The scientifically based stocktaking also includes exposing widespread misconceptions and deceptions as such on the basis of sound science.
In the climate debate people are repeatedly encouraged to misconceptions, primarily by irresponsible journalists and media representatives, but also by institutions and people who know better, or at least should know better. Some of these misconceptions persist for decades, unfortunately often combined with the meaningless “consensus” argument, although they have repeatedly been questioned.
At this point I would like to point out some of these errors resp. deceptive manoeuvres that are counterproductive for a serious discussion. The reader may form his own opinion about what applies in each case.
Totally incorrect forecasts
There is hardly a day that goes by without a new horror message about the future, usually combined with costly measures for all citizens.
In order to be able to evaluate such reports rationally, it is of considerable importance to check the forecasts of the past for their reliability. It is noticeable that the predictive power of many past forecasts is devastatingly poor, especially when it comes to climate, energy and the environment, in particular from those that have appeared either as scientific experts or as “opinion leaders”:
From this impressive collection of misjudgments during a time of excellently funded science worldwide compared to all human history, I can only conclude that I am deeply suspicious of any new disaster forecast. Anyone who wants to explain to me that there will be massive climate-related problems in the future must first explain to me how all the above dramatic misforecasts came about and why he believes that his forecast is based on a more solid foundation.
Greenhouse effect under the cheese cover
The Berlin university teacher of applied sciences for regenerative energy systems Prof. Quaschning, who is not a specialist in climate research, claims by an attempt with a cheese cover, which is lit up by a light bulb, to prove allegedly the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere , by air containing CO2 warming up under a cheese cover more strongly than air not containing CO2. A similar experiment is propagated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
The error, according to my explanations on the page “Physics of the Greenhouse Effect“, is that the comparison is not permitted physically, because the cover of the experiment is an actual greenhouse in which convection is prevented, but the real atmosphere which open to space, is not. However, the prevention of convection is an essential part of the greenhouse. (anyone who opens the roof of a greenhouse can quickly see for himself).
In the experiment, the heat absorption is proportional to the concentration of CO2, because the heat absorption is dominated by CO2, and the glass cover, however, largely prevents the further transport of heat. The only thing that the experiment proves is that the heat absorbed by the CO2 is predominantly passed on to the other air molecules by collisions, and hardly (<12%), as is often falsely claimed by climate researchers, by radiation, not at all “downwards“. Prof. Quaschning’s picture in the video also suggests this “downward radiation”, which in reality does not take place.
According to physics, the real atmospheric greenhouse effect does not depend on “the range of radiation in the propagation medium”, but on the optically dense part of the total mass of the atmosphere, somewhat comparable to a rug. Whether an increase of the CO2 concentration leads to a — slight, logarithmic (not proportional!) — increase of the temperature, to a decrease or to no change at all, depends on the radiation behaviour of the other air components, especially water vapour, and on the soil temperature. In the Antarctic there is a small “negative greenhouse effect”, while in the warmer regions and therefore also on average the slightly positive effect dominates, the relative importance of which decreases with increasing CO2 content. All this is a completely different behaviour to that in the cheese cover. The trouble is that we lack a simple model of these immensely complex processes, and we need to be honest about this simple fact.
A serious, responsible teacher, who knows these complex processes, will not use the clumsy, false model of the “ordinary greenhouse” as an illustration of the behaviour of the Earth’s atmosphere when CO2 content rises . Why does Professor Quaschning do it nevertheless? Does he not understand the physics of adiabatic lapse rate and radiation transport? Then he is out of place as an climate change advisor to the German government. If he understands the processes correctly, then the only conclusion remains that he deliberately deceives the public and irresponsibly spreads panic.
Is the sea level our downfall?
What has to be done to frighten humanity as much as possible, with the aim of pushing through a political agenda without much resistance? In almost all cultures there are traumatic primal experiences which are present in the collective subconscious of humans (C.G. Jung) and can be addressed. This includes in particular the trauma of a destructive Flood. With the evocation of such a danger fears can be fanned very easily, which make humans docile for political programs without alternatives. As a “prelude” to the climate discussion in Germany, “Der Spiegel” had already dared in 1986 to spread panic and attract attention with the label “Ozone Hole” using the absurdly unreal photomontage Cologne Cathedral under Water.
Der Spiegel: “London, Paris and Poland have perished”
The Spiegel article by, among others, Claas Relotius “London, Paris and Poland have perished” of 30.11.2018 was one of the frontrunners of fraud regarding sea-level rise. With the subtitle “The sea level is rising inexorably, for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the deluge has already begun. Which places are worth protecting and which are not? And what exactly does that mean for people?” is the unambiguous emotional context.
In retrospect, however, it turned out that the content of the article — with the exception of the names of the 3 neighbouring South Sea islands “London”, “Paris” and “Poland” like many of Relotius’ “Spiegel” articles were fictitious. The dimension of the damage to the Spiegel’s image caused by this scandal is similar to that of the fake Hitler diaries to the magazine “Stern” in 1983 .
Prof. Rahmstorf’s futile attempt to accelerate sea-level rise
While serious researchers are predicting a long-term slow, linear rise in sea level between 1.7 mm/year (North Sea) and 3.3 mm/year (NASA), Prof. Rahmstorf considered this to be not enough for a climate horror scenario. He and his group lead from the limestone shells of protozoa in North Carolina that global sea levels are rising faster than ever before in the last two thousand years. Although since 2007 serious doubts have been expressed about the seriousness of these studies , he nevertheless tried to submit the manuscript to the journal “Climate of the Past” in 2012.
One of the reviewers noticed among other things: One of the major problems with this work is the decidedly biased analysis and presentation. The second reviewer states: Model parameter values were tuned manually.
The reviews led the editor to this rather devastating judgement:
However, in the light of the two negative reviews and one comment which all require new analyses and point to fundamental flaws in the methodology of the current paper, I regret to inform you that my conclusion is to support rejection. I strongly dissuade the authors from submitting responses and a revised version.
Are such scientific errors an explanation of the aggressive methods of Prof. Rahmstorf towards others with different opinions?
IPCC Expert Behind 8 Discredited Ocean Acidification Papers
In January 2020, Nature published a damning refutation of a significant body of climate change research. The title of that article is self-explanatory: Ocean acidification does not impair the behavior of coral reef fishes.
The authors studied more than 900 fish from six different species over a period of three years, attempting to verify earlier findings by a team of researchers at Australia’s James Cook University.
Their attempts failed.
Scholarly convention being what it is, the now-discredited work isn’t identified in a clear manner. Readers are compelled to sift through footnotes to locate the “several high-profile papers” that are being refuted. The article, from which also this introduction is taken, lists the debunked publications from “Nature Climate Change”, “Marine Biology”, “Experimental Biology”, etc.
The author in common is research leader Philip Munday. When eight of this man’s papers were double-checked, other scientists were unable to confirm his findings. They performed the same experiments but always got different results.
The James Cook University website tells us Munday is “in the top 1% of cited researchers in the ISI fields of Plant and Animal Science” (bold added). He sits on the editorial board of three scientific journals.
He also “has contributed to IPCC reports” on ocean acidification. In fact, Munday’s name appears 46 times in this 174-page document about a 2011 IPCC workshop on that topic.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s pronouncements about tropical fish rely on a man whose work falls to pieces whenever anyone tries to verify it.
It is apparently no coincidence that this is happening at Cook University, where the renowned coral reef researcher Professor Peter Ridd has wrongly lost his long-standing position in research of the Great Barrier Reef due to bullying by colleagues and the university administration, because instead of following the cheap alarmist theses about the condition of the reef he makes much more differentiated, optimistic statements about it.
The so-called “climate consensus”
There is a lot of talk about the so-called climate consensus, according to which 97% of all climate researchers agree that mankind is responsible for the rise in temperature since the beginning of industrialization through CO2. Especially climate activists, politicians and in talk shows like to use this “consensus” to relativize arguments of sceptics. The consensus argument was spread in particular by the American President Barack Obama in the run-up to the Climate Conference 2014.
A careful analysis of the underlying study was carried out, from which it became clear that two thirds of the respondents made no statement at all about human influence, and the 97% mentioned refer to only one third of all feedback.
Since it is now claimed that there is a 100% consensus that human-induced climate change is caused by CO2, I see the need, for the sake of scientific honesty, to make known here the recently published list of prominent scientists who in one way or another distance themselves from man-made catastrophic climate change.
