Following on from last week’s post – A very convenient network –, here are some excerpts from another document that turned up when I was sifting through old files. Some of these are relevant to the influences represented in the diagram I used in that article.

In 1992, Richard Lindzen wrote a paper for Regulation, a journal published by the Cato Institute. Its title was ‘Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus’. Nearly two decades have passed since then, quite a long time in the development of any field of research, but in terms of the short history of climate science, almost an aeon. When Lindzen was writing, most people, including politicians and policy makers, would barely have heard of global warming.

Perhaps one of the most ruthless tests of opinion on a controversial subject is that of time. All too often views that seemed pertinent when they were expressed become tarnished as they are overtaken by events. So before looking at some of the things that Lindzen had to say so long ago it’s worth considering the context in which he was speaking back in 1992.

Only four years previously, James Hansen had made his infamous claim to a senate committee (chaired by an ambitious young senator called Al Gore) that he was 99% certain that temperatures were rising and that human input was at least partly responsible. It can reasonably be argued that it was this particular event that put AGW on the scientific and political agendas. The IPCC was also set up by UNEP and the WMO in 1988.

Only a decade previously, concerns about human influence on the climate were focused on soot generated by industrial processes causing a new ice age. It seemed that, at the time that Lindzen wrote his article, climatologists had already made up their mind that humans were changing the climate even if they weren’t too sure in which direction that change might take.

The IPCC had produced its first assessment report only two years before, in 1990. So at the time that Lindzen’s article was published, the relatively new discipline of climate science had reached two contradictory conclusions in no more than twenty years. Even so climate science was beginning to find its feet and attract political attention.

The Cato Institute paper begins by setting out the basic principles of the green house gas hypothesis, then swiftly dispatches the idea that we can rely on predictive climate models by pointing out that without a far better understanding of the climate system – particularly the physics of clouds – and the development of far more powerful computers, it is most unlikely that these can tell us much about climate conditions in the coming decades or centuries. It is worth bearing in mind that Lindzen, as Sloan professor of Meteorology at MIT, was at that time highly regarded as a world authority on the physics of clouds.

Controversy over the climate’s sensitivity to Co 2 , the forcing effects of water vapour, and pleas from modellers for more powerful hardware continue to this day. Although confidence in model predictions continued to grow following the publication of Lindzen’s article, peaking when the IPCC published its Fourth Assessment Report, some in the climate community have begun to openly express doubts about the models since Climategate. Most notable, perhaps, is Sir Brian Hoskins, of the Grantham Institute when interviewed by the Economist:

The Economist: How bad were the climate models when you stated out? Hoskins: Oh! Pretty lousy – and they’re still pretty lousy really. http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/25/hoskins-climate-models-are-lousy.html

In view of the criticisms that Lindzen was expressing nearly twenty years ago, it is truly remarkable that the climate community is only now openly admitting recognition of the limited value of models as predictive tools. Interestingly, Lindzen recalls that in the aftermath of Hansen’s testimony to the senate committee, some climate modellers expressed concern that he had been ‘promoting highly uncertain model results as relevant to public policy’. Such reservations were very short-lived.

Turning his attention to the pressures that he had experienced as a result of questioning scientific views that that had some very ruthless and determined supporters, Lindzen recalls that in 1989 he submitted a paper that was critical of the AGW hypothesis to Science, where it was rejected without review as not being of interest to the journal’s readership. When he then sent it to The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, his submission was reviewed and accepted, but then re-reviewed and re-accepted, during which time the paper was attacked in Science although it had not even been published. This incident will have particular resonance for anyone who has read the Climategate emails, in which Phil Jones and his colleagues apparently attempt to rig that peer review process, and the Russell report, which makes no criticism of their behaviour.

But it is in the section headed Consensus and the Current “Popular Version” that Lindzen’s clear-sighted view of the problems that lie ahead is most telling. Even at this early stage he recognises that if fundamental research is neglected in favour of efforts to prove that Co 2 is the main driver of climate, then climate science will not progress and important questions will remain unanswered.

A parochial issue is the danger to the science of climatology. As far as I can tell, there has actually been reduced funding for existing climate research. That may seem paradoxical, but, at least in the United States, the vastly increased number of scientists and others involving themselves in climate as well as the gigantic programs attaching themselves to climate have substantially outstripped the increases in funding. Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to bear on scientists to get the “right” results. Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of “global warming” in Congress are also among the major supporters of science (Sen. Gore is notable among those). Finally, given the momentum that has been building up among so many interest groups to fight “global warming,” it becomes downright embarrassing to support basic climate research. After all, one would hate to admit that one had mobilized so many resources without the basic science’s being in place. Nevertheless, given the large increase in the number of people associating themselves with climatology and the dependence of much of that community on the perceived threat of warming, it seems unlikely that the scientific community will offer much resistance. I should add that as ever greater numbers of individuals attach themselves to the warming problem, the pressures against solving the problem grow proportionally; an inordinate number of individuals and groups depend on the problem’s remaining. http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

When one considers that $147m of funding for climate models was written into one of the drafts of the US Energy and Security Bill last year, rather than being directed to fundamental areas of climate research that might fill in some of the gaps in understanding of the climate system, then Lindzen’s words seem almost prophetic. But then the predictions of climate models, if taken seriously by politicians and policymakers, are likely to justify the measures proposed in this bill, and other similar initiatives including highly controversial cap and trade schemes.

His observations on the impetus that, in 1992, was beginning to push climate change up the political agenda are equally shrewd.

Major agencies in the United States, hitherto closely involved with traditional approaches to national security, have appropriated the issue of climate change to support existing efforts. Notable among those agencies are NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. The cold war helped spawn a large body of policy experts and diplomats specializing in issues such as disarmament and alliance negotiations. In addition, since the Yom Kippur War, energy has become a major component of national security with the concomitant creation of a large cadre of energy experts. Many of those individuals see in the global change issue an area in which to continue applying their skills. Many scientists also feel that national security concerns formed the foundation for the U.S. government’s generous support of science. As the urgency of national security, traditionally defined, diminishes, there is a common feeling that a substitute foundation must be established. “Saving the planet” has the right sort of sound to it. Fundraising has become central to environmental advocates’ activities, and the message underlying some of their fundraising seems to be “pay us or you’ll fry.” Clearly, “global warming” is a tempting issue for many very important groups to exploit. http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

He also speaks of the unquestioning allegiance to the crusade against climate change that seems to have become mandatory for all those in public office.

Why, one might wonder, is there such insistence on scientific unanimity on the warming issue? After all, unanimity in science is virtually nonexistent on far less complex matters. Unanimity on an issue as uncertain as “global warming” would be surprising and suspicious. Moreover, why are the opinions of scientists sought regardless of their field of expertise? Biologists and physicians are rarely asked to endorse some theory in high energy physics. Apparently, when one comes to “global warming,” any scientist’s agreement will do. http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

In recent years, economists seem to be increasingly popular climate science pundits. Lindzen continues:

The answer almost certainly lies in politics. For example, at the Earth Summit in Rio, attempts were made to negotiate international carbon emission agreements. The potential costs and implications of such agreements are likely to be profound for both industrial and developing countries. Under the circumstances, it would be very risky for politicians to undertake such agreements unless scientists “insisted.” Nevertheless, the situation is probably a good deal more complicated than that example suggests. As Aaron Wildavsky, professor of political science at Berkeley, has quipped, “global warming” is the mother of all environmental scares. Wildavsky’s view is worth quoting. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” In many ways Wildavsky’s observation does not go far enough. The point is that carbon dioxide is vitally central to industry, transportation, modern life, and life in general. It has been joked that carbon dioxide controls would permit us to inhale as much as we wish; only exhaling would be controlled. The remarkable centrality of carbon dioxide means that dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas–some legitimate, some less so: energy efficiency, reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), international competition, governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power. http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

So long as the notion of anthropogenic climate change continues to suit “a great variety of pre-existing agendas” we cannot expect a cessation in global warming alarmism. As Lindzen makes clear, research is merely the tool of choice for leveraging political momentum, but this is at the risk of devaluing trust in science and in scientists.

Why did so few people listen to what Lindzen was saying back in 1992? And why, nearly two decades later, in the wake of Climategate and the IPCC scandals this winter, are we only now beginning to confront the issues that he identified so long ago?