A Few Undisputable Facts December 24, 2019 Howard Cork Hayden Let us begin with a few undisputable facts: At no time during the last billion years has the climate not been changing. Therefore, it is trivially useless to claim that the climate is changing. [TEXT ADDED: It is a serious offense for man-made climate change alarmists to call anyone a CLIMATE DENIER or CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER.] The atmosphere has had, at times in the past, many multiples of the present concentration [TEXT ADDED: of carbon dioxide.] During the last million years or so, there has been a relatively strong correlation between three things: (1) the temperature (2) the atmospheric concentration (3) the Milankovitch cycles (due to changing orbital parameters), specifically the solar radiation above about 65ยบ north latitude Excluding pure coincidence, let us imagine that some sort of causality is at work. Let the letters T, C, and M represent changes in said parameters. Let ==> represent a causal relationship: Rain ==> wet streets. Now consider the 6 a-priori chains of causality amongst the three variables: T==>M==>C C==>M==>T T==>C==>M C==>T==>M M==>C==>T M==>T==>C The first four causality chains imply that atmospheric conditions cause the orbital parameters to change. Let us discard them as a bit unlikely. The two quasi-reasonable causal chains hold that changes in Milankovitch cause climate changes. The IPCC seems to agree with this idea. Now, either the changes in orbital parameters cause changes in CO2, which in turn cause changes in temperature, or
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changes in orbital parameters cause changes in temperature, which in turn cause changes in CO2 concentration. To make Al Gore's case that CO2 caused the temperature changes requires one to identify a mechanism by which the changes in orbital parameters cause changes in CO2 concentration. The fact that nobody has never done it does not mean that there is no mechanism. However, the fact that nobody has ever done it means that their case is very weak, relying on some kind of unidentified magic. None of the above requires any special training in any branch of science. To get the scary scenarios of the IPCC requires positive feedback mechanisms, somewhat akin to a mechanism that would cause your thermostat to turn on the furnace when the house is already hot. But whatever positive mechanism the IPCC may propose, the positive feedback mechanisms would behave exactly the same no matter what causes the earth to heat up a bit. Some perturbation of some kind (lower cloud cover, for example) causes the earth to heat up a bit, and then the positive feedback mechanism would still be at work, and the earth would get hotter and hotter. Such perturbations have happened, and the fact that we're here to talk about it should give some pause to alarmists. That much said, there is one kind of expertise that enters the fray when CO2 is considered. That field is called molecular spectroscopy. If this subject is taught in Departments of Climate, it is news to me. Why, then, are climatologists regarded with reverence when the subject is CO2? I often say that the case that nuclear power is very strong; don't dilute the strength of the case with weak arguments, like that of "climate change ( nee Global Warming).
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