When it comes to global warming, Murry Salby is the darling du jour of fake skeptics everywhere. His thesis was touted on WUWT, lauded by JoNova, and even earned a “wow” from Judith Curry. And what is his thesis? That it’s temperature increase which is causing CO 2 increase, not the other way around. An mp3 of his presentation is here.



I expect that kind of nonsense from Watts and JoNova. Watts even links to this related junk from Spencer, which turns out to be dumber than a bag of hammers. But for some reason I expected better from Curry. True to her usual form, she neither endorses nor disavows — yet — but certainly takes this ludicrous idea seriously. Judith, your credibility is now below zero.

The point Salby makes is that the rate of change of atmospheric CO 2 is strongly related to factors like temperature (especially temperature). Knock me over with a feather! We already knew that, and people who study the carbon cycle are seriously unimpressed. He then claims that if temperature influences short-term changes in CO 2 , it’s natural to expect that it would influence long-term changes. Remind you of anything?

What Salby does not explain is this: total human emissions of CO 2 from fossil-fuel burning are far larger than total CO 2 increase. In fact, the CO 2 increase has only been about half of human emissions. So, the net emission from other sources has been negative, while atmospheric CO 2 has been rising. It’s especially ironic that Salby offers up a “bank balance” analogy when it’s obvious he himself has failed to do the simplest possible accounting of the carbon budget.

As for past (as in paleo) changes to CO 2 , John N-G actually heard Salby’s talk at the IUGG conference in Melbourne and spoke with him afterward. He commented at RC that:



In discussing what his model would mean for past variations of temperature and CO2, it eventually became clear that he believed all paleoclimate data that supported his statistical analysis and disregarded all paleoclimate data that countered his statistical analysis, even though the latter collection was much larger than the former.



I’m confident that numerous readers would like me to scrutinize Salby’s analysis. What analysis? The podcast doesn’t include graphics, the talk itself if nowhere near specific enough to reproduce his results, and there’s no written document. Even Curry notes that it is “frustratingly preliminary without publication, slides, etc.” We’re promised that publication of his analysis is imminent. But until there is something to provide the necessary details, Salby has done nothing but make outlandish, impossible claims. Message to Salby: put up or shut up.

If this is the best they can come up with — if this is what they laud as a “bombshell” — if this is what they actually take seriously — then it reveals just how fake is their “skepticism.” They aren’t the least bit skeptical, they are the epitome of gullibility.

Salby closes by saying that “climate is at the wheel, and to a significant degree, CO 2 is at the back of the bus.” Would that be the short bus?