Climate Change Examiner Tony Hake

The mainstream media and these pages on Examiner.com reported the release of a letter from 255 scientists last week that said despite recent scandals in climate science, the science behind the manmade climate change theory remains sound. The embarrassing use of a faked photo in the trade journal that published the letter damaged the credibility and now a look at the resumes of the signatories shows most don’t even work in climate science.

...an investigation into the professional backgrounds of the scientists finds that many do not work in climate science and some work in fields not even remotely related to it. In fact, among the first 20 listed, none work in climate science. Pediatric surgeons, an expert in the Maya and the Olmec civilizations, a chemist that studies bacteria, a ‘computer pioneer’ with Microsoft, an electrical engineer, the chairman of a biotechnology firm, and even an expert studying corn are but a few of the 255 ‘experts’ that signed the letter.

There are many other questionable signatories on the letter that tries to convey the message that the ‘science is sound.’ This is of course leading one to question why their statements should be leant any great deal of credence, particularly since the credentials of climate change skeptics are similarly questioned. Read more here.

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Atmospheric Scientist Slaps Down 255 Warming Scientists Letter
Monday, May 10, 2010 - By Marc Morano - Climate Depot

There is ‘no scientific evidence that burning of fossil fuel is responsible for climate change’ The ‘arguments of these 255 scientists is based on pure speculation… Speculation is not covered by any scientific standard’

Special to Climate Depot—Written by Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Gerhard Kramm of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr. Kramm is at the Geophysical Institute and Department of Atmospheric Sciences, College of Natural Science and Mathematics - Dr. Kramm’s website.

May 6, 2010 - By Dr. Gerhard Kramm

The 255 warming scientists stated in their letter:

(I) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

Professor Kramm’s Response: Until today there is no scientific evidence that the increase of the globally averaged near-surface temperature by less than one Kelvin during the last 160 years (see HadCRUT3 data) can be linked to the increase of the atmospheric concentrations of so-called greenhouse gases. The notion “heat-trapping” is unphysical and does not describe the radiative processes taking place within the atmosphere.

In 1971, Prof. Dr. Heinz Fortak, the Director of the Institute for Theoretical Meteorology at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and one of the world leading theorists in meteorology stated in his book “Meteorologie”: “The ‘cycle’ of the long-wave radiation between that Earth?s surface and the atmosphere does not contribute to the heating of the system. The outgoing emission of infrared radiation only serves to maintain the radiative equilibrium at the top of the atmosphere.”

All explanations of the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect are linked to a global scale. This means that the global energy budget for the system ‘Earth-atmosphere” has to be considered. Based on this global energy budget one can show that Heinz Fortak was right. Note that a “global climate” does not exist. It is a contradiction in terms.

The 255 Scientists Stated: (II) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

Prof. Kramm’s Response: If the first argument of these 255 scientists is not correct as documented before, no scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuel is responsible for climate change does exist. Deforestation may alter the planetary albedo of the system ‘Earth-atmosphere’ in the solar range. To investigate such land-use changes numerically, the so-called GCMs are rather inappropriate for this purpose because their grid increments are too coarse to fit the requirements in simulating the soil-biosphere-atmosphere interactions with a sufficient degree of accuracy. Is one of these 255 scientists able to formulate the stomatal conductance for an area of more the 60,000 km^2, the typical area of a grid element in a GCM?

The 255 Scientists Stated: (III) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

Professor’s Kramm’s Response: If the first argument of these 255 scientists is not correct, as documented before, their third argument is so useless like their second argument.

The 255 Scientists Stated: (IV) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

Professor’s Kramm’s Response: The fourth argument of these 255 scientists sounds like chatting about possible injuries while playing soccer. It is based on pure speculation because the arguments (I) to (III) are irrelevant. Speculation is not covered by any scientific standard.

The 255 Scientists Stated: (V) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Professor Kramm’s Response: If the arguments (I) to (III) are irrelevant, the fifth argument of these 255 scientists is based on pure speculation, too.

Professor Kramm Continues: It seems that some further explanations are indispensable. The projecting of the climate using GCMs (Global circulation models) does not fit scientific standards because any numerical result requires its verification by observation. In addition, as argued by Kramm and Dlugi (2009), the inherent uncertainty prevents that climate is predictable with a sufficient degree of accuracy. In their conclusion Kramm and Dlugi stated: “It is not surprising to us that the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced solicitation 09-568, Climate Process and Modeling Teams (CPT), where the key aim of the CPT concept is to speed development of global coupled climate models and reduce uncertainties in climate models by bringing together theoreticians, field observationalists, process modelers and the large modeling centers to concentrate on the scientific problems facing climate models today.”

Since any change can only be identified with respect to a reference state, climate change can only be identified on the basis of, at least, two non-overlapping climate periods. According to the recommendations of the international meteorological conferences held in1935 and 1957, a climate period should comprise 30 years for statistically describing the weather pattern on a long-term scale. Consequently, at least, 60 years are required to identify climate change.

See post here.

See more on this letter and the use of a photoshop image of polar bears on an ice block in this Roger Pielke Jr. post Revkin, Gleick and Olson on the Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight here.