Global Warming Defector Alleges Journal Rejected Publication of His Article In Order To Suppress "Unhelpful" Findings

Lennart Bengtsson, a meteorologist, recently announced that he had defected from the global warmist camp to the skeptical side of things.

Bengtsson: [I]t's essential to validate model results, especially when dealing with complex systems such as the climate. It's essential do so properly if such predictions are to be considered credible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You think there's a need for climate research to do some catching up in this regard?

Bengtsson: It is frustrating that climate science is not able to validate their simulations correctly. Since the end of the 20th century, the warming of the Earth has been much weaker than what climate models show.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But the IPCC report discusses these problems in detail.

Bengtsson: Yes, the scientific report does this but, at least in my view, not critically enough. It does not bring up the large difference between observational results and model simulations. I have full respect for the scientific work behind the IPCC reports but I do not appreciate the need for consensus. It is important, and I will say essential, that society and the political community is also made aware of areas where consensus does not exist. To aim for a simplistic course of action in an area that is as complex and as incompletely understood as the climate system does not make sense at all in my opinion.

And now he alleges a "McCarthyist" exclusion of true-but-"less than helpful" articles about global warming.

Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of five authors of the study, said he suspected that intolerance of dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being published.

‘The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist,’ he told the Times.
Prof Bengtsson’s paper suggests that the Earth’s environment might be much less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought.

...

The five contributing scientists submitted the paper to Environmental Research Letters – a highly regarded journal – but were told it had been rejected. A scientist asked by the journal to assess the paper under the peer review process reportedly wrote: ‘It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.’

Prof Bengtsson, 79, said it was ‘utterly unacceptable’ to advise against publishing a paper on the political grounds.

The warmists assume a high degree of sensitivity to small changes in the carbon dioxide fraction in the atmosphere (which is somewhere around 400 parts per million).

It's this "sensitivity" factor that all of their models are designed to establish-- increase carbon dioxide by 50%, from 400 to 600 parts per million, and it will create runaway "feedback" in which more carbon in the air causes more carbon to be released from the ocean, and the like.

This "sensitivity" factor is both the most important part of their claims and, simultaneously, the one they have the least evidence for. Thus all the "models," to establish via computer programs what isn't (and perhaps cannot be) observed empirically.

posted by Ace at 03:10 PM

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