Note: NOAA in a press release announced: The 2009 Volvo Environmental Prize Foundation has named NOAA Senior Scientist Susan Solomon as the recipient of its 2009 environmental prize. The Volvo Environment Prize is awarded for “Outstanding innovations or scientific discoveries which in broad terms fall within the environmental field.” “This prestigious award recognizes and honors Dr. Solomon’s distinguished work in the Antarctic as well as her exemplary leadership during the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment,” said Richard W. SPINrad, NOAA assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research. “Throughout her career, she has coupled preeminent science with service to society. We, at NOAA are honored to see our colleague, Dr. Solomon recognized with this award.”

See this multi-author story from SPPI that suggests yet another ridiculous award and step down for NOAA. I had a Volvo once and loved it. It will be my last.

The Unwisdom of Solomon
Bad logic, bad science, and bad policies
By SPPI

Early in 2009, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published “Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions,” by Susan
Solomon of NOAA and three colleagues. This lurid paper said that “the severity of damaging, human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility,” and that “the climate change that takes place due to increases in CO2 concentration is largely irreversible for 1000 years after emissions stop.”

The Solomon paper talks of “irreversible impacts,” such as dry-season reductions in rainfall leading to “dustbowl” conditions in several regions, “inexorable sea-level rise” of “several meters.” However, the paper is entirely predicated on two implicit but false assumptions: that the computer modeling on which all of its conclusions are based is competent to predict the state of the climate a millennium or more in the future; and that the effect of atmospheric carbon-dioxide enrichment on global mean surface temperatures will be substantial.

Can computer modeling predict climate changes 1000 years from now? New claims by the narrow faction advocating catastrophic “global warming” are
more frequently or more justifiably ridiculed in the public mind than the claim that computer models that are repeatedly proven incapable of reliably predicting the weather even a week ahead can somehow be expected successfully to predict the climate 1000 years ahead. Not one of those models predicted the phase-transition in global mean surface temperatures that occurred late in 2001, since when there have been seven years of global cooling at a rate equivalent to close to 2 Celsius degrees (3.5F) per century:

See larger size here.

Solomon et al. have not substantiated their conclusion that “Irreversible climate changes due carbon dioxide emissions have already taken place, and future carbon dioxide emissions would imply further irreversible effects on the planet ...”.  Carbon dioxide is an active constituent in the terrestrial and marine biospheres and the annual exchanges with the atmosphere are large compared to the mass of CO2 in the atmospheric reservoir. Moreover, the variation in the annual exchange is of a magnitude comparable to the annual anthropogenic emissions to the atmosphere. The proposition that atmospheric CO2 will equilibrate to an elevated concentration is not supported by past behavior nor by consideration of the dynamic controls over exchange processes.

Solomon et al. continue to give credence to the GCM global temperature projections, notwithstanding the now widely acknowledged deficiency in the hydrological cycle and underestimation of changing surface latent energy exchange with temperature. These latter exaggerate temperature sensitivity of GCM by up to an order of magnitude. The flawed projections of future atmospheric CO2 concentration and exaggerated temperature sensitivity of GCM feed through into exaggerated projections of polar ice melt and sea level rise. Use is made of flawed GCM projections of future drought even though a characteristic suppression of evaporation response to temperature increase is well known.

The concept of irreversibility has been used to advance a political cause but is not substantiated by even a cursory scientific analysis.  Read much more here.