A Critique of Geological Society of London Scientific Statement On Climate
On Dec. 28, 2020, the Journal of the Geological Society published “Geological Society of London Scientific Statement: what the geological record tells us about our present and future climate” by Lear et al., (2020). The following is a damning critique of that work contributed by Roger Higgs.
Five points that most readers of the article lack the background to detect, and that the MSM will certainly not publicize, are its bias, disingenuity, dishonesty (in one instance), selectivity, and alarmism.
1) Bias and self-interest
The sixteen co-authors are, without exception, academics. Most of these people, unconsciously or not, are biased by strong vested interests (career, salary, research grants, credibility, publication history) in perpetuating the supposition that Anthropogenic (Man-Made) Global Warming (AGW) by industrial CO2 emissions is correct . They are all aboard the United Nations-funded AGW gravy train.
Moreover, despite the crucial importance of the AGW debate (or lack of) to human society, the journal appointed just two reviewers to assess this article. Both reviewers are likewise academics; both have published their belief that CO2 controls climate; and one of them is at the same university, in the same department, as the article’s lead author (who, incidentally, has three of her own papers cited in the article). Most irregularly, the review process was completed extremely quickly: the manuscript was rushed through from receipt to acceptance in just 10 days (7th-17th December).
2 ) Disingenuity
Already, in the second sentence, disingenuity is evident …
“Observations from the geological record show that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are now at their highest levels in at least the past 3 million years.”
Yes, but Earth is 1,500 (sic) times older than this (4.5 billion years), as any geologist knows; and CO2 in the past has been more than 10 times higher (> 4, 000ppm) than today’s c.400ppm, again as any geologist knows.
A second example …
‘climate models are based on fundamental physical principles’
This lends unwarranted credibility to computer models, failing to mention the multiple (stacked) assumptions that go into them, and the extreme uncertainty about feedbacks, eg the net effect, positive or negative, of cloud feedbacks is essentially guesswork. The saying ‘garbage in, garbage out’ was never truer than when applied to climate models.
3) Dishonesty
In the third sentence …
‘Furthermore, the current speed of human-induced CO2 change and warming …’
No informed person disputes the first part: since the c.1850 start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been causing atmospheric CO2 to increase, and rapidly, by geological standards. But hundreds of scientists publically ‘deny’ the second part, that CO2 causes problematic warming, if any warming at all …
https://clintel.org
… and probably tens of thousands or more deny it privately. The ‘deniers’ include a Geological Society ‘breakaway’ group of dozens of CO2 defenders, upset at the Society Executive’s roughshod anti-CO2 declarations on behalf of the Society’s 12,000 members, without troubling to ask their opinion …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/29/a-second-letter-to-the-geological-society/
4) Selectivity and omissions
The article selectively cites only publications supporting AGW. Among other glaring omissions is Svensmark’s well known and breathtakingly elegant theory linking climate to cloudiness governed by cosmic-ray variations controlled by the Sun’s varying magnetic output (which more than doubled in the 20th Century, peaking in 1991, reaching its strongest ‘Grand Maximum’ in more than 10,000 years [not mentioned], as opposed to Total Solar Irradiance (mentioned), which varies in step with magnetic flux, but whose variations are tiny).
Also completely ignored is ocean thermal inertia, sometimes called ‘ocean memory’. The IPCC is well aware that “The ocean’s huge heat capacity and slow circulation lend it significant thermal inertia” , causing a lag of many decades between changes in any ‘forcing’ agent (eg solar-magnetic flux, above) and the resulting change in ocean temperature (hence global air temp.). Thanks to ocean lag, modern warming (since 1910) will continue for several more decades beyond the 1991 solar-magnetic peak. Global cooling will then begin, driven by the Sun’s continuing decline since 1991 .
Likewise, there’s no mention of the famous Fairbridge (1961) sea-level curve, with its global compilation of geological evidence , of the last 10,000 years, for Sun-driven meter-scale oscillations of sea level, involving several rises (and falls) of 1-3 meters, each of them in <200 years, ie peak rate of > 2cm / yr, far exceeding today’s trivial 3mm / yr, and long before man’s industrial CO2 emissions began. Fairbridge’s work is supported by copious geological and archaeological evidence from around the world, published by dozens of later authors (my manuscript in preparation).
Another omission is that, while misleading the public (and other scientists, and their own students) by portraying the deeply flawed AGW hypothesis as proven, these 16 academics fail to mention the enormously beneficial effect of the man-made rapid rise in CO2, ie Earth is greening before our very eyes (obvious on satellite images, and to any gardener), thanks to plant-fertilization by CO2 (enhanced photosynthesis), raising hopes of feeding all 8 billion of us.
5) Alarmist / emotive language
Unscientifically, the Geological Society article frequently resorts to alarmist and emotive language. For example, “our planet” appears three times; “tipping point” seven; ocean “acidification” (in truth a very slight pH decrease toward neutral 7, ie still basic, not acid at all) five; and “climate emergency” three. Attenborough and Greta would approve.
The alarmism continues to the very last sentence …
“Geoscientists will play an increasingly important role in the transition to a low carbon, green economy which is necessary to prevent a worsening of the climate emergency ” (my emphasis).
What “climate emergency”? What “worsening”?
Conclusion
In stark contrast to the Geological Society article, here’s a recent (Dec 2020) one-page, three minute, honest summary of CO2 science, by an impartial geologist (me – Roger Higgs) …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347356327
(PDF) CO2 climate innocence in 500 words: paleoclimatological-astrophysical literature synthesis by an impartial geologist
PDF | Has the IPCC made the most expensive ($$ trillions) scientific blunder of all time by portraying life-giving CO2 as a ‘pollutant’? Yes.
Now you know that there is no need to “mitigate” (used twice) CO2 emissions or warming (even if the latter were possible). Governments are squandering trillions of taxpayer dollars for nothing. Warming should be celebrated while it lasts; the coming cold is the killer.
True, the current rate of CO2 increase is probably unprecedented. But there is no evidence that this will be problematic. When man finally replaces fossil fuels (hopefully soon, to eliminate real pollution of city air by vehicle emissions) with the only viable alternative, nuclear (hopefully fusion soon), atmospheric CO2 will inevitably stabilize (stop increasing), moreover at a level nearer the well-known optimum for plants of c.1,000ppm (not mentioned in the Geological Society article).
Lastly, I note that the article mentions the IPCC (approvingly) six times in the text (and fig. 2); and includes three IPCC publications in the reference list. The United Nations (UN) is mentioned twice. Both the IPCC and the now notorious World Health Organization are agencies of the UN, whose aim of global governance (control) has lately become even more obvious. With supreme irony, the IPCC shuns, of all people, geologists …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331974185
(PDF) IPCC next climate assessment report (AR6, due 2022) – 784 authors but again no geologists – ResearchGate
GEOCLASTICA LTD TECHNICAL NOTE 2019-10. One single slide, a 5-minute read. One arguable exception to my claim of no geologists in IPCC’s writing team for its upcoming report is a widely respected …
It’s sad and shocking but hardly surprising that ‘science’ and its reputation among the public have sunk so low.
Read more at blog.friendsofscience.org
About Dr Roger Higgs: Roger holds a Doctor of Philosophy (geology, Oxford, 1982-86) and heads Geoclastica Ltd. He has spent the last 5 years researching on ALL scientific aspects of Earth’s endless climate change, including geology (his own field), astrophysics, oceanography & palaeoclimatology and is an avowed denier of the man-made global warming narrative.
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Alan
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I am pleased to see this nonsense reported and exposed, but is has the work been widely reported. I am more concerned about the recent Royal Institution Christmas lecture which continued the brainwashing of children and Attenborough’s latest series brainwashing adults and children. You should expose the issues in these programmes which will have been seen by millions, but you cannot reach the same audience and so it becomes pointless.
I fail to see how you can claim that the reputation of science is sinking in the mind of the general public when we have had at least 30 years of educated imbecility where the capability for rational thinking has been eliminated from the human mind. A majority now believe what they have been told to believe and the basis of the new belief system is fear. Nothing worse so well on the masses. They fear the climate and have been convinced that they are to blame. They fear a virus and are too afraid to have any human contact and is is because the believe the rubbish from models which are no better than fiddling around in animal entrails to predict the future, and the climate models are no better than witches doing their weather cooking. Humanity is insane.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Roger,
As you criticize others, a fact is that you just wrote: “In the third sentence …
‘Furthermore, the current speed of human-induced CO2 change and warming …’
No informed person disputes the first part.”
I suspect, but don’t know, that mining engineer from Australia (at the moment I cannot remember his name) might remind you of Henry’s Law. I remind you of the natural geothermal activity of the past which we still see occurring. Do we really know what is occurring at the bottoms of oceans today or during the past, say 15000 years? One has to be careful what one states that one really does not ‘know’.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Koen Vogel
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Hi Roger. It would be great if your outrage would gather some momentum among other society members. Perhaps you can highlight your concerns when your leaders are (s)elected. I personally know many geologists who don’t share the IPCC’s beliefs, yet the leaders of our scientific community invariably do. I fully agree that our reputation has sunk low, as any scientific debate on the merits of the IPCC report gets quashed before it even can start. The statement that ‘climate models are based on fundamental physical principles’ is laughable: the IPCC CO2 attribution doesn’t follow the scientific method. A fundamental physical principle is that radiative forcing due to GHG is low when the Earth’s heat emissions are low, yet the Arctic is heating more than other regions, and during the winter. You can find a more thorough debunking of their methodology and details of their scientific perfidy here: https://youtu.be/YZIljLpHkLM.
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Kate Eagles
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So good to read this article, full of rational thinking and thorough debunking of the AGW nonsense espoused by the IPCC and world “leaders”. Jerry Krause, I believe you may be thinking of the late, eminently respected Bob Carter when you said “mining engineer from Australia”.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Kate,
No, I now remember his name: Robert Beatty’. But I will try to learn about Bob Carter and what he stated.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Kate,
As I read about Bob Carter, I read the word–argued–several times.
I do not believe that SCIENCE is about argument. So I try to cite evidence (observations or measurements) which refute the prediction of Arrhenius that the atmosphere’s temperature would be about 33C less than it is measured to be if not the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This easily (simply) measured evidence is that the measured temperature of the atmosphere has never been less that the atmosphere’s dew point temperature measure at the same place and time.
Hence, the measured temperature of atmosphere can never, for any reason, be less than that commonly measured. And this is no argument; it is an observed fact–a scientific law–which needs no explanation.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James Pindell
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It’s heartening to read Roger’s piece and also the comments generated, perhaps wisdom and “real science” will eventually prevail again. Presently, we are shamed if we ignore science, yet the crime rests upon those who have ignored science while claiming that they practice it (e.g., IPCC). Anyone still working understandably lacks the time to get seriously involved in righting the wrongs, so those who know enough about particular elements of the debate must speak up whenever they can (numerous demonstrations that the greenhouse effect is tiny). This unfortunately does not seem to happen enough.
The angle for research that intrigues me most is that water has a specific heat over four times that of air, yet we are told that atmospheric CO2 is the cause of global warming, both atmospheric and oceanic. Is there not a gigantic disconnect in any theory requiring the air to warm the water? Surely the reverse is true… ie., the oceanic water (71% of the planet’s surface) warms the air, like underfloor heating, itself warmed since 1850 (end of the Little Ice Age) perhaps by a natural reduction in cloud density (Svensmark). Why do the CO2 alarmists think a return to the Little Ice Age should be considered “normal”, and something we should want to do? Scariest of all are “scientists” whose fear has led to paranoia, proposing the scattering glass shards across the arctic and in space to reflect sunlight back to space, potentially triggering a deepening of the ice age. A small forest fire erupted near my UK home last summer, caused by broken glass focusing the sun’s rays onto plant material. Just imagine.
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Philip Mulholland
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As a Fellow of the Society and also a party to this discussion I wholeheartedly endorse what Roger has written. My knowledge of this subject extends back to my university degree in Environmental Science in the early 1970s, a course that was designed by the renowned climatologist Professor Gordon Manley.
I therefore know the true origin of the concept of the greenhouse gas heating of the atmosphere. It is a mathematical fudge used to correct an error in the fundamental postulate of the model at the dead heart of climate science, namely that the intercepted sunlight must be diluted by a factor of 4. The direct consequence of this is that sunlight power appears to be too weak to create the weather processes so abundantly apparent in the meteorology of the day lit hemisphere.
This error in the fundamental postulate is equivalent to the Earth centred Ptolemaic model of the Solar System, which itself appears to be valid because it matches observation, but requires the special pleading of an epicycle to account for the wandering motion of the planets. Like Ptolemy’s model, greenhouse gas heating is an epicycle used to correct a fundamental mistake, and while the concept appears sound it can be discounted as an explanation for climate as the Sun indisputably never shines onto the ground surface at night.
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