Egg on Face: Monckton Capitulates to Slayer Science

So apparently there is some climate conference happening in London come this September:

Independent Committee on Geoethics: London Conference 2016

Christopher Monckton (pictured) is a member of the organization committee. monckton Why the focus on Monckton?  Because he has been in the past one of the greatest foes of the Slayer’s rational approach to criticizing the basis of climate alarm, going so far as to threaten each and every one of us with being personally sued for daring to state that other independent scientists, such as Fred Singer, basically agree with us.

We have always been at a loss to explain this behaviour coming from people who proclaim to be skeptics of climate alarm:  If you are a skeptic of climate alarm, then why does it make you so irate (and trust me, it does make them irate(!)…you should see some of the personal correspondence between the Slayer’s and Monckton, and Anthony Watts, etc…they get downright irate, and outraged) at the suggestion that perhaps it makes sense to examine the basis of climate alarm itself, which is the radiative greenhouse effect?  I mean if the basis of climate alarm is the greenhouse effect, and it is, and climate alarm isn’t showing up in the temperature data, and it isn’t, and past climate variations do not demonstrate that carbon dioxide and a variable greenhouse effect are their driver, and they don’t…then why wouldn’t you do the exceedingly obvious and simple thing of examining that basis of climate alarm?

They accuse us, the Slayers, of trying to make climate skepticism lose credibility by our debunk of the greenhouse effect, and therefore that we must be working some conspiracy as double-agents to discredit climate skepticism.  We accuse them, the people who say that they are skeptics of climate alarm yet get angry at criticizing the foundation of climate alarm, as being stupid, irrational, illogical, unscientific…and possibly working for the other side making sure that the pseudoscientific fundamentals of climate alarm never get discussed and exposed.

So we are at a loggerhead.  The difference is that the Slayers can explain why a postulate which arises out of a flat-Earth model is wrong, while the “outraged” simply hyperventilate and personally threaten us.  What does that tell you?

Egg in Pan

Monckton, as a member of the organization committee for this conference, must have some influence over what is presented at the conference.  Therefore, we find his first “capitulation” to Slayer’s criticism of climate alarm in Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller’s presentation on September 8th:  “A new planetary temperature model and its implication for the Greenhouse theory.”

NN & KZ:  “The basic physics of the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect (GE) has been accepted as well understood for over 150 years. GE is currently viewed as a radiative phenomenon caused by the atmosphere’s thermal infrared opacity, which is a function of the concentration of heat absorbing trace gases such as CO2, water vapour, methane, ozone and a few others. The atmosphere is mostly transparent to incoming shortwave radiation while absorbing a substantial amount of the outgoing (upwelling) long-wave flux emitted by the surface. This infrared absorption is thought to reduce the rate of Earth’s cooling to Space, hence significantly raising the surface temperature above that of an equivalent airless environment such as the Moon. Thus, according to the current GE theory, the atmosphere acts as a ‘radiative blanket’ that keeps the Earth surface sufficiently warm to allow the existence of liquid water and biological life on our planet. Hence, increasing the tropospheric concentrations of non-condensable greenhouse gases through fossil fuel burning would boost the atmospheric infrared optical depth as well as the absorption of thermal radiation leading to an enhanced GE and surface warming as a result. This concept forms the basis of present climate projections. However, mounting scientific evidence indicates that Global Circulation Models (GCMs) fail to simulate key features of past climates as inferred from geo-chemical proxies while overestimating the observed global temperature trends since 1993. The modeldata discrepancy has grown to a level that warrants a re-examination of fundamental assumptions in the Greenhouse theory.”

In other words, they’re saying that while everyone thinks that they understand the radiative greenhouse effect, they find reason to re-examine the fundamental assumptions of the radiative greenhouse effect theory.  Yes, exactly, that is what the Slayers say too.  But does their reason line up with Slayer criticism?

NN & KZ:  “We present results from a novel Dimensional Analysis of observed planetary data spanning a broad range of environments in the Solar System, i.e. from the hot Venus to the frozen world of Neptune’s moon Triton. Our analysis reveals that the average global surface temperature of rocky planets with tangible atmospheres and negligible geothermal surface heating can accurately be predicted over a broad range of atmospheric conditions and radiative regimes using only two forcing variables: top-of-the-atmosphere stellar irradiance and total surface atmospheric pressure. The new empirical model displays characteristics of an emergent macro-level thermodynamic relationship heretofore unbeknown to science (Fig. 1). […] A key theoretical implication of the new model is that GE is not a radiative phenomenon as currently believed, but a pressure-induced thermal enhancement, which is independent of atmospheric composition. Our results provide new fundamental insights about the nature of climate forcing on different time scales, which we discuss. Using the new planetary temperature model as a base, we explain how climate models simulate warming with increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and why such predictions are physically and mathematically incorrect.”

[Above is my bold emphasis].  That is precisely what the Slayers and PSI have published papers about (see drop down menu ‘Publications’ atop PSI webpage) and what I’ve written about extensively on this blog.  And it is also precisely what has caused Christopher Monckton to hyperventilate towards us in the past.  It is great to see him coming around to reason…to quite reasonable criticism of the fundamentals of climate alarm, which is its radiative greenhouse effect.

The second “capitulation” to the Slayers comes in the acceptance of Hans Jeblring’s presentation later in the same day as the above one.  Jelbring’s talk is titled “The dominant physical processes that cause climate change,” but I do not have the abstract for it (correction – see link to all abstracts here).  From the title it doesn’t appear that it is about the greenhouse effect specifically, however, Jelbring is a member of the Slayers and his work is one of, if not the earliest, presentations of the theory and the mathematics and physics that the temperature gradient in the atmosphere is caused by pressure, and that this therefore guarantees that the bottom of the atmosphere will be the warmest part of the atmosphere and warmer than any expected average temperature for the atmosphere as a whole.

Readers of PSI and climateofsophistry.com will have witnessed the derivation of the temperature gradient many, many times.  That derivation comes from a Jelbring paper.  While the gradient doesn’t tell us what the temperature should be at the bottom of the atmosphere, it does tell us that the bottom of the atmosphere has to be warmer than any expected average, and this is one of the core elements to the Slayer’s debunk of the radiative greenhouse effect.

The third “capitulation” comes from the acceptance of Oliver Manuel’s talk on “neutron repulsion”.  This talk is on the first day again, same as the previous two, and this day’s subject matter is “Natural drivers of climate changes”.  Manuel is a keynote presentation.  At this point I am finding this all quite strange.  Manuel was one of the founding Slayers and they published his work before I became involved.

I would have not accepted Manuel’s work because it isn’t really to do with debunking climate change alarm, and I am likewise wondering why it is being presented at this conference.  Manuel’s work itself I find no basis for accepting either – neutron repulsion and the idea that the Sun has a neutron star at its core.  If this were true for the Sun then it would be true for all other stars since all other stars behave exactly like the Sun given their position on the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram.

While this all could work if all stars did have the “hidden variable” of a neutron star at their core…it is impossible for all stars to have a neutron star at their core.  I’ve read Manuel’s work and I just don’t find anything that supports his conclusions, and this isn’t just because I have an MSc in astrophysics and studied stellar modelling – I am more than capable of criticizing “accepted” science, but I don’t find an actual scientific argument or presentation in his work.  The founding Slayers unfortunately didn’t detect the problems with Manuel and I wasn’t aware of Manuel until well after I became involved, at which point Manuel didn’t seem like much of a problem anymore.  While the Slayers had the right idea, at that early time they did not have the full scientific expertise which I subsequently brought to the table which might have helped weed out the bad science from the legitimate, rational, although out-of-the-box, skepticism they stood for.

In any case, aside from the last point’s concerns, it seems that Monckton is now quite open to supporting criticism of the radiative greenhouse effect.  This is quite a change of attitude coming from him given the extremely nasty and bullying way he has treated us in the past.

I see that the conference has been covered by Anthony Watts here, with the proviso:

“While I carry this story on WUWT for informational purposes, that should in no way imply that I endorse the topics of the conference itself or the speakers – Anthony Watts” watts

In the comments section there is this exchange from Monckton:

“As the head posting makes clear, there will be some ideas presented at the conference that are not mainstream, though my own presentation will be mainstream science, as will the presentations of the overwhelming majority of participants. But Professor Moerner, the organizer, and a world authority on sea level, believes that the ever more elaborate intolerant filtering of ideas before they are given a chance to be fairly heard is dangerous, so he has invited some who, though not in the mainstream, should in his opinion be given the chance to have their ideas tested before an eminent academic audience.

I think it likely that some of these ideas, on being exposed to a properly qualified audience giving them a fair hearing for the first time, will be finally disposed of as being unacceptably bad. Others, perhaps not. But most of us will be presenting science that fully respects the scientific method, and on this topic to do such a thing in the England of today, which possesses the most scientifically illiterate establishment since the Middle Ages, takes more than a little courage.”

Monckton wrote that in response to a question as to why Manuel would be given a presentation slot, but perhaps it relates to the presentations criticizing the greenhouse effect too.  Assuming the latter is the case, it is still quite a change of attitude given that his previous desire was to personally sue all Slayers for having the audacity to criticize the greenhouse effect and claim that other scientists essentially agree with doing that (which they do and did).  He’s now allowing such criticism to be heard.  Monctkon continues later:

“Professor Butterworth has no reason for threatening his academic colleague other than a totalitarian desire to suppress scientific research on the climate question with which his paymasters disagree.

The great majority of the presentations at the conference will be mainstream science, but Professor Moerner is not as intolerant of free speech as the true-believers. He will allow a small number of alternative voices to be heard. By doing so, he is demonstrating that, on our side of the debate, academic freedom still thrives. That freedom has always included the freedom to put forward bad hypotheses. Some of those hypotheses will die a well-deserved death at the London conference, but at least those offering them will have know that they have had a fair hearing from a learned audience of open minds.

Like it or not, that is how science should be done. If even the sceptical side of the debate will not give a platform to new ideas, good or bad, what hope is there for a restoration of the scientific method? That method works not by rejecting uncongenial hypotheses a priori, but by letting them be heard and then, and only then, dismissing them if they are found wanting.”

I wish that this was the Christopher Monckton I had the pleasure of discussing climate alarmism criticism with!  The Christopher Monckton I got is the one who called me names, questioned my honesty and scientific integrity, and threatened to personally sue me!  lol

In light of your new attitude towards all this Chris, then why not dismiss a postulate that arises out of treating the Earth as flat(!) and sunshine as not being able to heat anything above -18 degrees Celsius!?  What is it that prevents you people from seeing the absurdity in that!? Seriously!  Do you not find such a postulate in “wanting”?  Do you not find the premise that the Earth is flat and that sunshine is no warmer than -18°C to be wanting?!

By the way, on page 55 of the abstracts volume, there is a presentation from Jan-Erik Solheim, Thor Eriksen, and Yngvar Engebretsen titled “The Greenhouse effect – a high school experiment”.  The experiment is basically the de-Saussure device experiment discussed in recent posts on this blog, with their finding being that:

“Our conclusion is that we were not able to prove that more CO2 leads to a higher temperature in a greenhouse. The greenhouse effect is due to the air being trapped by the roof and the walls, inhibiting natural cooling by conduction, convection, and evaporation.”

Chris, you’re really hanging around people who do Slayer science now.  I don’t know whats up with that.

Honestly…this change of attitude is a little too much to believe on first sight, given our past interactions.  Maybe something fishy is going on.

Well, I’ll publish this here and PSI will likely copy it, and so I’ll let readers know if any personal lawsuits lie in waiting. Duhn-duhn-duhn.

Read more by Joe Postma at climateofsophistry.com

Trackback from your site.

Share via