The Honest Story of Climate Change; Part 1

The Honest Story of Climate Change

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-honest-story-of-cl...

https://opiniez.com/2024/03/28/het-eerlijke-verhaal-over-klimaatver... [automatic translation]

Part I: Weighed down by fear and coercion

March 28, 2024 - Guus Berkhout

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There is no climate crisis, even if politicians, climate institutes and the media would have you believe so. There is climate change, but it is a change like all things around us change, both inside and outside our atmosphere. No surprise!

We will show in the following, we should not turn climate change into a drama.

On the contrary, we should take advantage of it.

A column by emeritus professors Guus Berkhout and Kees de Lange.

In Part I of this article, we urge politicians, climate researchers and journalists to stop fear-mongering and stop citing flawed climate models. Go tell citizens the honest story.

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By climate, friend and foe agree, we do not mean the daily fickle weather, but the average weather over a few decades (often thirty years is used).

The climate represents an extraordinarily complex physical system and responds to all kinds of external influences from inside and outside our atmosphere.

This has been happening for 4.5 billion years.

We call these external influences the causes of climate change.

The great scientific challenge is to know and understand the root causes of past and present climate change. This scientific knowledge is the basis of effective climate policy.

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Mitigation and adaptation

If the dominant causes can be controlled by humans, then climate policy will have to focus on eliminating those causes.

This is known as a mitigation policy.

But if humans are powerless against the dominant causes, then climate policy will have to focus on adaptation. This is known as adaptation policy.

It is downright dramatic when, for ideological reasons and/or dubious scientific research, mitigation policies are chosen, while adaptation should be the right route.

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A critical look at climate research, as it has been conducted in recent decades, as well as a look at the geological history of the earth over 4.5 billion years, indicates, we are now heading in the wrong direction with our climate policy.

As a result, we spend trillions of dollars on policies that deliver nothing, but do a lot of damage.

That is exactly what practice has shown for decades.

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Serious science

It is good to first recall how serious scientists work.

Science starts with making reliable observations.

Today, satellites can collect an unimaginably valuable number of measurements about the properties of the climate system, such as temperature, pressure and humidity.

All these different observations tell the story of climate change.

Hence, analyzing those measurements is the first big step.

This yields so-called empirical relationships, such as temperature as a function of place (x,y,z) and time (t).

And also relationships between system properties, such as temperature and humidity.

We call these relationships empirical, because they are derived directly from measurements.

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Explaining Observations

Then the second scientific phase begins: trying to explain in physics why the observations are the way they are.

This is done through the development of theories, in which computer models play an important role in modern times.

If a computer model can reproduce ALL observations made – and therefore all empirical relationships – we are on the right track with the theory.

If that is not the case, all that remains for the theory is the wastepaper basket.

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So it's a brutal test. It is precisely this tough approach that has brought natural science to its current level in a few hundred years.

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Selling/imposing a theory or model onto others, based on selecting only observations that are convenient, is scientifically a mortal sin.

Changing measurements to ensure those measurements "fit the model results" is scientific fraud.

Universities should indoctrinate their students of these basic principles of science.

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Reliable observation

So everything starts with making reliable observations.

That's no mean feat!

Astronomy is a good example.

What is happening in the Universe is so complex, only the very best telescopes can provide humans with reliable observations to help us understand all the wonderful things that are happening there.

The successor to the Hubble telescope, the James Webb telescope, produces images that amaze us every day. These images enable man to reject old assumptions and revise existing models of the origin of the universe to agree with better observations.

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Temperature measurements

Back to the earth's climate.

Temperature measurements are of great importance in climate research.

Simple, you would say, you stick thermometers in the ground and archive the results in a spreadsheet every day.

This has indeed been the case in the past, but are these results reliable and representative?

If only that were true.

Scientific professionalism is also needed when it comes to measuring.

First of all, the surface of the planet is more than 70% water, so you don't put a thermometer in the ground there.

Also, in the past, the measuring stations were scarce and some parts of the earth were much better covered than others.

Moreover, a measuring station that used to be in the middle of nowhere has now ended up in the suburbs of a large city, or right next to a factory or an airport, due to advancing urbanization.

Due to the so-called Urban Island Effect, locations are far from ideal.

Only about forty years ago, satellite measurements made it possible to measure the temperature worldwide in a way that is much more accurate, reliable and representative of the entire earth.

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Climate models and satellite measurements

Subjective/doctored climate models have been telling us for many decades, the earth is warming to alarmingly high temperatures, and CO2 is the main culprit.

UN chief António Guterres ("boiling Earth) puts it this way: "We are on a highway to climate hell" if we don't stop emitting the 'evil' CO2 gas.

He and others like to add: "97% of the scientists agree", or "the science is settled".

However, is that the true story?

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Nonsensical scenarios

Even worse, to reinforce that panic message from UN chief Guterres, other nonsensical scenarios were used that are impossible in practice.

For example, the infamous RCP 8.5 scenario was put into the climate models (extreme emission of CO2) to scare people on a large scale.

That scenario, which predicts a warming of more than 6 C by 2100, is still used today, while it is well known among real scientists, these predictions are based on nonsensical assumptions.

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CO2

100% of scientists agree, more CO2 contributes to warming, but only a few percent think, human CO2 is the dominant cause of current warming.

That, too, is borne out by hard facts.

In the first place, in the history of the Earth's climate (long before there were humans), we see, there were periods with high CO2 concentrations and low temperatures, and periods with low CO2 concentrations and high temperatures.

So there were other causes at play, which had a major impact on the Earth's temperature.

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Saturation effect

But even more interesting are the modern satellite measurements, that show, with more CO2 emissions there is a saturation effect, as we so often see in nature.

The more CO2, the less the effect on temperature.

The linear behaviour in the climate models does not correspond to reality.

This partly explains the panic predictions made by these models.

A word for the connoisseurs about this.

Le Chatelier's law states, nature always strives to counteract disturbances ('negative feedback').

This law explains, for example, in climate history, glacial and interglacial periods have always remained within certain temperature limits, regardless of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

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Molecule of life

In that light, I would like to say a few words about CO2.

Measurements indicate that more CO2 does have a warming effect, but those measurements also indicate this warming is modest.

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever for all those AGW scare stories.

Moreover, measurements also show, CO2 is the life molecule for all nature on earth.

The more CO2, the greener our earth and the higher the productivity of agriculture.

If we compare both CO2 properties, warming and growth, then the extremely expensive and disruptive "net-zero" climate policy that is currently being pursued is scientifically and socially and economically irresponsible.

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Cause and effect

Finally, the question of cause and effect in complex systems is one of the most difficult problems in science.

There are scientific indications, the warming of oceans causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere (Henry's Law).

So not only humans, but also nature influences the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

It's about the complete story.

In all schools, not the well-known fear story, but the complete story should be told.

Why are our children so one-sidedly informed about climate?

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Cooperate

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us an overly simplistic and alarmist story about climate change.

In that story, anthropogenic CO2 is pointed out as the main cause ('Science is settled').

The consequence of this firm statement is, a rapid phasing out of the use of fossil fuels is demanded.

However, technical and economic realities do not allow this.

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But, apart from the practical impossibility, there are the scientific arguments.

We have shown in the foregoing, there are many indications, there is much more going on than anthropogenic CO2 ('The science is not settled at all').

We still know far too little about the earth's climate to claim, humans can control climate behavior.

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An appeal is made to both climate worlds, alarmists and realists, not to keep fighting each other, but to jointly build up more scientific knowledge about the behavior of our climate more quickly.

It is the only way to get closer to the truth with climate models.

In part II – which will be published on Saturday 30 March – we argue that we should work together on the opportunities that climate change offers, both scientifically, technologically and economically. Mind you, a completely different approach to climate policy also means a completely different approach to the energy transition. The benefits will be great for everyone.