Exxon Offered $10k to Scientists to Debunk U.N. Global Warming Report

Jeez halfbreed, did you read my post?

re-read this portion:

If ExxonMobil doesn't want to invest in renewable energy technology for economic reasons then fine, but don't imply that the the lack of taxpayer money is why they can't do it.

 

I was responding to you calling them "a-holes."

I read the first part and guess I was confused as to what you were talking about when you then called them names. My mistake.

 

The reason we even cite an 'expert' is because we don't have the indepth knowledge to make the evaluation ourselves. To do that and then presume to be able to pick it apart seems a little silly. When one takes into account that often there is a counterintuitive, but true, component - then making a layperson glance across an issue is futile at best.

I did last night. He responded today (he sent me an answer in pdf - anyone know how I can paste it where the symbols don't get messed up?). I bolded the important part ...

"Heating by cumulus convection is given by , where Mc is the cumulus mass flux and c M
z
θ ∂
∂
is the potential temperature gradient. For the tropical average,
z
θ ∂
∂
, where E is evaporation, C is an exchange coefficient, 0
0
( ) (1 ) s
c
C q q E C rh M
q q rh
− −
≈ ≈ =
is the saturation specific humidity at the surface temperature, q0 is the specific humidity of near surface air, and rh is the relative humidity of near surface air. Mc is unchanged if rh remains same. For Mc to increase, rh must decrease. The respondent’s argument is simply wrong."

Richard S. Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Office: 54-1720, MIT Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

He didn't even charge me $2500 an hour...

It seems to me that the process of being peer-reviewed is not to determine whether or not your theory is correct, but to have someone else qualified to validate your process. Lindzen is heavily published already so it isn't as though he is claiming he can't get published because people don't like him, but rather the topic.

 

Very interesting. I would like to see it. You can email it to me through Clutchfans. If you don't mind please also include a copy of the email you sent to him so I can verify the accuracy of the question you conveyed. I know some posters in D&D like their anonymity so you can delete your name out of the email but I will not reveal your real name on Clutchfans.

 

I emailed you with my email address. The process of pasting the answer in the clutch box has the same problem. Bounce me an email and I'll attach the answer in pdf.

 

Actually, they are still assholes. They know that their little "lower emissions" projects will really do nothing to fix the problem, yet they try to pass themselves off as concerned about the GW problem.

These people care about one thing: (do I have to actually say it?)

Anything else is either a way to get it or something staning between them and it. Environmental concerns are in the latter category, whether they deny science outright or "finesse" the issue.

 

Open the PDF, Edit, Copy file to Clipboard.

Open MS Paint, hit paste.

Now you have it in a BMP format.

Upload the BMP to a host, voila

 

argh. it just put a picture of a pdf document in paint.

 

Neat trick.
Good to know.

 

Yeah that's what you want, unless you mean it put the icon there.

 

It just put the pdf icon there. Your directions seemed simple enough. Did I do something wrong?

 

Do you have the PDF open? It won't work unless it's open.

Alternatively you can open the PDF, do a Alt + Print Screen, then open up Paint and paste the result in.

 

this is the link. thanks, sam.

[/URL][/IMG]

 

Here's a little better version of the PDF



I've taken a look at it and from my limited understanding this seems to be a calculation regarding the relationship of cloud formation and relative humidity. If I'm reading it right, which I concede I may very well not be, he is saying that for cloud formation to increase relative humidity must increase, or the air at the surface must be drier. That partly addresses the issues I raised but not fully as I'm still not seeing the function of temperature in relation to relative humidity there. Also the issue I raised wasn't specifically about cloud formation although I can see how cloud formation would be considered part of it since storms have clouds in them.

Also this formula raises another question in my mind regarding if relative humidity must be lower at the surface for cloud formation then how come clouds are formed over areas of high warm air and high humidity? Especially as seen in storms gaining power when passing over a warm body of water which would seem to have very high humidity at the surface.

Again I will concede that my knowledge is limited so anyone else with better understanding please chime in.

Hayes, could you post or email me the text of the email that you sent Dr. Lindzen? I would like to see how you phrased the questions. As before I guarentee anonymity.

 

At 06:09 PM 2/8/2007, you wrote:

Hi Richard,

I am having an argument over the effect the so-called consensus has on the global warming debate. I posted part of your article from early last year about this effect in peer-reviewed journals and in reply was challenged on your explanation of the science. I am not a climate scientist so I was hoping you might clear up whatever the miscommunication is - I have pasted the challenges below. I understand you are probably swamped but I think it is important that the public not writeoff alternate views on the IPCC and global warming.

Thanks

(Hayesstreet)

Where it does list some science I find some problems.

Quote:
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion.


I'm not a climate scientists but from my lay person understanding is that strength of storms is largely driven by the amount of heat input into a storm system. If the reduction of temperature differences the poles and the equator is due to the poles heating up wouldn't that be added more heat to fuel extra-tropical storms? For that matter the heating of the poles results in the melting of ice sheets which act as a cap on evaporation of water bodies, for instance the failure of Lake Superior anually freezing over is considered to be contributing to reduced water levels due to evaporation occuring in winter as well as summer, adding the more atmospheric moisture into the climate. From my understanding that would mean warming poles should lead to more storms.

Quote:
Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.


The problem with this statement is that the amount of moisture that air can hold is dependent on temperature so 100% humidity at 50 degrees is a lot less atmospheric moisture than 100% humidity at 90 degrees. Atmospheric moisture is itself a greenhouse gas so that increased moisture in the air increases the carrying capacity of the air. So a hotter climate can be more humid than a colder climate so the argument that evaporation is dependen on only on drier air ignores how increased temperature increases the carrying capacity of air.

 

S-chang/Hayes, here's part of the problem that you guys are missing

Lindzen is referring to models that supports a decrease in intensity in "extratropical" storms, and by that he means exactly what it states: Storms that don't occur in the Tropics and in the colder regions of the sea.


From realclimate.org:

 

Hayes;

Thank you for posting that and I see you posted it verbatim. The impression I get is he was presuming to be responding to someone else who is a climate scientists or having studied climate science and also that he doesn't have a lot of time or inclination to go into a lengthier exposition. I wonder if he's a Rox fan maybe we can get him to sign onto Clutchfans and join the D & D.

Again speaking from limited understanding I still am not quite understanding how this formula works but also his original point that drier air drives more storm formation, in the case of his response cloud formation, when every source I've seen regarding storm formation calls for more humid air.

For example

It would seem to me then that Dr. Lindzen's positions go against not only the widely accepted view of Global Warming but also what drives storm formation.

 

I've had to rewrite this since I just went back and looked at what Lindzen said in his article.

I just noticed that in the quote I cited regarding the difference in temperature gradients between the poles but that doesn't address the role that humidity plays in tropical storms. Dr. Lindzen in his quote specifically states that tropical storm require less humidity which seems to go against accepted understanding that tropical storms require more humidty. In the formula he sent to Hayes it presents an inverse relationship between relative humidity and cloud formation.

After thinking about it I think I understand now how his formula works. For cloud formation to happen the moisture cannot precipitate out. He cites lower relative humidity drives more cloud formation which I think states that the humidity is low enough that the air doesn't reach saturation and cause the moisture to precipate out. So lower relative humidity means the air can sustain more cloud formation. Warmer air can sustain more moisture so its relative humidity, dew point, is higher but since its relative it it still needs to be below saturation. So in this case lower relative humidity does increase more cloud formation. That seems to make sense.

If that is the case though then there still is a flaw I see with his argument. He is arguing that storm formation isn't solely a function of temperature but also evaporation and that in a world with more humid air their will be less evaporation. That makes sense under his formula but there is a problem with this in that he is talking about relative humidity. If temperature stays the same then yes adding more moisture in the air won't result in greater cloud formation since the air will saturate and precipitate out. BUT if the air is warmer the dew point is higher and the relative humidity (percent of saturation) can sustain more moisture. So in a warmer climate the dew point is higher so you still get cloud formation with air even more saturated than at lower temps since the relative humidity can be low even while there is more atmospheric moisture than when its cooler. In other words his formula doesn't conflict with the argument that global warming increases storm formation since temperature affects evaporation.

 

With all this warming there sure were some doozy hurricanes this past year.



Hurricane Scientist Leaves U.N. Team
U.S. Expert Cites Politics in a Letter

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A13

A federal hurricane research scientist resigned last week from a U.N.-sponsored climate assessment team, saying the group's leader had politicized the process.

Chris Landsea, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research division in Miami, said Monday that he would not contribute to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's chapter on atmospheric and surface climate conditions because the lead author had told reporters global warming contributed to intense Atlantic hurricanes last year.

In a letter he posted on the Internet, Landsea said there was little evidence to justify Kevin Trenberth's assertion in October that in light of current warming trends, "the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."

"It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming," he wrote. "My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy."

The spat between Landsea and Trenberth -- who heads the climate analysis section at the private nonprofit National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. -- underscores a larger battle over what role scientists should play in one of the decade's most contentious environmental debates. Some researchers say they have a duty to express concern about human contributions to climate change, given what is at stake; others say scientists have no right to act as policy advocates.

The IPCC, which has already concluded that human activity accounts for much of the warming the earth has experienced over 50 years, is seeking to evaluate how and why the climate is changing. It will issue its next report in 2007, basing its findings on a consensus-oriented process that involves hundreds of scientists as well as senior diplomatic officials.

The Atlantic had an unusual number of severe hurricanes last year, four of which hit Florida. In 2004, major tropical storms, including nine hurricanes, occurred in the Atlantic. Between 1974 and 1994, the Atlantic averaged 8.6 serious tropical storms annually.

Trenberth, who in an interview Friday called Landsea's charges "ridiculous," said he participated last fall in a media conference call organized by Harvard University professors "to correct misleading impressions that global warming had played no role at all in last year's hurricane season." He added he would have welcomed opposing views in the assessment, even though he believes "if global warming is happening, how can hurricanes not be affected? It's part of the overall system."

Landsea, who could not be reached for comment Friday, wrote in his resignation letter that a recent report from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory suggests that by 2080 hurricanes are likely to be only 5 percent more intense than they are now.

"I personally cannot in good faith contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound," he wrote.

IPCC officials have not intervened in the dispute. R.K. Pachauri, who heads the overall climate assessment, wrote in a Dec. 8 e-mail to Landsea that "individual scientists can do what they wish in their own right, as long as they are not saying anything on behalf of the IPCC."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29397-2005Jan22.html

 

And now you are at an impasse. You have a layperson making challenges, an answer from an MIT professor that you are wrong, and further lay speculation that none of us can answer. Seems like a futile exercise. I can say though that what often makes sense or not to a layperson isn't actually a 'true' position. Just have a conversation with a lawyer.