Arguments
John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist
Posted on 4 September 2023 by dana1981
It’s a familiar story – the physicist who draws attention for declaring that climate scientists have got climate science all wrong. He (it’s always a ‘he’) was born before color television was invented, usually retired, perhaps having won a Nobel Prize, but with zero climate science research or expertise. William Happer. Ivar Giaever. Roger Cohen. Freeman Dyson. Steven Koonin. Robert Laughlin. The latest example from this mould is John F. Clauser.
Although Clauser has never published any peer-reviewed climate science research, he has made several climate-related claims whose veracity we will examine below.
Yes, humans are responsible for the increase in CO2
In a July 2023 interview with the Epoch Times, Clauser claimed that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) “may or may not be made by human beings. It doesn't really matter where it comes from.”
That's a bit like saying, "I don't know what atoms are made of, but it doesn't really matter. Let me tell you why particle physics is all wrong."
In reality, several lines of evidence have proven the incontrovertible fact that the human combustion of fossil fuels – which today releases nearly 40 billion tons of CO2 per year – is entirely responsible for the 50% increase in Earth’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the Industrial Revolution. For example, there’s basic accounting: those 40 billion tons of CO2 have to go somewhere, and Earth’s natural sinks like the oceans and biosphere only absorb about half of those emissions. The other half ends up in the atmosphere, as explained in the Denial101x video below. And atmospheric carbon isotope ratio measurements also demonstrate that the CO2 increase is coming from ancient plant matter, a.k.a. fossil fuels.
Anyone who understands even the most basic aspects of climate science should not question such a simple and thoroughly-established fact.
No, clouds won’t save us
The Epoch Times also wrote of Clauser:
He argues that climate is primarily set by what he refers to as the "cloud cover thermostat," a self-regulating process whereby more clouds start to enshroud the Earth when the temperature is too high and vice-versa.
Clouds play a complicated role in Earth’s climate because they both reflect sunlight, causing a cooling effect, and trap heat, causing a warming effect. Higher clouds tend to have a net warming effect while lower clouds tend to have a net cooling effect. How each type of cloud cover will change as the planet warms will determine whether they dampen or amplify global warming on the whole.
So far, both observational evidence and climate modeling suggest that if anything, changes in cloud cover will act to slightly amplify global warming. Moreover, if cloud cover acted as Earth’s thermostat, then we wouldn’t have seen the large historical swings between ice ages and warm periods, as explained in the Denial101x video below. So, the available evidence strongly contradicts Clauser’s hypothesis.
Climate change worsens extreme weather events
In July 2023, Clauser gave a talk at the event Quantum Korea 2023 in which he claimed, “climate change does not cause extreme weather events.”
In fact, climate change increases the intensity and/or frequency of many types of extreme weather. This is basic physics. An increased greenhouse effect traps more heat energy within Earth’s climate system. That increased heat raises temperatures, directly causing more extreme heat waves. It also increases evapotranspiration, amplifying droughts in drought-prone regions, and also wildfires. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor (Clauser should read up on the Clausius–Clapeyron relation), which can amplify extreme precipitation and flooding in flood-prone regions. And warmer ocean waters fuel stronger hurricanes.
The World Weather Attribution group has quantified the climate contribution to a number of extreme weather events, and these general relationships have been established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC is a great scientific body
In his Quantum Korea talk, Clauser also described the IPCC as “one of the worst sources of dangerous misinformation.”
In reality, the IPCC is one of the world’s greatest scientific bodies. It is composed of the world’s foremost climate scientists, who every 5 to 8 years devote tremendous amounts of time and effort to author reports summarizing the latest climate science research, without any remuneration whatsoever. The IPCC reports are in fact the world’s best source of accurate and valuable climate science information.
Energy can come from clean sources
In May of 2023, Clauser joined the board of directors of the climate-denying CO2 Coalition, at which time he stated:
In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s large population and an associated energy crisis.
Developing nations do need cost-effective energy sources to reduce the number of people living in poverty. But that energy needn’t come from fossil fuels. Africa, for example, has the largest solar power potential in the world, and also vast wind energy potential. As Andrea Willige has argued, the continent could leapfrog fossil fuel infrastructure in favor of decentralized power generation using renewable energy, just as it leapfrogged fixed-line telecommunication infrastructure to move straight to mass mobile phone use. In the process, it would avoid the detrimental health effects associated with fossil fuel air and water pollution, as well as the resulting climate pollution. Moreover, according to Lazard, the costs of clean technologies have fallen so far that solar energy plus storage is often cheaper today than building new fossil fuel power plants.
Old climate denial
Like so many of his old physicist colleagues before him, Clauser has repeated a number of long-debunked climate myths without providing any supporting evidence whatsoever. Until that changes, there is no reason to lend any credence to this brand of stale, reheated climate denial. Remember: whenever John F. Clauser and his statements related to climate change get bandied about, it is a prime example of using a fake expert on climate change.
Scientists are human beings like everyone else, and while that explains much of the disagreement one can find among scientists on all sorts of topics, when people like Clauser come along and speak outside of their area of expertise, flatly contradicting the work of the majority of those directly involved specifically in that field, as in this case climate science, it really makes you wonder what motivated them to do that.
Honesty is important for everyone involved on the subject of climate science and global warming, of course, including those in the mainstream. The characerization of the IPCC here, for example, is so glowing, one might think it was written by the IPCC itself "one of the world’s greatest scientific bodies. It is composed of the world’s foremost climate scientists, who every 5 to 8 years devote tremendous amounts of time and effort to author reports summarizing the latest climate science research, without any remuneration whatsoever. The IPCC reports are in fact the world’s best source of accurate and valuable climate science information."
In fact, the IPCC is arguably not a scientific body: the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" is, as the name implies, a governmental body, where scientists volunteer their work but must in a way "compete" with political appointees from 195 UN nations to haggle over messages delivered to policymakers. It is well known that those political agents have rejected and softened language in statements proposed by scientists numerous times, when that language was deemed problematic for their individual nations.
But it goes further than that. The IPCC in fact has been criticized, not only by cranks like Clauser, but by its own contributors as well as other, reputable scientists in the climate science field, for being far too cautious, particularly in their characterization of the speed and severity of the effects of climate change from global warming. Being on the "right" side of this debate between the mainstream climate science "community" and people who are clearly climate deniers, should not mean that those defending what scientists have discovered need be deniers themselves of the many errors and misinformation that has been produced by organizations like the IPCC.
Papers such as "What Lies Beneath; The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk" by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop, and "Faster Than Expected; The IPCC's Role In Exacerbating Climate Change" by Kyle Kimball, are a good start for those interested in examining clearly documented errors and pattern-forming cases of inaccuracy on the part of the public messages delivered by the IPCC.
It is one thing to be an outright climate denier. It is another to be one who so stridently opposes the outright frauds and fakes that one refuses to admit, and even attempts to hide or gloss over the real problems that do exist within what people call the climate science "community" and those various organizations responsible for gaining insight and finding solutions for humanity to fight what may someday soon be legally recognized as the ecocide perpetrated by numerous energy companies when they were warned numerous times by scientists of the need to swiftly switch to alternate fuels, and chose to bury, manipulate and deny that science in order to focus on business as usual and the maximization of shareholder value.
Name a functional equivalent that produces a more competently comprehensive synopsis of how Earth's climate functions and how we affect its functioning.
This is objectively correct.
Name reports on climate (or anything else) that are more comprehensive and also accurately reflect "here's the best we know at this point."
The IPCC exists, the first and most important virtue. It's a concrete feature, as opposed to wishful desire for a system for dealing with human nature that is divorced from human factors.
Meanwhile, haggling over the messaging, the messaging ending up acceptable to multiple countries with multiple often conflicting self-interests? Is this a defect? If one bothers to read its self-stated mission and purpose, one will learn that the IPCC specifically exists for the purpose of colliding geopolitics with science. To expect the IPCC to remain aloof from geopolitics is to doom it to have no connection with or influence over geopolitics and the behavior of individual states.
The IPCC has since its first report steadily produced warnings over our influence on climate that have over the course of the years increased in stridency and urgency, a surfeit of actionable advice. The parsimonious methods of the IPCC have yielded all the information we've needed to act on and attempt to check our climate disaster. But the IPCC does not operate governments, it informs them. There's plenty of information emerging from this sausage factory, only consumed very slowly because it's emerging into a world full of interactive, reverberating other problems of human nature.
There's a lot of inchoate frustration over human nature and Earth's climate floating about these days, looking for its proper home. Keep looking.
Meanwhile Skeptical Science will try to stay in the tank of reality, where feet wade through clay as best as they actually may.
I'll admit that the IPCC is the largest organization producing climate analysis, and as such provides the overall best information we have. However, much of that information is deeply flawed, according to scientists both inside and outside the organization. Is it wrong to want that corrected? Because that's all anyone is saying.
Your logic would also have us stop trying to change flaws in our law courts and legal system, flaws in our election system, ad infinitum, because "what we have works and they are doing their best."
Have you read either of the papers I've provided links to? If you haven't, it's unlikely you know anything about the problems you are trying to close everyone's eyes to.
Once again, you do not do yourself favors by refusing to be realistic about the good efforts that have been made to fight climate change, and to pretend there is nothing wrong, or to hold that to say so is some kind of blasphemy, or is unfair or unkind, and to suggest that rather than try to shed light on things that need improving if we are to have a fighting chance here, that we should just keep our mouths shut, close our eyes and offer thanks and praise.
Markp,
Certainly there are scientists who are doomers like the ones you have linked. The IPCC reports give the low end of scientific thought on warming problems. This was a political compromise. You are correct that the majority of scientists think it will be worse than the IPCC says.
Everyone agrees that 3C warming will be much worse than 2C and 4C will be much worse again. We have to do everything we can to reduce CO2 pollution as much as possible. While we have missed the 1.5C target, we still benefit from the reductions that have taken place.
There are already many people who have given up on trying to solve the warming problem. They think it is too hard. If all scientists take your attitude then it is likely that most countries will give up and the problem will be worse. Scientists like Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt know that the situation is very bad. They act to get as much response as possible from governments.
I saw this quote today in CNN:
"Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, “The scientific evidence is overwhelming – we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases,”
How can she say anything stronger?
Markp @ 3:
Oh, my. The IPCC does not provide analysis in the sense of crunching data, etc: it collects information from the published scientific literature, and provides a broad overview of the status of the science. It does not do any new research of its own. All the material it presents is based on other publications and research. The authors of the IPCC reports are a subset of the authors that work in climatology, but ultimately the science itself comes from the literature. If you don't like what the IPCC says, you can always go into the literature and see what it says for yourself.
The "Summary for Policymakers" documents are more subject to political pressures. That is where things will get watered down, spin applied, etc. If you disagree with them, look in the full reports for details. If you don't like the full reports, read the literature.
When you say things like "However, much of that information is deeply flawed, according to scientists both inside and outside the organization", expect to get challenged. Such a vague accusation is pretty much worthless in a serious discussion. What information? What flaws? What scientists? What positions do they hold? Most of the IPCC participants are not "members of the organization" - they do this work as part of their normal employment elsewhere. I have worked with people that were involved in the IPCC process. They did not get paychecks from the IPCC. They did not have IPCC membership cards.
"Some people say..." is such a weak, weak, weak argument. Some people say all of science is corrupt. Some people say evolution is wrong. Some people say the world is flat. Some people say the Easter Bunny is real.
To make this vaguely on-topic, John F Clauser says things that are simply way off. Just because he says it does not make it remotely true.
Michael Sweet
"Doomers" is a word with little value or meaning and has become similar to "conspiracy theorist" where people apply it to those whose views they do not like.
I'll bet you haven't read, for example, What Lies Beneath, one of the papers I linked to. The foreward was written by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, professor of theoretical physics specialising in complex systems and nonlinearity, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and former chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change. He is not a doomer. People who want the IPCC to be improved are not necessarily "doomers" or cranks. It's really too bad you and others here seem unable to accept that this government organization is not perfect and could be made better.
You say "if all scientists take your attitude..." well guess what? My attitude is to do what I can to stop the warming, which is why I work for a climate science nonprofit to do just that, and not by handing out leaflets asking people to turn off the lights, but by helping an organization that is currently helping the poor in the Global South live more comfortably by converting their roofs into cool roofs, for free. And it's not just white paint. And that's not all. So please.
Bob "Oh my" Loblaw
I don't need a lecture on how the IPCC works. Thanks. I did not say the IPCC provides analysis "in the sense of crunching data, etc," now did I? Read what I wrote, please.
As for "what information? What flaws?" maybe if you'd READ the papers I linked to, you would find out. I'm not inveting this. And please don't put words in my mouth, either: "some people say"?? Please see if you can find that in my text. Talk about "weak"!!!
I'm happy to check on this site for the new items it brings but I think I'm finished discussing the reality of how much we have not managed to do to stop climate change with people who have their heads in the sand.
"Your logic would also have us stop trying to change flaws in our law courts and legal system, flaws in our election system, ad infinitum, because "what we have works and they are doing their best."
Mark, as you're upset about the direction this discussion has taken let's just note that you've invented a situation wherein we claim the IPCC is perfect and not subject to improvement.
I'm familiar with Spratt & Dunlop's brief. It's critiquing the IPCC process, methods and results against an imaginary purpose for the organization.
Spratt & Dunlop's conclusory remarks are notably lacking in any concrete prescription of actionable, practical advice for remedy. They are unhappy with what exists but apparently are not able to conjure a better substitute.
With critics failing to deliver a plan for how progress might appear, the reader is left with a false impression; no additional communications vehicle is suggested by the authors, so surely the solution lies in altering the subject of the critique so as to address the authors' untethered objections to the IPCC. If so, what happens?
As Schellnhuber points out, what's missing from the IPCC is reports is imagination divorced from a continuum of evidence (possibility vs. probability). There's a role for unsupported extrapolation, but that's an additional communications task that if commingled with strict evidentiary requirements will quite arguably leave the entire process of dealing with climate change even more amenable to misinformation and disinformation than it is today. Notably and despite such critiques as the one we're discussing here, the IPCC is the subject of concentrated, prolonged polemical attacks on its credibility from the side of the fossil fuel industry and other enthusiasts of unaccounted external costs. Arming such rhetoricians with valid grounds for their own purposes of critique wouldn't be a smart move.
It would be nonsensical to claim that no improvement is possible in the IPCC process and methods. Fortunately nobody here is making that claim. But improvement doesn't include introducing science fiction into the foundations of IPCC reports, and it's hard to see how bringing possibility divorced from probability into the IPCC's work would be other than exactly that. We're blessed with imagination and can and should exploit it, but here our imagination needs a solid tether— as a separate feature— because imagination comes with degrees of credibility and here credibility is mandatory.
Markp @1+,
I think it is wrong to say that the IPCC is not a scientific body. Certainly the SPMs are edited for the political purpose of obtaining unanimity, but the assessment reports do reflect the whole of the science and thus are scientific. If that science is not being done (and in the case of WG2 & WG3 I fear it probably isn't), it is a problem not of the IPCC's making.
The two examples you provide are worthy of discussion.
☻ Spatt & Dunlop (2018) 'What Lies Beneath; The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk' is a bit of a gallop through the subject and today a little dated. It is the product of a think-tank and, apparently, "is not intended as a 'scientific paper'." Perhaps study of missing threats should become a subject set up as a science; the studying of the cracks within AGW science.
Today the science (and thus the IPCC) is addressing tipping points and if the evidence suggests either of them are still underplaying them, then that should be put on record.
And the 'fat tail', our inability at nailing down ECS and partcularly the top end of possible ECSs; if that does continue to remain elusive, isn't that because the 'fat tail' acts so slowly? And if it is slow and also temperature induced, presumably we should be able to dodge it before it arrives.
☻ The second example you cite is a downloadable undergrad thesis and the climatology bit of it is about the rather dated 'Arctic melt-out' warnings of two-decades back. At the time the basis for these warnings was the period of increased melt 2000-07 which saw previous trends in annual Arctic minimum SIE rise from -0.06M sq km/y to -0.24M sq km/y. The idea that the thinning ice would disappear with a rush was at the time** not unfounded but it hasn't been borne out with 2007-on only showing a slow downward trend in the Arctic SIE minimums.
(** I remember at the time the widespread incredulity given to 'official' projections which were suggesting ice-free Arctic summers would arrive more slowly, sometime 2027-50. We are now not far off from the start of that period and no ice-free event yet.)
The other bit of criticism of in the undergrad thesis looks at economic forecasting. This is perhaps off-topic (the numpty Clauser is the topic here & he is a science guy) so I'll try not to wax too lyrically.
I don't think the thesis really scratches the surface in its descriptions of what I consider ligitmate criticism of the pretty awful work in this field. The idea that timely AGW mitigation would (according to denialists) crash the global economy and pauperise the less-developed world but AGW itself would do no more than slow economic growth marginally (global growth reduced by just a third under +4ºC AGW in the doomiest projection here) I find utterly unbelievable. (My usual example is to imagine Madagascar melted into the sea. The loss to global economy would be 0.014% but would the 30M souls who live there just go down with the ship?)
But with the numpty Clauser as the topic here & he a science guy, economic forecasting is not on-topic here.
An enlightening 10-minute read from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
"Betting against worst-case climate scenarios is risky business"
Markp @10 ,
Thank you for the link to the David Spratt article of 4 September 2023.
His article is very reasonable as far as it goes in discussing Risk Assessment of climate tipping points in a general way. And, as he mentions, the economists' projections are nigh-on useless for the long term. (Though I do take exception to Spratt's undiscriminating interchangings of the phrases "human extinction" and "civilizational collapse". )
But then Spratt comes to a halt, before making any practical suggestions. ( A point noted by physics professor Daniel Marlow, whose replying comment is the only one listed, so far, beneath that article.)
In comparison, Simon Michaux [referred to briefly in a different SkS thread, recently] does know what path we should be taking towards a wind-turbine & solar-panel powered economy . . . but says we cannot reach that goal, owing to inevitability of materials supply shortfalls. (We can't get there from here.)
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Eclectic
"In comparison, Simon Michaux [referred to briefly in a different SkS thread, recently] does know what path we should be taking towards a wind-turbine & solar-panel powered economy . . . but says we cannot reach that goal, owing to inevitability of materials supply shortfalls. (We can't get there from here.)"
IMO Michaux is taking a very doomy, pessimistic approach to the materials issue. The crowd who wrote the limits to growth in around the 1970s were the same and proclaimed the world would run out of key metals like lead, zinc etc,etc, by the 1990s and of course that never happened. Lets explore why.
Now firstly obviously materials are a finite resource. Some of the elements are quite rare and so scattered in the crust they cant be extraced economically. Even the concentrated mineral despots of those elements are not common in the earths crust. So we have a problem and are at risk of running out of some things longer term.
But Michaux takes a particularly doomy view of the situation. He looks at known current high grade / medium grade reserves and says red alert we are running out. But he is basing his warnings on known reserves of good grade ore depoits. He makes insufficient allowance for our ingenuity in extracting low grade deposits, making new discoveries, mining the sea bed, extracting minerals from sea water (there are trillions of tons), high levels of recycling. And its highly likely we will get better at doing these things and in energy efficient ways.
Im not talking techno hype where anything is possible and we will conquer all problems. Im just taking the view that its very likely we will find ways of finding more materials.
If we do run into severe shortages of materials we will have to reduce our energy use. Michaux concerns do not seem a good enough reason to give up on renewables completely, and he doesnt provide an alternative if we did do that.
The IPCC reports are clearly conservative leaning. However the latest IPCC report does project warming at around 4 - 5 degrees by end of this century at BAU (Business as usual emissions) and SLR (sea level rise) worst case up around 1 - 2M end of this century. And it will go on rising after that if we do nothing.
There are lower SLR projections out there and a small number of higher projections by people like Hansen at around 4M end of century, but his is very speculative. So Im not sure that the IPCC are being excessively conservative on the key numbers.
For me SLR projections of 1 - 2M end of this century look very worrying with the potential to cause massive problems. Even although 2M is worst case and low probbaility the impact is potentially huge so such a scenario should be guiding or mitigation response. If people cant see all this and feel motivated to take serious action, then I'm not sure they would change their attitude if the number was 4M anyway.
So obviously the IPCC should robustly communicate the climate problem, but I think we are at risk of scapegoating the IPCC for the lack of strong mitigation response, when the culprit is really peoples complacency, due presumably to numerous factors from vested interests, resistance to change, psychological barriers, ideological views, the denialist campaign etc,etc.
Nigelj @12 ,
Agreed. Michaux seems determined to assert that "renewables" are an impossibility, or at least a cul-de-sac, on the path to electricity generation of the non-fossil-fuel type. But the adage is :- half a loaf is better than none . . . it would be foolish not to go the path of wind/solar, while we are gradually developing newer technologies.
@13 : Clauser appears to be a climate neophyte, suffering from the Happer-Giaever syndrome. One wonders at his choice of ignoring the rich lode of information available per the IPCC.
Eclectic @14 some of these physicists come across as very arrogant and over confident, and seem to think that because physics is the most fundamental of the science it makes them experts at everything, without having to study the detals of other issues, like the climate issue. And with the climate issue the details are particularly important. I assume thats sort of what you mean by Happer-Giaever syndrome.
Yes the IPCC reports are a rich lode of information. I can see a great deal of work has gone into these and I get a bit defensive when they get criticised, and especially when the motives of the authors get criticised.
The IPCC scientists are volunteering their time, and yet they get slammed by paid professional deniers with their junk science, and also slammed by a few people at the extreme edges of the warmist group, who think the IPCC should immediately and uncritically embrace the latest and most doomy study. Makes me furious. And I say this as someone who has a doomy disposition or bias, but at least Im aware of the potential for that to sometimes get out of control.
Per the IPCC reports, dare I mention that review articles are often exceptional examples of research. Organizing, theming, and critiquing the body of current understanding does itself create new understanding and further direction... aka: research.
Good thoughts on the IPCC, but back on topic, Clauser:
The recent article in Epoch Times is at https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/nobel-winner-refutes-climate-change-narrative-points-out-ignored-factor-5486267?cmt=1&cmt_id=bc9ade40-335a-4574-b934-27a8bb64dd4b
It is depressing to me to see the spread of such blatant crap. To get really upset, see the comments there for a view into the minds of deniers.
I hope that readers of skeptical science can add comment and replies to that article to help balance the propaganda and even get some deniers thinking of the real science.
sailingfree @17, blatant crap is pretty much all Epoch Times has to offer. I somehow got identified as a potential subscriber, so I keep getting free copies in the mail. On Adfontes Media's Media Bias chart, ET shows up far to the right on "Political Bias," and well down the vertical axis on "News Value and Reliability". One wonders just how much overlap there is among readers of ET and SkS.
Sorry, should have included a link to the Media Bias chart. The publisher is selling some versions of it, but the interactive one at the link is free. I have no financial interest in the company.
Are there thoughts about this July 19, 2023 letter from William Happer
Professor of Physics, Emeritus Princeton University and Richard Lindzen
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Happer-Lindzen-EPA-Power-Plants-2023-07-19.pdf
Wbru49 @20 :
What were the points you wish to make about the Happer/Lindzen letter addressed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ~ were there any important legal or scientific aspects which are worth noting?
Based on my quick scan of it : the letter seems to be a general outpouring of all sorts of old "denialist" talking points. Not sure whether it's best described as a rant or as a "Drumpfized" Gish Gallop of nonsenses & half-truths.
Either way, it is sad to see two elderly scientists showing that peculiar degeneration of intellect which too-often accompanies "Emeritus" status. Or would be sad ~ if it weren't already Old News.
Or perhaps I have misunderstood what these two guys are up to. Are they laying the ground for an actual legal challenge to the EPA . . . or are they just venting?