by Howard C. Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn, October 27, 2009
The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Jackson:
I write in regard to the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 18,886 (Apr. 24, 2009), the so-called “Endangerment Finding.”
It has been often said that the “science is settled” on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false.
The letter is “s”, the one that changes model into models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.
Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive.
We can take this further. Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.
Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a “tipping point.” Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points. The output “goes to the rail.” Not only that, but it stays there. That’s the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASA-GISS) and Al Gore.
But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point.
The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it.
In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2 concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years.
Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2 concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming.
(A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution.
Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the “pre-industrial” value.
- The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere.
(B) The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?
Nobody doubts that CO2 has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO2 concentration is increasing. But what would we have to fear if CO2 and temperature actually increased?
- A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better.
- The higher the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown. But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades. Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple.
- CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition.
- A warmer world begets more precipitation.
- All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms.
- The melting point of ice is 0 ºC in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else. The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is -14 ºC, and the lowest is -117 ºC. How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?
Consider the change in vocabulary that has occurred.
The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that’s climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change.
In a way, we have been here before. Lord Kelvin “proved” that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said. He “proved” it using the conservation of energy. What he didn’t know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth.
Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have “proved” that CO2 causes global warming.
Except when it doesn’t.
To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate.
It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense.
Best Regards,
Howard C. Hayden
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn
Climate physics is very complex. The Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming advocates simplify this science to draw false conclusions and impose their views and programs on everyone. Physics Professor Howard Hayden has done a superlative job explaining why Global Warming advocates are dead wrong.
Thanks to Dr. Ed Berry for hosting his climate change and his outstanding contributions to climate science.
John Shanahan
President, Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy-USA
(that's "Environmentalists" without the CO2 mania)
President, Go Nuclear, Inc.
Denver, Colorado
This is not even deserving of an answer. Too many fallacies and inaccurate statements committed.
Eskil J.,
You got a great point. That letter is filled with fallacies and it's an excellent example of "science by rhetoric" rather than "science by learning and evidence."
In fact it's such a good example, that I've done a detailed dissection and loaded the holes with lots of authoritative scientific sources for those learning opportunities that are so important.
"Howard Hayden’s one-letter disproof of global warming claims – examined" http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/03/…
@2 Dear Eskil, Where did you go to school? What courses did you take?
@3 Dear Citizens Challenge, I read your rebuttal you posted on your blogspot. I have one question: Have you ever taken a physics course?
The complete nonsense in your blogspot rebuttal shows you have no scientific understanding of physics or global warming or climate change or even logic.
Add the fact that you believe http://wattsupwiththat.com/ is an "onslaught of nonsense and crazy-making" shows you are brainwashed environmentalist.
Where did you go to school? What courses did you take?
And pray tell, who might you be brainwashed by – if you believe WUWT is any sort of objective resource. One doesn't learn by focusing on contrarianism.
At least I support my assertions with actual science sources.
You have offered nothing serious to dispute my claims, insults alone don't cut it.
@6 Dear Citizens Challenge, I don't mean to insult you. I read your blog and I am giving you a realistic appraisal. It is clear you could not pass physics 101. This is why I asked you the sources of your education, like:
Where did you go to school? What courses did you take?
But you did not answer these questions, possibly because the answers would show your lack of science education.
You may think you based your assertions on actual science sources, but the fact is you did not because you do not understand the context of climate science.
WUWT is an open discussion among some very good scientists in the climate field. If you write off WUWT as nonsense then this speaks to your ignorance of climate science. You would learn more if you challenged what you think is nonsense with a comment on WUWT. You might be enlightened by the response.
Your claim "One doesn’t learn by focusing on contrarianism" suggests you do not understand the scientific method:
Science is based upon 3 steps: (1) create a hypothesis, (2) use your hypothesis to make a prediction, (3) compare your prediction with new data.
If your prediction does not match real data in every test, then your hypothesis is wrong.
On this basis, the IPCC global warming hypothesis fails because its predictions do not agree with data. That is the essence of Hayden's article.
Climate models incorporate the IPCC global warming hypotheses and their predictions are wrong. No only do the IPCC climate models very much disagree with real world data but they also disagree with each other.
The failure of climate models to predict reality makes your blog entirely irrelevant to the climate debate.
It is refreshing to read such a concise and well-written summary of the facts.
I can only think of one thing missing – the egotism, grandstanding, and cheating in the alarmist community. It started from the very beginning with Hansen's disabling the air conditioning before his original presentation to congress. It continued with "An Inconvenient Truth" where Gore was a masterful politician while clearly avoiding the facts ("the science is complicated" so he doesn't explain it.) It reached it's culmination (hopefully there will not be more) with fraud and refusal to disclose information on the part of Mann, who is in court at this very time, as well as by several scientists on the IPCC.
Scientists, politicians, and corporate media executives are hardly exempt from unethical behavior. Money, power, position and prestige are huge motivators. Scientists have to eat, like everyone else, and there is only one way to do that in a capitalist society.
Thus far this plague of unethical behavior appears to be absent in the skeptic community.
The part I like best: "… the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science…"
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