Source: ABC
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/webextras/richardlindzen_transcript.pdf
Date: 26/04/2012
Event: ABC: "I Can Change Your Mind About... Climate"
Credit: ABC
People:
[From ABC web site: "THIS IS AN AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF FILMED INTERVIEWS. MINOR EDITS HAVE BEEN MADE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CLARITY."]
Nick Minchin: Well, Dick, I was very keen for Anna and for myself to meet you because of your renown in the world of atmospheric science but particularly because of your particular view on the state of the debate, on anthropogenic global warming and a view that is seen as not quite with the what I call the orthodox of the IPCC.
Richard Lindzen: I'm not so sure.
Nick Minchin: I'd be interested in your - summation of your views on this subject.
Richard Lindzen: I think there has been a kind of polarisation in the public view, do you or don't you believe in global warming. To believe in global warming means you are for science. To question it means you are questioning science. None of this makes any sense. The problem is once you polarise it the - you miss something terribly important which is that it is true almost all people working in this field, except that last century and a half have seen a fraction of a degree warming.
Anne Rose: Three quarters of a degree?
Richard Lindzen: You know, say that again. Three quarters of a degree. Why do you say that?
Anne Rose: Well -
Richard Lindzen: Do you think it's a precise number?
Anne Rose: My understanding is that that's what the temperature records show from the NASA and NOAA?
Richard Lindzen: How are they taken?
Anne Rose: Through weather stations. We met with Professor Muller who was tracking -
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, yeah, is there an arrow bar, there always is.
Anne Rose: So you dispute the temperature record?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, no, I'm saying one has to know what it means. In other words, when somebody says three quarters of a degree, okay, you are thinking they have a thermometer that reads that carefully. What they have are hundreds of thermometers reading all over the place and they look at how they deviate and it's a cloud of data scattered all over the place and they average that and they get almost nothing and then they blow up that scale to three quarters of a degree and then if you read the document it says plus or minus, which means it could have been three quarters of a degree, it could have been 0.4, it could have been 1. The truth is you always underestimate the arrow bar, so it could have been 0.2, it would have been 1.2. It's not a precise number. The one thing you know about it that you've just said, if you thought about it a moment, it's small.
Anne Rose: But it has already shown big impacts on the climate.
Richard Lindzen: No, it's small. Let's start with that it's small. For instance, how much does the temperature change between day and night in Sydney?
Anne Rose: But I think that that's kind of confusing the point because we're talking about global average temperature.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, we're talking about global -
Anne Rose: Not day-to-day weather?
Richard Lindzen: How much does it change for the whole continental US during the same period?
Anne Rose: But we're not talking about day-to-day weather we're talking about -
Richard Lindzen: Why do you say that?
Anne Rose: - global average temperatures. Because it's much more warmer at the poles, for example, whereas the tropics aren't experiencing that much warming but the global average is about three quarters of a degree according to NASA:
Richard Lindzen: But that is still small and it's still a very uncertain number, especially the last 30 years.
Anne Rose: So your position is that you don't accept -
Richard Lindzen: You don't know what is a precise number, no-one knows it is a precise number. Even if you went to the people at NASA and you pressed them on it. They would say of course that's not a precise number. So let's start out, there's been a small change in the global mean temperature, let's start with that. It's not a global average of temperature, that gives you gibberish. What they do is at each of these stations they take an average over 30 years and asked for how much has it deviated from that average. They then average the deviations for all the stations and, for instance, there's no ocean coverage worth mentioning. So it's a poor sampling. But it's good enough to establish the one thing I've said, that it's a certain order, it's the order less than a degree or so. The other thing there's agreement on is that carbon dioxide has increased. And finally there is general agreement that increasing carbon dioxide should produce some increase in temperature. Now, there's almost no-one who disagrees on these things. The disagreement -
Nick Minchin: Can I just ask in terms of you said there is agreement that carbon dioxide has increased, is there agreement that that is all due to human activity?
Richard Lindzen: Not at all. That's generally taken to be the case but there are lots of problems with it including the fact that half the CO2 we've nominally put into the atmosphere is not there.
Nick Minchin: It's been absorbed.
Anne Rose: Hasn't it been absorbed by the oceans?
Richard Lindzen: No, it's probably land biota. The ocean is much slower in uptake. So it's probably what they call the biosphere. You know, you know Murray Salby in Australia has pointed out something and he's correct in one sense. I don't know if he's right ultimately but there has been a study, part of this picture left out by the people studying it and he's picked up on that. They assume that only man's emissions would have a certain isotopic signature. He pointed out there are plenty of natural processes that have the same signature. So it would be impossible to pin it down.
Anne Rose: My understanding was that countries publish the amount of emissions that they actually emit?
Richard Lindzen: Absolutely, absolutely.
Anne Rose: And that there's more than enough to account for the CO2 increases?
Richard Lindzen: Absolutely, absolutely but that doesn't show that it is what accounted for it.
Anne Rose: What else would you say?
Richard Lindzen: Anything else that produces the same isotopic signature.
Anne Rose: For example?
Richard Lindzen: Well, the ocean could, the biosphere can, there are many things that happen. If the temperature changed that itself changes CO2. So, you know, historically certainly over the long record we know that temperature change happens first and then CO2. Question is in the last 100 years which is the issue? And that's, I think, still relatively open. But let's get back to what people agree on.
Anne Rose: Do you really think it's relatively open because -
Richard Lindzen: Oh yeah.
Anne Rose: Because most scientists say that -
Richard Lindzen: Everything, everything in science is open. I would say on this one what is - the reason it's open is because you've done very few studies. The only basis for attributing - remember man is a small part of the carbon budget.
Anne Rose: Well, that's not - I mean that's correct but if you look at the - that talks about the short-term carbon cycle, but the trend is clearly going upwards?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, I'm saying even if you look at the sources and syncs of carbon at any given time we're still a few per cent, a couple of per cent of it.
Anne Rose: But we've increased it 38%.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, that's true, it's still a couple of per cent. Do you ever think about that?
Anne Rose: Of course we have a natural carbon cycle but we went -
Richard Lindzen: I mean, you know, 1,000 times zero is still small.
Anne Rose: So I guess Nick and I went to Mauna Loa and we saw -
Richard Lindzen: Oh yeah.
Anne Rose: - that it's gone up 38%.
Richard Lindzen: There's no question it's increasing.
Nick Minchin: Yeah, he's saying we agree that CO2 is increasing.
Richard Lindzen: Nobody is arguing that it's increasing.
Nick Minchin: We're trying to establish what we agree on.
Richard Lindzen: But the only way one was able to attribute it to man by the isotope analysis that distinguished carbon dioxide produced by industry from carbon dioxide was that was part of photosynthesis, was part of plant decay, part of the all the other things going on and what Murray did was pick up on the fact that other things had the same isotopic signature.
Anne Rose: Well we were told by an Australian climate scientist that even without the isotopic signature there was no other credible theory that could explain what's going on?
Richard Lindzen: Well, you know, how should I put it, he can say that but I think Murray has put forward something that should be studied. It's as simple as that. Dogmatism has no role in this. Anyway, let's stick with what I've just said as to what there is agreement on. The point is when you speak of scientists all agreeing, this is what they agree on and that includes the people that are sceptical. You often hear, you know, when our president of the National Academy says "It's just old information that carbon dioxide's a greenhouse gas. That's been known for 150 years." Nobody's questioning that. Neither is anyone questioning that if you simply increase, doubled carbon dioxide you would only get about a degree of warming.
Anne Rose: But we've already increased it only 38% and we've had almost a degree.
Richard Lindzen: Excuse me, we have increased greenhouse warming according to the IPCC by almost the same amount you would get from a doubling of CO2.
Anne Rose: You're talking about CO2 equivalent?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, exactly. And we have seen three quarters of a degree, you would maintain, right?
Anne Rose: So you don't believe it will warm much more?
Richard Lindzen: No, that isn't the statement. You get the same warming for each doubling. So saying, you know, if you just had CO2 what you're seeing now is a bit less than you would expect if all the warming we've seen is due to CO2, you know that isn't true. So the question is why are we believing models that say we should have already seen much more than we've seen already? Now the way the models hide it is by saying well there's aerosols, that cancels some of it that's why we haven't seen it. And then you look at each model. Each model uses a different value for aerosols. You ask the aerosol people and they say we don't know what the value is. So it's become a fudge factor. We're now in this position where there is a knob that you can make any model agree with any data.
Anne Rose: But the information that scientists are telling us about climate sensitivity doesn't just come from model, it comes from ancient climate history and -
Richard Lindzen: How do you figure that? We can't do it from ancient climate history.
Anne Rose: Well if you look at the cycle of ice ages throughout history -
Richard Lindzen: Absolutely, you don't need -
Anne Rose: - it can't be explained if we don't have around a 3-degree climate sensitivity.
Richard Lindzen: That's nonsense. There have been several articles in literature, and if I go back to Milankovitch even more, that show that you have no trouble accounting for it with the orbital variations.
Anne Rose: My understanding is that the paleoclimate community thinks it's quite bizarre that you're advocating a 1-degree climate sensitivity when they understand the glacial cycles and can learn that there's 3-degree sensitivity.
Richard Lindzen: The paleoclimate people have usually never worked with theory of climate. The papers by Jerry Robe, by Peter Huybers and Milankovitch are theory. Do you know how many watts per metre square are involved in the change from 180 to 280 parts per million? Do you know how many? Do you have any idea?
Anne Rose: Have you going to tell us?
Richard Lindzen: Okay, I'll tell you. Out of the budget of a couple hundred of watts per metre squared, that represents about 1.5. Now -
Nick Minchin: Sorry going from 280 to 380?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah - no, from 180 to 280 which is between the ice age and the interglacials. So you have a water cell. Now that first of all is negligible. The second thing about it is the orbital variations, Milankovitch was quite correct. The important thing is what happens in summer in the Artic, because that determines whether ice grows or melts, that involves 60 watts per metre squared, this is a small bump. The whole system can adjust to that with no sweat at all. So it's pure ignorance to say paleo demands it. Hanson has said this for years, it doesn't make any sense and I don't think it's even widely accepted. The paleo community has grabbed on to it, says oh, now we're relevant but I mean I don't think it matters more than that.
Anne Rose: Speaking of the Arctic, I am wondering -
Richard Lindzen: But now let's go to something else. I mean, you know, this was the point we made before, in order to have alarm it isn't a matter that you avoid it with a negative feedback, it is that you need a huge positive feedback. In other words, if you just let CO2 do its thing it does very little. If you have negative feedbacks, which we would maintain you do have, you get even less. To get what the people who are worried, you need to have a strong, positive feedback, so strong that if you regarded the Earth as a system no engineer would ever build it this way. They would say you were just ready to go off into the wild blue yonder and the Earth has lasted 4.5 billion years. There are plenty of ways it could have gone over the top, it hasn't.
Anne Rose: So you believe that because the Earth must have something to protect it from climate change.
Richard Lindzen: We know the things it does. I mean every IPCC report points out clouds are an unknown. Clouds are the only reason these models have a large feedback, positive feedback. Water vapour gives it a factor of 2 but water vapour only acts where you don't have clouds.
Anne Rose: So you mean that for every degree of warming with water vapour there's another two degrees?
Richard Lindzen: No, that's baloney.
Nick Minchin: That's the theory of positive feedback.
Richard Lindzen: That's purely hypothetical. It says if relative humidity stays fixed and the clouds don't do anything and the water vapour covers everything you will get that.
Nick Minchin: Just to pre-empt Anna in a way, we saw Naomi Oreskes -
Richard Lindzen: There's plenty of evidence for negative feedback. There are first of all by now there are three independent studies that confirm that when temperature increases cirrus outflow in the tropics contracts and that is - leads to a negative feedback.
Anne Rose: But how can we extrapolate the whole world from just the tropics?
Richard Lindzen: Because the tropics has most of the radiation. It's half the globe and it is where almost all the feedbacks in the models occur as well.
Anne Rose: But also we see that the most amount of warming in terms of temperature happens at the poles so why would you just look at the tropics to make global observation?
Richard Lindzen: You know, that's an interesting question, it's said it is true of past climate. Almost all past climate involved a change in the equator to pole temperature difference, okay, and that has many factors involved. I've just been studying, there's a paper by Lee and Held and Suarez and so on a few years ago, they made the point that the polar amplification is not that noticeable in the models.
They are saying it because they know it was true of past climate change. It is also not that, you know, if you look at this global mean temperature you're talking about you will find it's heavily due to changes in the tropics which makes it very anomalous.
Anne Rose: So you're saying that warming isn't increasing faster in the Arctic and Antarctica?
Richard Lindzen: I hear it claimed and it's certainly true of past climate, it hasn't been true of the last 40 years.
Anne Rose: But if the study that you looked at was in the last 40 years -
Richard Lindzen: No, I'm saying that the last 40 years have been very odd in terms of the record and we're very suspicious of the period since '79 in the temperature record. There are a lot of inconsistencies with it but you're getting to the issue of what is the basis for thinking there's a negative feedback. And some of that is subtle so, for instance, a measure of sensitivity is actually how much does evaporation change the temperature. We know in the models it changes about 1 to 3% for a doubling of CO2 or per degree rather, excuse me, back track, it changes about 1 to 3% per degree. The observation suggests it changes 6% per degree. That turns out to be evidence that the sensitivity is about half of what it is in the least sensitive model. When you look at the outgoing radiation, if the feedbacks are positive you should see less outgoing radiation when the temperature increases than you would get with no feedback, instead you see more. That's a sign of a negative feedback.
Nick Minchin: That's empirical, is it?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, that's empirical. The evidence for positive feedback is hypothetical. It isn't a matter of basic physics. You will hear people say well, you know, of course a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour. It's only true if it's what's called saturated. It's like saying that glass no matter how much water I pour into it will always have more water than a smaller glass no matter how much water I pour into that glass. It makes no sense.
Nick Minchin: So what you're saying is what I might call alarmism is premised on a hypothesis that there is positive feedback that has not been empirically established?
Richard Lindzen: It's something that the models currently display.
Nick Minchin: When you say display you mean that's a built in assumption in just constructing the model?
Richard Lindzen: I won't go that far.
Nick Minchin: Right.
Richard Lindzen: The models do not properly, I mean, you know, for instance, it's hard to test models for water vapour because it's very poorly measured. If you try and test the models for clouds they all do miserably. I would maintain it's impossible to do water vapour well if you do clouds badly. They're intimately coupled. So everything involved in the feedback in the models is not working. So at this stage that is the basis for the alarm.
Richard Lindzen: How shall I put it? When people retire in North America they usually move to places that are different temperature by about 10, 15 degrees with where they move from. Clearly at the human level we adapt to that with alacrity. You would be surprised how few people here retire to Alaska or the north-west territory. Some do.
Anne Rose: But do you really think that if the IPCC is correct and the scientific consensus is correct that we can adapt to that level of climate change?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, yeah. I wish you would be careful with the use of IPCC. You know, I have not been terribly critical of the IPCC and the reason is not only did I participate in it and not only am I convinced it's biased, but on the whole in its thousand pages it covers itself pretty well, at least on the working group one. Working group two and three forget about. Working group one is the science and it tends to give you at least a feeling that there's a problem, not, I mean, in terms of alarm but with the science. Then you reduce it to about 15, 20 pages, summary for policy makers. You know, the truth is that isn't even terrible though it's clearly cherry picking and then finally you come to the press release and each time it has something, you know, this is unprecedented for 1,000 years or it is now highly probable that most of the warming over the last 50 years is due to man. These are all innocent statements. But that becomes the IPCC consensus and then the environmental movement or the politicians or whoever translates that into "and this is terrible and we must do something about it". So you take the innocent statement attributed - well, which the IPCC makes, then you put a gloss on it that this requires action and so on and so forth, it's the end of the world and then you attribute that statement to the IPCC.
Anne Rose: Scientists have been very clear though that -
Richard Lindzen: Tell me.
Anne Rose: That they are advocating a need for action because this problem is urgent?
Richard Lindzen: That isn't the role of scientists. Once they start advocating that they're in a different realm. They're entitled to be as citizen, that isn't about science.
Anne Rose: But if you have, for example, NASA's mission as to protect our home planet, doesn't part of that mission include advocating on the science when it's telling us clear warnings?
Richard Lindzen: You know, how shall I put it, you had at least one director of NASA who was fired for saying he didn't see this evidence. You had a former director of research Joanne Simpson who retired a few years ago, she's now dead, said "Now that I'm retired I can admit that I don't think this is correct."
Anne Rose: Didn't she also go on to say but I think we should act anyway?
Richard Lindzen: That's political.
Anne Rose: But you can't just cherry pick her quotes and say that -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, think about what it means when somebody says I don't think warming is a big problem but I think we should act anyway.
Anne Rose: She's saying that the risk is so great that it would be irresponsible not to act.
Richard Lindzen: No, she never said that, I know her personally, at least until she died.
Anne Rose: But for you to say that she said now that I'm no longer employed by -
Richard Lindzen: She did say that at a meeting.
Anne Rose: And then she went on to say and we should act.
Richard Lindzen: That she didn't say there. John Theon, who was Hanson's boss, have you interviewed him? He also said we have no basis for this. So, you know, you can quote scientists as much as you want, science, as I've often said, is not a source of authority. It's a source - it's a methodology for inquiry. Whenever somebody has said in the realm of policy "science demands", you know mischief is going on. I mean Hitler took the Jews and said "Science demands that we get rid of them." Essentially when America stopped immigration from - free immigration in the 1920s the statement was science demanded it. Soviet Union used that phrase all the time. It was even the business of why did Marx refer to communism as scientific socialism. Problem is science has a certain credibility if it is earned and it's something that the political system has always wanted to co-opt. And one has to be very cautious when one uses the phrase science demands this, scientists demand this. It's always unkosher.
Anne Rose: But are you arguing that thousands of scientists in every country of the world has been co-opted?
Richard Lindzen: Excuse me, I was part of the thousands of scientists, I watched as people spoke of the IPCC having thousands of scientists in a field that didn't have thousands of scientists all walk marching in lock step. This is a crazy. You know from reading the document that it isn't a consensus document. There's no vote that we all agree the world is coming to an end and we must do something.
Anne Rose: But would you - I'm sure you're not disputing there are thousands of scientists around the world who say that climate change is happening and is caused by human?
Richard Lindzen: There may be, there are thousands who say the opposite.
Anne Rose: But there are 1 to 2,000 peer-reviewed papers a year that say -
Richard Lindzen: But in the field of climate science there aren't thousands of scientists.
Anne Rose: My understanding from Professor David Karoly is that there is one to -
Richard Lindzen: Who?
Anne Rose: Professor David Karoly.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah.
Anne Rose: He's an Australian atmospheric climate change.
Richard Lindzen: I know David.
Anne Rose: He's saying there's 1 to 2,000 peer-reviewed papers a year that are saying climate change is happening, it's caused by humans and looking at different aspects of it.
Richard Lindzen: Oh, come on. Find them. Naomi tried to do this and people looked up the papers and found out the bulk of them never even mentioned it. That's a bogus statement. David should be ashamed of himself.
Anne Rose: I'll put that to him.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, please do.
Anne Rose: But my understanding is that your theory that you brought up about the iris effect in clouds -
Richard Lindzen: Well the iris effect is one what I described as the direct measurement of the radiation. The iris affect has been confirmed the business of being discredited is has become standard operating procedure in this field. You write a paper, the editor gets fired for publishing it, then there are peer - what there's normally in science is you have people writing to the journals saying we disagree this. The author then has an opportunity to respond.
Anne Rose: I thought the editor was fired for publishing it because it was proven to be incorrect?
Richard Lindzen: No, oh no, that's another paper from elsewhere. That happens too. No.
Anne Rose: But I mean I know that there's a lot of detail here that we won't be able to get into but my general understanding with your theory about the iris affect is that it was a valid point to raise 30 years ago but and theoretically it's very interesting, however the observational evidence shows that we actually have -
Richard Lindzen: And that's not true.
Anne Rose: - had warming.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, that has nothing to do with it. You're confusing apples and pears and pineapples. This was a theory about how clouds behaved, thin clouds subject to temperature.
Anne Rose: My understanding was the theory - I might be explaining it wrong.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, there were immediately tonnes, you know, three or four papers written criticising it. That means in this field it is listed as discredited on the, you know, the environmental websites. You get an opportunity if you're lucky to respond in this field. That isn't normal. Normally you always get a chance to respond and these criticisms really were easy to respond to. I mean one of them was constantly quoted, it's from Dennis Hartman, and he said well, this effect that was observed could have been due to the intrusion of mid latitude systems. Fine, you can test for that. You can look at it and does the affect go away as you restrict yourself closer and closer to the equator? No, it got stronger. Dismiss that one.
Have another criticism that says look, when you look at clouds detrain from cumulus. It's a continuous detrainment in reality but they say at some level you can no longer see it. Now, what happens when you start losing the visible it's still very big in the infra-red. They say but if you don't see it you shouldn't include it. We know from other measurements that it's a continuous trail of detrainment. So, you know, the business of discrediting is a peculiar technique to the field of climate.
Anne Rose: But if you were arguing that clouds would prevent the planet from warming and we've actually experienced three quarter of a degree of warming -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, you're using language in a horrible way. No-one is saying prevent warming, restrict warming.
Anne Rose: We've already had three quarters of a degree of warming.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, and we should have seen three according to the models. Something is restricting it. The modellers are arguing it was aerosols but nobody is arguing that it has to be - that it isn't something.
Anne Rose: But we've only increases CO2 by 38%.
Richard Lindzen: And we've increased methane and we've increased N2O and we've increased freons so the net effect is roughly doubling CO2.
Nick Minchin: It's the equivalent, is it, of doubling?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah.
Nick Minchin: Nick so we should have at least had one degree?
Richard Lindzen: Oh, one degree if there were no negative feedbacks.
Nick Minchin: Yeah, with neutral feedback.
Richard Lindzen: And if there were - they're arguing well, you know, it's not that, it's that we had aerosols and they cancelled it. That's a fudge factor as far as I can tell. And indeed the people in the aerosol community, Schwartz, Rohde and so on who are on all sides of the issue, wrote a paper or a year or two ago pointing out that the uncertainty in this has to be much greater because uncertainty in the aerosols is bigger but on top of that -
Anne Rose: So the aerosols could be masking the warming, it could actually be greater than what's been measured?
Richard Lindzen: It could be and they could also be subtracting less than you've estimated so that the warming is much less.
Anne Rose: So however from -
Richard Lindzen: The aerosols, in other words, are a thing that tell you, you cannot tell the sensitivity from looking at the temperature record.
Anne Rose: I understand that you can tell the temperature sensitivity from looking at the ice age record?
Richard Lindzen: No, you can't. You really can't. If we can't tell what the composition of the atmosphere is today there isn't a ghost of a chance we can tell it to that level for the ice ages and the fact that the Milankovitch hypothesis works perfectly well without CO2 we're in a situation politically which is kind of awkward. So, for instance, Jerry Rowe writes a paper, he shows that if you make a simple correction to the old theory it works perfectly for the ice ages. He then has to put in a disclaimer saying although he doesn't mention CO2 the theory doesn't rule it out. It's a sad state.
Anne Rose: You sound very, very certain, I want to - I guess -
Richard Lindzen: You sound certain.
Anne Rose: Well I guess what I'm wondering is in the past -
Richard Lindzen: What do you think I'm certain about?
Anne Rose: Well, I think that it sounds like you're certain that climate change isn't anything to worry about and I believe that in 2004 you said that you'd be willing to make a bet that in 20 years from then, in 2024 you would bet that the planet would be cooler?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, the bet was - it was funny sort of situation and I think it's been misrepresented.
Anne Rose: But believe -
Richard Lindzen: The question are what odds would you want and I was saying if people are so sure about warming I figure I should profit from it by getting good odds.
Anne Rose: Well so perhaps - I'd be willing to make a bet with you right now.
Richard Lindzen: Oh, sure. What odds do you want to give me if you're sure that it's a dangerous thing?
Anne Rose: See, I understood that when a scientist approached you, you would only accept the odds of 50 to 1 so if the world cooled you would -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, it was less than but the point was -
Anne Rose: - get $10,000 if it warmed you'd only have to give 200.
Richard Lindzen: I figure it has to be worth it, it has to be worth it but, you know, it's a funny issue and it was based on other things than science.
Anne Rose: But if you believe definitely that you're right and you're essentially asking the world to take a big gamble.
Richard Lindzen: Then I have to at least decide how much money I'm willing to risk. One is always - as I told you, I'm not going to be inconsistent on dogmatism.
Anne Rose: So let's put even odds on it.
Richard Lindzen: Even odds I think the -
Anne Rose: I'll put down $5,000, I'd offer more but I've just entered into a mortgage but I'm serious.
Richard Lindzen: For 20 years, well you have a problem with lifetime.
Anne Rose: So you said in 20 - I'll be 41 in 2024 so you made that statement in 2004.
Richard Lindzen: Okay. So let's see. I figure it's 50/50 odds that it will be warmer or cooler.
Anne Rose: Okay. So $5,000.
Richard Lindzen: What's the point?
Anne Rose: Well, I guess I'm just wondering you're asking the planet to make this huge gamble.
Richard Lindzen: What's the huge gamble? Do you understand to make the huge gamble a gamble you have to assume the system has been built horribly badly. You have to assume a positive feedback that is large, even a small positive feedback would not be of catastrophic significance and it is open to significant question even with a sizeable warming of 3 degrees, what's the insuperable problem? Why are we speaking of it in terms of the end of the world, of the planet? This is bizarre.
Anne Rose: I think it's bizarre that you had this theory which was a valid point to raise but we have experienced warming and most of your colleagues say that you're wrong.
Richard Lindzen: Nobody - nothing about the theory says you don't have warming.
Anne Rose: Look, I understand that there's a role for outliers in science but -
Richard Lindzen: We have been going up and down that amount between 1919 and 1940 and it goes down 0.3 degrees. Then it's allegedly gone up about 0.5. This is natural. The fact that it goes up and down says there's something as big as us at least.
Anne Rose: The vast majority of your peers say that you're wrong.
Richard Lindzen: No, they don't. They say we go along with this.
Anne Rose: I mean there have been many papers that have said that your work has serious errors.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, and we've answered them.
Anne Rose: I don't know if that's true.
Richard Lindzen: It is true, you can look it up in the literature.
Anne Rose: I've been reading lot and I'm not a scientist so the way that I approach this is about well who do we trust and when we have the vast majority of scientists saying that -
Richard Lindzen: You're perfectly entitled to do that but all I'm saying is you're basing it on something that is profoundly hypothetical and fudged.
Anne Rose: I don't believe that climate change is hypothetical. We're already seeing the impacts now.
Richard Lindzen: No-one is saying climate change is hypothetical, that's natural. Climate has always changed. If we're going to take everything that's natural and decide it's an omen, we've gone back to the middle ages.
Anne Rose: One of the things that I think Nick and I have to look at when we're weighing up who to trust on this debate is people's past positions and I know you were someone who was giving testimony for the tobacco industry.
Richard Lindzen: I never did that. That is pure slander.
Anne Rose: Really?
Richard Lindzen: Yes.
Anne Rose: So you weren't -
Richard Lindzen: Absolutely pure slander.
Anne Rose: So you didn't, you didn't allege that there was -
Richard Lindzen: I have never testified, why would I?
Anne Rose: Well testimony might be the wrong word, I apologise. Did you dispute that there was not a link between smoking and health problems?
Richard Lindzen: I have argued as most people who have looked at it that the case for second-hand tobacco is not very good. That was true of the World Health Organization also said that.
Anne Rose: Do you standby that claim?
Richard Lindzen: That second-hand smoke is a poor situation? Sure, I'm not worried about that. With first-hand smoke it's a more interesting issue. There's clearly an issue and, you know, one looks at the statistics and it was done by meta analysis. That's usually the case when you don't have great studies and you have to combine them. The case for lung cancer is very good but it also ignores the fact that there are differences in people's susceptibilities which the Japanese studies have pointed to. I'm simply saying anything in science requires you look at it. You know, I have always found it profoundly offensive that to question something indicates you're doing something wrong. It pays to look at the studies. Have you read the studies?
Anne Rose: I'm not saying that you've done anything wrong but I do think that -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no but I have never testified. I know Jim Hanson said I did.
Anne Rose: I was reading his books so I'm very sorry that I got that wrong.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, he said that and that's clear slander.
Anne Rose: But what I mean is it seems to me that the evidence for passive smoking leading to health problems is quite clear so if you're questioning that why should I trust you on climate science?
Richard Lindzen: Why should I trust you that you've read it? The World Health Organization found the evidence dubious on passive smoke.
Anne Rose: But in 2011 it seems that the evidence now is quite clear that passive smoking is bad for you?
Richard Lindzen: No, it isn't. Second hand smoke is an issue, passive smoke is an issue that is very different from primary smoking.
Anne Rose: Then why in Australia is it illegal to smoke in restaurants and cafe?
Nick Minchin: Because politicians want to be seen to be doing something, ridiculous.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah. I mean the notion that because politicians responded it makes the science true happens to have a certain element of truth in it, that is to say when science differs with politics, politics is the piper.
Anne Rose: So you would support having restaurants and cafes and -
Nick Minchin: What's this got to do with climate change?
Anne Rose: Well I think it has a lot because it comes down to who you trust on the issue of science.
Richard Lindzen: It's, you know -
Nick Minchin: There is a debate about passive smoking and its impacts on health, we know that, we know there's a debate about that. Who's suggesting that debate is over? And I really don't see the relevance to a debate about, you know, the extent to which we should be concerned about CO2 emissions.
Anne Rose: I thought that actually the science was quite clear that passive smoking harms people.
Richard Lindzen: Well, you've certainly have been led to believe that by all these bans but I think if you looked at it a bit further you would discover that it's really a remarkably weak case. You know, there are cases - I think as a matter of courtesy there are people who finds smoking offensive. I don't think one should just smoke any place. I think people with asthma might react badly. We want you to be considerate of that but the overall issue of passive smoke is weak, is really statistically weak. The EPA did 13 studies not one of them came out with a statistically significant relation.
Nick Minchin: Can I just break off that and just ask you, Dick, as a scientist of long standing, why it is that apparently so many otherwise, you know, high-standing scientists do say that there is a huge problem in the world we must do something about it, I'd be interested from your perspective.
Richard Lindzen: How should I put it? I'd like to - if you get to the level of people who are saying we must do something about it, you actually are thinning the numbers quite a lot and a lot of these people are not in atmospheric science. So forever, Lord May in the UK, Ralph Cicerone, Lord Reece, none of them have contributed anything to climate science. They're coming at it from a policy view and I don't quite know why they've become so enthusiastic about a field they know nothing about. When you have professional societies like social science -
Anne Rose: Cicerone is, as I understand, was or is the head of the National Academy of Science?
Richard Lindzen: He is, he is.
Anne Rose: And you're saying he knows nothing about climate science?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean we were at a testimony, you can read it, I mean he didn't understand the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, he got all sorts of things screwed up. His field was stratospheric chemistry. It's a very different field from climate physics. You have then other things like the American Physical Society wrote a statement that the science is incontrovertible. When they were pressed they fell back to the science I was describing as what people agree on. They had a rebellion of 250 members who said we shouldn't say things like that we have no basis for it. Our society doesn't deal with this field. So you have to ask yourself why people in fields well removed from climate science are making endorsements.
Nick Minchin: That's what intrigued me, why are they?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, and they're running into popular opposition within their professional societies.
Anne Rose: So speaking of a field that is different from climate science, I was reading an article that Naomi Oreskes wrote comparing you to the great physicists Harold Jeffreys who was a brilliant scientist but denied that the theory of plate tectonics and he went to his grave denying it even though the empirical evidence was overwhelming, what do you think of that comparison?
Richard Lindzen: He also had certain things in meteorology where he was incorrect and other things. He was an interesting figure.
Anne Rose: So Naomi's article was essentially saying that perhaps you have brought up very good points in the field of climate science.
Richard Lindzen: Who's Naomi to judge this?
Anne Rose: This is just one article but I'm sure there are -
Richard Lindzen: I mean she's written some stuff that is so peculiar, including the claim that she took a sample of thousands of articles and none of them questioned global warming.
Nick Minchin: This is her 2004 study?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah. I mean this is so weird. When people finally looked at it they said hey, most of these don't mention it. And then she said well they don't deny it. That's what she bet.
Anne Rose: Well the person who tried to debunk her claim actually had to try to retract that.
Richard Lindzen: Pfizer?
Anne Rose: Yeah, he's apologised and said that he was wrong and that he couldn't find any peer-reviewed science.
Richard Lindzen: Would you like to say that for him?
Anne Rose: I've got - I've seen his statement.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, I would love to hear that. I don't know, I mean for all I know you're right.
Anne Rose: Okay.
Richard Lindzen: I know he's denied that in the last two weeks, so I would be curious as to where this came from.
Anne Rose: Well I read a statement from him saying that actually -
Richard Lindzen: Wait, wait, I mean this is great, this is great because he's denied it and if you have that statement I would love to see it.
Anne Rose: Okay, I'll email it to you.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, no, no, no.
Anne Rose: If you put can put me in touch with him too to clarify it does seem to be very confusing.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, absolutely.
Anne Rose: But my understanding was that actually some Australians were the ones who went through the articles that he claimed -
Richard Lindzen: Oh, no, there were other people, there were people in Germany went through it. I went through them. This is a bogus article, there was no question about it.
Anne Rose: So you're claiming that there were peer-reviewed articles within the period she looked at on global climate change?
Richard Lindzen: You know, most of them weren't dealing with it and most of what they agreed to had nothing to do with alarm. In other words -
Anne Rose: So how many challenge that consensus?
Richard Lindzen: You know, this is the business of how you define things, most of my papers would have met her criterion for not challenging.
Nick Minchin: Find out what's the criteria.
Richard Lindzen: This is what we call bait and switch.
Anne Rose: Well, we might have to agree to disagree on that one but overall -
Richard Lindzen: But with Pfizer I really would appreciate that, I really would.
Anne Rose: Okay.
Richard Lindzen: Because it would be interesting to hear, I know the guy, I know he's never done that and so the question is where did this come from?
Anne Rose: Well we can - I'll send it to you and introduce me to him.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, yeah.
Anne Rose: But what I mean what do you say to that overall claim that you did raise some really important and valid theories but that they've been proven to be wrong and now's the time to graciously concede?
Richard Lindzen: Because I don't agree. I happen to have looked at the criticisms, we've done the tests, they're wrong.
Anne Rose: Everyone else is wrong and you're right?
Richard Lindzen: Nobody - you know you're continuing to do things. There are no more than a handful of people who have looked at this stuff and so to say thousands of people disagree it doesn't mean anything.
Anne Rose: You think there's only five people who really have expertise in this area?
Nick Minchin: No, no, looked at his -
Richard Lindzen: That have done the studies that are essential for this.
Nick Minchin: In term of the feedback mechanism?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, in other words, if somebody tells me you have mid latitude excursions that are causing something and I say okay, I'll test for it, and if the tests for it doesn't show that why should I say I'm sorry, you said something that's it for me.
Nick Minchin: I'm out of here.
Richard Lindzen: I test it.
Anne Rose: But you're talking about the tropics, aren't you?
Richard Lindzen: Having somebody if they say something is wrong and they disagree you check.
Anne Rose: No, I understand that.
Richard Lindzen: You don't have to say I give up.
Anne Rose: Say CO2 has increased 38% or 40%?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, it has.
Anne Rose: But that's not 100%?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, but I'm saying during the same time methane has gone up.
Nick Minchin: Yeah, there's been an equivalent.
Anne Rose: I understand CO2 equivalent.
Richard Lindzen: Look at the IPCC fourth assessment there's that table and it has all the greenhouse contributions.
Anne Rose: My question is what if you're wrong?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, that's a common question and, you know, it doesn't bother me much for a very simple reason. Almost every political response does nothing, whether I'm wrong or right. The only thing it does is reduce the robustness of society to deal with change which will occur whether it's due to man or not.
Anne Rose: See I get it will harm the economy and that's why you -
Richard Lindzen: No, well anything that, we'll give you an example. You had an earthquake in Haiti how many dead? It's over 100,000. You had a much worse earthquake in Chile far fewer dead. You had the tsunami in Japan it was pretty bad, 3,000, 4,000 dead. So here you have a modest thing in one place, 100,000, what's the difference? The difference is, are these societies robust? What makes them robust? Wealth. So any time you cut prosperity and wealth you increase vulnerability of a society. That is important because you do have earthquakes, you do have tsunamis, you do have these things. They always occur.
Anne Rose: But why would acting on climate change reduce our wealth when we know that investment in clean technology creates new jobs, new industries?
Richard Lindzen: We know, we know?
Anne Rose: Yes they are.
Richard Lindzen: Anna that, is a red herring for this. The fact of the matter is if Australia, for instance, cuts its emissions back to what they were in 1830 what will it do?
Anne Rose: Well Nick Stern has said to tackle climate change it would cost about 1% of global GDP.
Richard Lindzen: He can say what he wishes.
Anne Rose: Now he said it's gone up to 2 because we've waited so long to act but the world spends 3% or more on insurance so surely it's prudent to spend a bit of money to protect the future of the whole planet?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no only if your action - you know, the insurance argument is a bit silly, isn't it? I mean, you know, for instance, let's say somebody sells me insurance, say I will sell you an insurance policy for this house, I will charge you $1 million and I will cover you for 10. You say "Huh, what's that about?"
Anne Rose: Well the economics though tells us that it's going to be much cheaper to act on climate change now than to wait until it's too late?
Richard Lindzen: Only if the action leads to a profound reduction in emissions. It isn't, you know, stabilising at 1990 won't do anything. So if you're worried about climate you should at least judge a policy according to what it would do according to the theories you believe and if the policy costs anything and does nothing it's not very cost effective.
Anne Rose: Well I would certainly argue for policy that is effective and I am kind of baffled by the fact that every time we have a conversation about the science we end up talking about the economics.
Richard Lindzen: Well he asked us to.
Anne Rose: I know, it's just a common theme.
Nick Minchin: You raised it by saying what if you're wrong and what's that going to mean and you introduced this subject.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah and that is automatically an economic question.
Nick Minchin: It must be an economic question.
Anne Rose: Well I think it's a question about human survival.
Richard Lindzen: Well that's fine, I hope you go down on record on that.
Nick Minchin: That's why you raised Haiti.
Richard Lindzen: Because it's - that makes very little sense.
Nick Minchin: Well I've raised this before, one takes out insurance based on risk assessment. You've got to do a very hard-headed assessment of risk, the degree to which risk is likely and the extent to which you're prepared to sacrifice current resources to ensure against a foreseeable risk and the extent to which you think that risk will occur and your assessment of the damages that will be caused by that risk at whatever, you know, likelihood occurring. That's why I don't insure my house against a meteorite landing on it because I don't think it's going to happen.
Anne Rose: But the IPCC said that there's a 90% chance -
Richard Lindzen: No, they didn't. Why do you keep misquoting the IPCC? The IPCC said that it was very likely that most of the warming over the last 50 years was due to man. That's consistent with there being no problem whatever.
Anne Rose: The IPCC doesn't say there's no problem whatever?
Richard Lindzen: No, I just said the statement you just quoted had no alarming implication.
Anne Rose: What do you think the odds are of climate change being real and serious and cause by humans?
Richard Lindzen: In other words, if you say that man has caused 51% of the half degree of the last 50 years or the 0.4 degrees, you're saying that climate sensitivity is pretty low and there's nothing to worry about. And yet you take a statement like that and think of it as supporting your view of a cataclysmic end to the world. There's something really peculiar about that.
Nick Minchin: And you have to do a really hard-headed cost benefit analysis of the half a degree of warming or 1 degree of warming because it can't possibly or logically be all bad. I mean in everything in life there are pluses and minuses, there is a good and bad, you know, there is positives and negatives so how do I know even half a degree -
Anne Rose: So what's the good about climate change?
Nick Minchin: It's not climate change, it's warming we're talking about. Climate will also change, whatever we do it's always going to change. It's the question of it's to the extent that we are contributing to some warming is this good or bad and there's going to have to be logically some good from some warming, inevitably.
Anne Rose: Why?
Richard Lindzen: Well the middle ages, strange as it say seem to you, were a period of great prosperity and warmth. When it turned cold that was the beginning of plagues and famines and so on. In general, as I said, people do not retire to Alaska.
Anne Rose: Yeah, but you're confusing with long-term climate change?
Richard Lindzen: No, I'm talking about the -
Nick Minchin: No, he's saying if the average temperature is 0.5 degree warmer, you know, in other words today it's not going to be 20 degrees it's going to be 20.5 degrees.
Anne Rose: But the consensus -
Nick Minchin: That's what we're saying.
Anne Rose: The consensus is for every 1 degree of warming you get 3 degrees -
Richard Lindzen: You keep on reminding us about consensus, we'd like to know how you think.
Anne Rose: Well I'm not a scientist so I have to trust -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, you're a person responding to science and so it's important to know how you're thinking about it because you're saying you can envisage the end of the world from this.
Anne Rose: What I'm doing is listening to the warnings that I'm hearing from scientists -
Richard Lindzen: No, no, no, you have to tell me how do they envisage the end of the world from a degree?
Anne Rose: I don't believe that we'll only have a degree of warming because I think that your theory about -
Nick Minchin: Yeah, saying it's going to be 4, 5 degrees.
Richard Lindzen: And how do you envisage from it from 4 degrees?
Anne Rose: 4 degrees of warming my understanding would be catastrophic.
Richard Lindzen: Tell me how?
Anne Rose: Well, for example, Nicholas Stern has said that the economic impact alone of climate change if we don't check it now is going to be the same as two world wars and the Great Depression combined.
Richard Lindzen: I know he's said that.
Anne Rose: You disagree?
Richard Lindzen: And he also ran into huge disagreement in world economics, a journal, so, you know.
Anne Rose: But if you're talking about the discount rate then let's talk about future generations.
Richard Lindzen: No, no, the discount rate was only one of his problems and that was a pretty serious one but only one. The absence of a hot spot in the data simply shows the data is wrong.
Nick Minchin: Right.
Richard Lindzen: Because, you know, there's something called the moist adiabatic in the tropics which says if you have a change in temperature it has to be larger aloft. If you don't have it it's saying there's something wrong with your data, either the surface data's wrong or the upper level data is wrong and with the upper level there are reasons to suppose it's not wrong. The reason is something - mentions something technical, it's something called a Rossby Radius. It is the distance over which the motions smooth out temperature and other things. In the tropics that is very large, it's thousands of kilometres but it is not true near the surface, near the surface you have what's called a turbulent boundary layer. So there you have a lot of local variability in the tropics, not as much as the mid latitudes but a lot more than you do let's say 10 kilometres up. So even though you only have maybe a couple of dozen balloons in the tropics they're good enough to establish the temperature 10 kilometres because it's flat. But the absence of stations near the surface mean you have huge sampling problems so if there's going to be an error it's going to be in the surface.
Anne Rose: This is what I was trying to say when we did meet with Joe Nova and David Evans that you had disagreed with them on the hot spot.
Richard Lindzen: Well what I'm saying is that I disagree that the hot spot is a sign of water vapour feedback or anything like that. It's far more basic than that. It's saying any temperature change, no matter what caused it, has to have a hot spot and the absence of a hot spot means your data is wrong.
Anne Rose: We should tell him. I tried to say that.
Nick Minchin: You're in touch with Joe, aren't you, though?
Richard Lindzen: Who?
Nick Minchin:
Joe Nova, do you keep in touch with Joe Nova?
Richard Lindzen: No, not much.
Nick Minchin: Okay. Alright, we should depart.
Anne Rose: Thank you.
Nick Minchin: You've been wonderful.
Richard Lindzen: Have fun, have a good trip, nice meeting you.
Nick Minchin: Thank you, Dick, it's been a great pleasure.
Richard Lindzen: Good luck.
Nick Minchin: Thanks very much.
Richard Lindzen: I think it's interesting but it misses an important point. You know, people look at the temperature record as pointing to, you know, if you say well I don't think it's due to man and say well what could it be due to as though there was something odd about it. And so a lot of people immediately said well maybe it's the sun and the point is, and quite a few people have been making this point, there's no need for anything. This kind of change is fully in the realm of what happens because the system varies by itself.
Nick Minchin: Internal error rate.
Richard Lindzen: You know when heat is taken by the ocean to deeper levels or brought up, it's taken away from the surface, the surface is no longer in equilibrium with space, it fluctuates. This level of fluctuation is not abnormal.
Anne Rose: But temperatures are at their highest since records began?
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, but that's a short period.
Anne Rose: 400 years?
Richard Lindzen: No, no, that's not now long records have been kept.
Nick Minchin: No, about 150.
Richard Lindzen: Records only existed since about 1870.
Nick Minchin: Yeah, it's only about 150.
Richard Lindzen: You have a few thermometers that exist in the 18th century. This thermometer wasn't even invented 400 years ago. I mean you're doing - you're using proxies.
Anne Rose: We looked at Professor Muller's data that seemed to go back.
Nick Minchin: Yeah, but his is proxy.
Richard Lindzen: That's proxy data, that's proxy data, that's not a thermometer.
Nick Minchin: No, it's only 150 years of actual measure.
Richard Lindzen: That's looking at a tree ring and saying growth of tree rings is temperature, it's also moisture, it's also dryness, it's also rain, it's also this. That is not a measurement.
Anne Rose: So you don't think that we're at the warmest?
Richard Lindzen: If you go back 400 years you're in the little ice age so nobody would be argue that it is probably warmer than it was in the little ice age.
Anne Rose: Since humans began industrialising though we are at the highest temperatures.
Richard Lindzen: Yeah, but that happens also to be when we emerge from the little ice age. I mean look at some of the documents in the 18th century in Switzerland of villages being overrun by glaciers, they're far more panicked than they are when the glaciers retreat.
Anne Rose: So you look at the temperature going up and you look at the CO2 going up and you really think it's all natural?
Richard Lindzen: Oh yeah, because the temperature is going like this. It means in each interval there's something bigger than the CO2. You're talking about a fraction of a degree. I mean you're talking about three quarters of a degree when it went down a half degree, up a half a degree, up a quarter degree, down three quarters, you know, so you take the net and you say that's a trend and boy am I finding that convincing.