mainly to blame for es climate change. Dr. Dammschneider is a leading German expert in the field of geography, climate research, oceanography and geology.

The BZ reports that already Dammschneider has published some papers in their own publication series and that he specializes in the field of periodic temperatures changes of the oceans, which have a direct impact on the atmosphere. He told the BZ:

The atmospheric temperatures tend to correspond with the oscillations of the oceans and are subject to a comparable pattern.”

Today’s warmth “not unique”

The German-born researcher believes it is essential to record these changes and to see if the climate changes are normal, or if they only have existed since man started burning fossil fuels.

His research and the findings of Sebastian Lüning for the North African region show that during the period of the year 1000 to 1200 A.D. it was similarly as warm as it is today. The BZ writes:

The works of Lüning and his team show that during this period very optimal climate conditions predominated. They also indicate that today’s warm period is not unique.”

The fear to dissent

On the future success of the institute, the BZ writes that Dammschnei­der is aware that it’s going to be a long and difficult road, saying that “young climate scientists as a rule cannot afford to question asserted truths if they do not want to endanger their careers. Thus the new climate science skeptic institute will have to rely on support from independent scientists and retired professors who are free to speak without the fear of harsh consequences.

Funding needed

The BZ writes that the institute is working to gain public attention, but is in need of funding. However: “business sponsors look promising, and so it hopes to employ some workers,” the BZ reports.

Concerning the widespread alarmism over man-made climate change, Dammschneider told the BZ:

Sooner or later they will have to soften the positions they’ve held so far.”

Read the entire story in German at the Basler Zeitung

56 responses to “Swiss Climate Institute Director: “Absurd” To Call CO2 “Pollutant…Main Culprit Behind Climate Change””

  1. BoyfromTottenham

    Where do I donate?

  2. AndyG55

    Sort of on topic.

    Greenland Ice melt GEOTHERMAL, Not Man-made

    https://s19.postimg.cc/p42wgwtir/comparison.jpg

    Just like the Antarctic.

  3. SebastianH

    Thus the new climate science skeptic institute will have to rely on support from independent scientists and retired professors who are free to speak without the fear of harsh consequences.

    Nothing bad can come out of this, really …

    So it’s basically another “institute” like EIKE 😉

    1. Bitter&twisted

      Hopefully this institute will help start meaningful scientific debate.
      Something that climate alarmists have done their best to suppress.

  4. Gus

    There is none of this “herd instinct” and pressure to conform amongst climate scientists of China, Japan, India and Russia. Great many papers published by Chinese scientists in particular find close parallels between the climate of today and climates of the past. Scientists of China and Japan scrutinized (mostly) American numerical climate models and found them wanting, adding their own corrections to them, and developing their own models in the end.

    1. SebastianH

      Can you present some examples please? Links to models they’ve come up with that are better than the current ones?

      1. Gus

        With pleasure. See, e.g., [1,2]. There is a lot more, too much for a short blog note.

        [1] Yousuke Sato, et al., “Aerosol effects on cloud water amounts were successfully simulated by a global cloud-system resolving model,” Nature Communications, 7 March 2018, doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03379-6
        [2] Sonja Totz, et al., “The dynamical core of the Aeolus 1.0 statistical–dynamical atmosphere model: validation and parameter optimization,” Geoscientific Model Development, 22 Feb 2018, doi:10.5194/gmd-11-665-2018

        1. SebastianH

          Thank you. So [1] tuned a model so it produces the same sign values for aerosol induced cooling (namely causing rain). How is that a deviation from the “heard instinct”? Not exactly something that contradicts AGW. [2] I haven’t read yet.

          Anyway, the more diverse the research directions, the more knowledge we gain.

          1. AndyG55

            “How is that a deviation from the “herd instinct”? “

            Because it got something CORRECT.

            Also VALIDATED against REAL data, unlike the herd !!

            You will never gain more actual knowledge seb,

            You CANNOT allow yourself to…

            … because actual real knowledge will destroy your irrational anti-CO2 AGW belief.

          2. Gus

            From [1] (as per above):

            “Aerosols affect climate by modifying cloud properties through their role as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei, called aerosol–cloud interactions. In most global climate models (GCMs), the aerosol–cloud interactions are represented by empirical parameterisations, in which the mass of cloud liquid water (LWP) is assumed to increase monotonically with increasing aerosol loading. Recent satellite observations, however, have yielded contradictory results: LWP can decrease with increasing aerosol loading. This difference implies that GCMs overestimate the aerosol effect, but the reasons for the difference are not obvious. Here, we reproduce satellite-observed LWP responses using a global simulation with explicit representations of cloud microphysics, instead of the parameterisations. Our analyses reveal that the decrease in LWP originates from the response of evaporation and condensation processes to aerosol perturbations, which are not represented in GCMs. The explicit representation of cloud microphysics in global scale modelling reduces the uncertainty of climate prediction.”

            So, you see, they did far better and far more. They introduced explicit parametrization of cloud microphysics, something notoriously lacking in American GCMs. By doing so they reproduced satellite-observed LWP responses, something American GCMs couldn’t do.

            But they still have to parametrize, which is bad. Even they cannot compute cloud dynamics ab-initio, an Achilles heel of all climate models. They neither have the resolution, nor do their authors have sufficient knowledge of cloud dynamics.

      2. Robin Guenier

        Some examples of the lack of “herd instinct” and pressure to conform amongst climate scientists of China and Russia:

        Two from China: Wang et al., 2017 (https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46091) and Quansheng et al., 2017 (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-017-6238-8).

        And two from Russia: Stozhkov et al., 2017 (https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S1062873817020411) and Ukhvatkina et al., 2018 (https://www.clim-past.net/14/57/2018/cp-14-57-2018.pdf).

        1. SebastianH

          A wavelet/curve fitting paper citing Scafetta, temperature reconstruction for China, another curve fitting believer who also tries to blame everything on cosmic rays. And finally another Asia reconstruction that shows modern warming (and that today’s temperature exceeded the 1940s warming).

          1. AndyG55

            So, ZERO counter as always seb.

            Is that what you are saying??

            Just like you have ZERO to say as real evidence of CO2 warming anything.

          2. Robin Guenier

            You’ve completely missed the point – which was simply to illustrate (with a tiny fraction of many examples) the uncomfortable fact that, as Gus noted, there’s no pressure to follow the “herd Instinct” to conform amongst climate scientists in China, Japan, India and Russia. “Uncomfortable” because the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia (i.e. the conforming West) are responsible for only 27% of global emissions, whereas China, Japan, India and Russia are responsible for 44% (http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2andGHG1970-2016&sort=des8). And their policymakers are likely to be more influenced by their own scientists than by those in the West – notwithstanding criticisms of the former from SebastianH.

          3. yonason (from my cell phone)

            @Robin Guenier 19. April 2018 at 2:51 PM |

            Permit me to translate SebH’s comment.

            “Cease and desist from independent thought. Return to the herd at once!”

          4. yonason (from my cell phone)

            PS – That’s basically the translation of all his comments.

          5. Robin Guenier

            yonason: you say that SebH is telling me to “Return to the herd at once”.

            But for all he knows I may already be a member of the herd. The serious issue is quite different: it seems that scientists in major emerging economies responsible for far more emissions than the whole of the West, are not members. If that’s true – and it certainly seems to be – it means the prospects for major emission reduction are extremely poor. The West needs to come to terms with that. And, if its politicians really believe (as they say they do) that emission reduction is essential if we are to avoid potential catastrophe, they should be considering urgently what they’re going to do about it. Just repeating their concerns is otherwise no more than hand-waving.

          6. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

            @Robin Guenier: “But for all he knows I may already be a member of the herd.”

            Yes. “for all he knows.” – His fingers type without his brain being engaged. His many predictable activist knee jerk reactions to comments have earned him a deserved negative reputation here, and are why I have in the past referred to him as a “chatbot.” Don’t let it bother you. That’s just SebH.

            “…it seems that scientists in major emerging economies responsible for far more emissions than the whole of the West, are not members. If that’s true – and it certainly seems to be – it means the prospects for major emission reduction are extremely poor.”

            Perfectly logical.

            “Just repeating their concerns is otherwise no more than hand-waving.”

            Yes. “Virtue signalling” never solves anything, but it does placate fellow travelers. And what’s the percentage of risking being marginalized by one’s in crowd for thinking critically, anyway, especially if you can’t? Case in point, Justin Trudeau. He regurgitates a lot of ideologically safe buzzwords, and acts on them without care for the consequences.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0q8Vv-sRR8

            And people are surprised when someone points out what a few decades ago would have been obvious.

            It’s a very serious problem, whether or not CO2 is a problem, which it has not yet been scientifically shown to be.

        2. SebastianH

          Not everything needs a “counter”, you know.

          1. AndyG55

            Especially when you have none. !!

            Evasion as always, seb.

            Quite feeble. !!

  5. Art Viterito

    I would be all too happy to work for this institute. Bravo, Dr. Dammschneider!

    1. AndyG55

      You should contact them with a CV 🙂

  6. Christopher Hanley

    Predictions of climate models that don’t factor in cloud cover changes particularly over tropical oceans are useless.
    None of them do as far as I know.

  7. clipe

    SebastianH 18. April 2018 at 3:02 PM

    Will they finally find out whether or not we already surpassed MWP temperatures then? Will skeptics finally realize that it doesn’t really matter if it was warmer in the past than today? That doesn’t change the cause for modern warming that will continue for quite some time …

    Until you know what caused MWP you can’t claim to know what caused “modern warming”.

    Thanks for admitting, in a roundabout way, that it has been warmer in the past.

    1. AndyG55

      I don’t think he has admitted yet that it was the LIA that was ANOMALOUSLY COLD !!..

      …. as opposed to NOW actually being that warm at all, which it isn’t when compared to the rest of the interglacial.

      Quite on the COOL side, actually

      But this FACT cannot be allowed to interfere with his parrot-like mantra.

      1. Kenneth Richard

        I don’t think he has admitted yet that it was the LIA that was ANOMALOUSLY COLD !!..

        It’s the LIA that was the exception to the rule…the “hockey stick”. Modern climate is just a partial return to “normal” relative to that frigid period.

        https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Global-Temperatures-0-2000-AD-PAGES-2k-2015.jpg

        https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Arctic-Sea-Ice-Extent-North-of-Iceland-3000-Years-Moffa-S%C3%A1nchez-and-Hall-2017.jpg

        1. Bitter&twisted

          As I keep saying DNFTT.

        2. AndyG55

          B&T, that’s your decision, not mine.

    2. SebastianH

      Until you know what caused MWP you can’t claim to know what caused “modern warming”.

      Sound logic. Until we don’t know who killed Kennedy, we can’t know who killed anyone this year.

      Thanks for admitting, in a roundabout way, that it has been warmer in the past.

      Sure it has only not in the MWP (very likely).

      It’s the LIA that was the exception to the rule…the “hockey stick”. Modern climate is just a partial return to “normal” relative to that frigid period.
      https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Global-Temperatures-0-2000-AD-PAGES-2k-2015.jpg

      Yeah right, modern warming is just around 0.4 to 0.5 °C since 1900. Maybe you want to post the version where you appended some made up data to end, too?

      And of course, the North of Iceland graph again … *sigh*

      1. AndyG55

        DENIAL of Iceland temperatures and sea ice extent.

        DENIAL of temperatures all around the Arctic.

        Even DENIAL of Hadcrut Arctic temperatures.

        DENIAL that Arctic sea ice is FAR more extensive than at basically any other time except the LIA, which incidentally was a rather COLD period. CERTAINLY more than during the WARMER than now age of the MWP.

        And most of all DENIAL that the LIA was an ANOMALOUSLY COLD period, that the world has, very thankfully, just eased out of.

        No wonder you “sigh” when you see that Iceland sea ice graph. It totally destroys the need to PANIC about the current HUGE extent of Arctic sea ice, and you KNOW that you have NOTHING to counter it.

  8. dennisambler

    Nice to know there is a Hans-Joachim out there who speaks sense.

  9. Dr Francis Tucker Manns
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