Some Scientists Call Prof. Schellnhuber’s Claim Man Is Preventing Next Ice Age “Huge Nonsense”

In an interview with the online German Augsburger Allgemeine (AA), former director of the the alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Prof. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, made some claims that have raised some eyebrows.

Image right: Prof Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, Source: PIK

What follows is a commentary from two German scientists:
=======================================

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(Translated/edited by P Gosselin)

Huge nonsense in the German Augsburger Allgemeinen on August 19, 2018:

Climate scientist Schellnhuber: “There will never be another ice age”

[…]

AA: Two weeks ago, an international study was published in which you too were involved. There was talk of a hot period. Sounds dramatic…

Schellnhuber: And it is. On Earth, ice ages and warm periods have alternated for millions of years. We have shown in studies that the industrial society, with its historic greenhouse gas emissions, has already interrupted this cycle and there will probably never be another ice age. So my colleagues and I brought up the question: Can our climate system be stabilized in the currently prevailing warm period state, or are we putting planetary processes in motion that are driving us into a hot period? The difference is, roughly speaking, the continued existence of civilization as we know it. With a long-term increase in temperature of five or six degrees and a sea level of around 60 meters, it will not be possible maintain it.”

Schellnhuber confuses CO2 cycles with ice age cycles

Professor Schellnhuber is a real joker. Glacials and interglacials occur on timescales of tens of thousands of years. However, the duration of CO2 staying time in the atmosphere is only 100 years. After a few hundred years at the latest, the CO2 would return to pre-industrial levels. Hasn’t anyone ever made this clear to Prof. Schellnhuber? Since nobody will ever experience the scenario, he can go on making outlandish claims about the far off future.

Also for a good laugh, read our post: PIK warning of the next ice age never appearing. Mojib Latif cool: “CO2 istays in the atmosphere for 100 years”

More on Schellnhuber: Peer review system in need of an overhaul: Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber chooses his own reviewers

16 responses to “Some Scientists Call Prof. Schellnhuber’s Claim Man Is Preventing Next Ice Age “Huge Nonsense””

  1. Lucky

    The commentary says:
    ” the duration of CO2 staying time in the atmosphere is only 100 years.”
    This 100-year figure comes from the IPCC who give no source or justification.
    There are a number of studies that give a range of from about 5 to 15 years for CO2 residence time.
    This means that (even if there is a global warming effect) the influence of CO2 is much less than Schellnhuber, the IPCC and the alarmist industry claim.

    1. Penelope

      Thank you, Lucky. That was exactly my objection. The notion that the small fraction of CO2 contributed by mankind will somehow persevere in the face of any number of chemical and biological factors is gratuitous. To name just one, the greening of the planet, which results in more oxygen.

      But then those who are at the head of the hoax– those who are paying for it and who control the media– aren’t science-motivated, are they?

      1. spike55

        “The notion that the small fraction of CO2 contributed by mankind will somehow persevere…. “…

        Particularly when the slight warming the planet has thankfully had, will have caused a large increase in NATURAL CO2 output.

        But its irrelevant anyway,

        There is no scientific evidence that CO2 actually affects the climate in any way.. just attribution studies and assumption driven models.

  2. JMS

    For alarmists, the future is simple to guess: either the “civilization as we know it” will end as a result of their putative anthropogenic global warning; OR the “civilization as we know it” will end as a result of the huge transformations and empoverishment that they claim are necessary to prevent their putative anthropogenic global warning.

    1. Marcos

      Is a good one: whatever happens it works!!

  3. Bitter&twisted

    Personally I’d be pleased if Shellhumper was right, for a change.
    Don’t really fancy another ice-age anytime soon.

    1. spike44

      Precisely.

      If our small amount of CO2 is REALLY stopping the next Ice Age occurring..

      .. the why the heck are they suggesting we stop our CO2 activity.

      Do these cretins REALLY want the world to plunge into another Ice Age?

      1. spike55

        oops.. I must have typed 44 instead of 55

        Long day yesterday 😉

  4. Curious George

    Glacials and interglacials occur on timescales of tens of thousands of years – except when alarmists step in. There was a scare of a catastrophic global cooling in 1970s. Thanks to alarmists, that scare was turned into a catastrophic global warming. One ice age prevented. Professor Schellhuber can file another notch in his fountain pen.

    BTW, note the keyword “catastrophic” used at both occasions. Good marketing.

  5. Brian G Valentine

    The statement is so ridiculous that it requires no response.

    None of his Government patrons tell him things like that, however, and if they did maybe he would stop it

  6. Kenneth Richard

    A few decades ago, it was claimed that human activity would cause an ice age instead of prevent it. Because the science is, of course, settled.

    https://www.atmos.washington.edu/2008Q2/591A/Articles/Rasool_Schneider_Science.pdf
    “It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth.”

    The rate at which human activities may be inadvertently modifying the climate of Earth has become a problem of serious concern (1). In the last few decades the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere appears to have increased by 7 percent (2). During the same period, the aerosol content of the lower atmosphere may have been augmented by as much as 100 percent (3).

    It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 K. However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!

    1. Bitter&twisted

      Don’t you love “settled science”🤮

  7. Don from Oz

    From Kenneths post (but not his view) ‘..the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth.”
    Ahh ha So if we spurt a bit more CO2 all we have to do to counter it is to spurt a few more aerosols ( but not too much) to counter it.
    Problem solved
    Science settled

  8. Kurt in Switzerland

    It’s not strictly “nonsense” – this is serious stuff: it’s about getting FUNDING!

  9. edmh

    This post gives a rather more rational view of the climate future

    https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/holocene-context-for-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming/

    According to ice core records, the last millennium 1000AD – 2000AD has been the coldest millennium of our current Holocene interglacial. This point is more fully illustrated with ice core records on a millennial basis back to the Eemian period here:

    Our current, warm, congenial Holocene interglacial, although cooler than the Eemian interglacial 120,000 years ago, has been the enabler of mankind’s civilisation for the last 10,000 years, spanning from mankind’s earliest farming to the most recent technologies.

    Viewing the current Holocene interglacial on a millennial basis is rational. Sadly it seems that, driven by the need to continually support the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis / religion Climate Alarmists irrationally examine the temperature record at much too fine a scale, weather event by weather event, month by month, or year by year.

    From the broader perspective, each of the notable high points in the current 11,000 year Holocene temperature record, (Holocene Climate Optimum – Minoan – Roman – Medieval – Modern), have been progressively colder than every previous high point.

    Greenland ice core records show that for its first 7-8000 years, the early Holocene, had virtually flat temperatures, including its early high point known as the “climate optimum”. But the more recent Holocene, since a “tipping point” at around 1000BC, 3000 years ago, has seen temperature fall at about 20 times faster than its earlier rate.

    The Holocene interglacial is already 10 – 11,000 years old and just judging from the length of previous interglacial periods, the Holocene epoch should be drawing to its close: in this century, the next century or this millennium.

    Nonetheless, Climate alarmists promoting their views have converted the slight and truly beneficial warming at the end of the 20th century to a Modern high point “Great Man-made Global Warming Catastrophe”.

    The recent warming since the end of the Little Ice Age has been wholly beneficial when compared to the devastating impacts arising from the minor cooling of the Little Ice Age.

    As global temperatures, after their short spurt at the end of the last century, are showing stagnation or cooling for the last twenty years, the world should now fear the real and detrimental effects of cooling, rather than being hysterical about limited, beneficial or probably now non-existent further warming.

    Warmer times are times of success and prosperity for man-kind and for the biosphere.

    But the coming end of the present Holocene interglacial will eventually again result in a mile high ice sheet over much of the Northern hemisphere.

    That reversion to Ice Age conditions will be the real climate catastrophe.

    With the present reducing Solar activity, significantly reduced temperatures, at least to the level of another Little Ice Age are predicted quite soon this century.

    Whether the present impending cooling will really lead on to a new glacial ice age or not is still in question.

  10. Claim Humans Preventing Next Ice Age is 'Huge Nonsense' | PSI Intl

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