Submitted by Ken Watts
(It can be fun to look at different opinions on climate change. The following is a small excerpt from an Epoch Times article.) “Mr. John Clauser, who recently became a recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to quantum mechanics, holds degrees from Caltech and Columbia University. He served in roles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, he was honored with a portion of the Wolf Prize in Physics. Recently, Mr. Clauser joined another Nobel laureate and over 1,600 professionals in signing the World Climate Declaration (WCD) organized by Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL). This declaration asserts that there is no "climate emergency," that climate change science is not conclusive, and that the earth's history over thousands of years shows a consistently changing climate. The WCD highlights the limitations of current climate models, stating they overemphasize the impact of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). "In addition, [climate models] ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial," the WCD reads, in part. The declaration further notes that both natural and human activities contribute to climate change and the actual warming observed is less than as predicted by the climate models, revealing our incomplete understanding of climate change. Prominent climate reports, such as those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society, emphasize the role of CO2 but miss the mark on the critical role of clouds in the climate system, according to Mr. Clauser. "And so I read all of the various IPCC reports, National Academy reports on this," he continued. "As a physicist, I'd worked at some excellent institutions— Caltech, Columbia, Cal Berkeley—where very careful science needed to be done. And reading these reports, I was appalled at how sloppy the work was. And in particular, it was very obvious, even in the earliest reports, and all carried on through to the present, that clouds were not at all understood. ... It's just simply bad science." Mr. Clauser said he believes he has identified a significant oversight in prevailing climate models. "I believe I have the missing piece of the puzzle that has been left out in virtually all of these computer programs," he stated. "And that is the effect of clouds." While many theories of anthropogenic climate change focus primarily on the impact of human-produced CO2, Mr. Clauser argues that these models overlook the significance of cloud dynamics. He referenced the 2003 National Academy report, which, he said, "totally admitted" its lack of understanding about clouds, and made "a whole series of mistaken statements regarding the effects of clouds." Clouds play a paramount role in regulating the Earth's temperature, serving as a "cloud-sunlight-reflectivity thermostat" that "controls the climate, controls the temperature of the earth, and stabilizes it very powerfully and very dramatically," asserts Mr. Clauser. With two-thirds of the Earth being oceanic, the ocean becomes instrumental in cloud formation, he said. Minimal clouds result in heightened sunlight exposure to the ocean, triggering increased evaporation and subsequent cloud formation, resulting in more clouds. On the contrary, abundant clouds reduce this sunlight, thus curbing evaporation rates and cloud formation, resulting in fewer clouds, Mr. Clauser explains. This balance acts like a natural thermostat for the earth's temperature, he said. Mr. Clauser contends that this "thermostat" mechanism has a vastly greater influence on Earth's temperature than the effect of CO2 or methane. He presented to The Epoch Times preliminary calculations that suggest that the impact of this cloud-reflectivity mechanism might overshadow CO2's influence by more than 100 or even 200 times.”
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Making Sense of It All
This blog will help you make sense out of all the information on the website, how it affects IP, our history, and how efforts continue to put IP into various forms of conservation status. Archives
May 2023
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