Leading Climate Scientist Defects: No Longer Believes in the 'Consensus'

James DelingpoleBy James Delingpole –

One of the world’s most eminent climate scientists – for several decades a warmist – has defected to the climate sceptic camp.

Lennart Bengtsson – a Swedish climatologist, meteorologist, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and winner, in 2006, of the 51st IMO Prize of the World Meteorological Organization for his pioneering work in numerical weather prediction – is by some margin the most distinguished scientist to change sides.

For most of his career, he has been a prominent member of the warmist establishment, subscribing to all its articles of faith – up to and including the belief that Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick was a scientifically plausible assessment of the relationship between CO2 emissions and global mean temperature.

Read the rest at Breitbart.

58 Responses to Leading Climate Scientist Defects: No Longer Believes in the 'Consensus'

  1. Neilio May 8, 2014 at 4:03 pm #

    Wow, what he says is just right on.

    “I do not think it makes sense to think for our generation that we will solve the problems of the future – for the simple reason that we do not know future problems. Let us do a thought experiment and go back to May 1914: Let us try from the perspective of that point in time to make an action plan for the next hundred years – it would be pointless!”

    I don’t think truer words have ever been spoken.

  2. jamsey boy May 9, 2014 at 9:41 am #

    Glad to have him on board. This adds to my list of qualified accademics that believe the same as me. Its funny how few experts warmists know of when they debate me. None or one is the norm which never stacks up so they always resort to “the worlds 2,500 top scientists”. Laughable

    • Neilio May 9, 2014 at 2:48 pm #

      I thought it was 97% of the entire world of scientists agreed?!? Botanists, zoologists, oceanographers, and theoretical computer scientists alike! Throw in a couple of origami artists, and celebrity chefs, and you’ve got a consensus! 🙂

    • Fietser May 25, 2014 at 6:10 am #

      So you’re a believer. How do you call this religion of yours?

      • Neilio May 31, 2014 at 10:44 pm #

        Huh? Describe my religion for me because I have no idea what the heck you mean by that. If anyone has a religion it is you and people who believe what you do. So there are people who believe in man made globalwarmingclimatechangedisruption, and heretics like me who say it is bunk. Who’s beliefs are akin to a religion, mine or yours?

  3. fed up! May 15, 2014 at 3:41 pm #

    Ok. Its all about money. Carbon foot print tax, D.E.F exhaust fluid for semis. Exc. You would half to be retarted to believe there global warming. No one bought there global warming bull s**t. Do they realy think people are going to believe that cows farting is making it get warmer ? Realy ??? Wow now global warming is making it get hotter. What next?

  4. Rob N. Hood May 16, 2014 at 4:16 pm #

    Oh, you pay a “carbon foot tax”?! Huh, and so how much is yours exactly? Do you realize the amount of money the fossil fuel industry commands, including its international power and the expensive wars fought over it that you actually are paying for, not just in your fevered mind? Nah, that can’t be a factor in any of this, that would just be silly talk!

  5. Fietser May 18, 2014 at 3:34 pm #

    Sounds like a scientist that has had it’s days. His latest paper was rejected as it was full of errors. But what can you expect from someone at the age of 78? I’m happy for the contrarion community as it will probably lift their scientific level.

    • Neilio May 18, 2014 at 4:04 pm #

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=6557124
      “In its story of 16 May 2014, The Times reported that a paper Bengtsson had submitted to Environmental Research Letters in February disputing assessments of climate sensitivity had been rejected for what Bengtsson called “activist” reasons. The publishers, the Institute of Physics, stated that the paper “which was the subject of this morning’s front page story of The Times, contained errors, in our view did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore could not be published in the journal.” They said that “The comments taken from the referee reports were taken out of context and therefore, in the interests of transparency, we have worked with the reviewers to make the full reports available”, and put online the referee reports from mid March when the paper had been rejected. Later that day, Bengtsson issued a statement that “I do not believe there is any systematic ‘cover-up’ of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics’ work is being ‘deliberately suppressed’, as the Times front page suggests. I am worried by a wider trend that science is gradually being influenced by political views”.

      Do you know what the “Errors” were? Here is a quote from one of the reviewers.

      “They wrote: “The comparison between observation based estimates of [warming] … and model-based estimates is comparing apples and pears, as the models are calculating true global means, whereas the observations have limited coverage.”-”

      That’s right, they were comparing observations to models. That was the error. I don’t know about you but this sounds like hogwash to me. “The models are calculating true global means”? Really? And “observations have limited coverage”? What? Did I hear that right? What are the models based upon if not past observations? I can’t believe they said that in a serious manner because it is complete horse hockey.

      • Fietser May 19, 2014 at 9:29 am #

        It’s probably not the first time that something sounds like hogwash to you.

        • Neilio May 19, 2014 at 1:36 pm #

          That’s true. Like everything you’ve posted… for example.

          • Fietser May 20, 2014 at 12:33 pm #

            It doesn’t matter what I say and it doesn’t matter that you don’t understand. You don’t have to understand as you’re not a scientist, you simply have to trust them. They understand things better than you do.

          • Neilio May 20, 2014 at 11:34 pm #

            Harvard researcher John Darsee. Cardiac-radiology specialist Robert Slutsky. William McBride. Piltdown man. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. Paul Brodeur. The Mars Climate Orbiter. Killer bees. Chonosuke Okamura. MTBE. Y2K. Even Darwin, and Einstein got some things wrong.
            Look up these dazzling gems of scientific achievement blunder. I should should trust them? You can trust them, be my guest. I think skepticism is healthy.

  6. Neilio May 19, 2014 at 7:11 pm #

    Hey, this is not anything to do with the article directly but I think it should be required reading for all.

    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3974

    But a lot of it was more general. I’ve seen a lot of “scientific” panics ginned up from nonexistent or scanty evidence over the last several decades. There’s a pattern to these episodes, a characteristic stench that becomes recognizable after a while. I’ll describe some of the indicia, which I’ve culled from episodes like the Alar scare, the ozone-hole brouhaha, the AIDS panic (are you old enough to remember when it was predicted to become endemic among heterosexuals in the U.S.?), acid rain, and even the great global cooling flap of 1975.

    So. Here is a non-exclusive list of seven eight symptoms to watch out for:

    Science by press release. It’s never, ever a good sign when ‘scientists’ announce dramatic results before publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. When this happens, we generally find out later that they were either self-deluded or functioning as political animals rather than scientists. This generalizes a bit; one should also be suspicious of, for example, science first broadcast by congressional testimony or talk-show circuit.

    Rhetoric that mixes science with the tropes of eschatological panic. When the argument for theory X slides from “theory X is supported by evidence” to “a terrible catastrophe looms over us if theory X is true, therefore we cannot risk disbelieving it”, you can be pretty sure that X is junk science. Consciously or unconsciously, advocates who say these sorts of things are trying to panic the herd into stampeding rather than focusing on the quality of the evidence for theory X.

    (Get the rest at the link above.)

    • Fietser May 20, 2014 at 12:44 pm #

      Wow, that is really good stuff. Now anything can be classified as junk science.

      • Neilio May 20, 2014 at 11:38 pm #

        See that’s just it. Most of it is. You’re just too gullible, too willing to believe it that you buy it in bulk, and swallow it whole.

        • Fietser May 25, 2014 at 6:05 am #

          So who decides if it’s junk or not, you?

          • Neilio May 31, 2014 at 7:05 pm #

            No, that would be reality, and truth. Click the link and read the whole thing. He spells it out fairly clearly. Are you trying to be obtuse, or is that just a norm for you?

  7. Neilio May 21, 2014 at 5:37 pm #

    I have a question for all of you who are not skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, climate change, global climate disruption, whatever you want to call it. Here goes…
    If Man never made it to this point, and the Earth was completely unspoiled by a sentient species, no unnatural fires, no burning of fossil fuels, no industry, no roads, no buildings, no SUV’s, nothing but nature, what would the climate be doing differently right now?
    Ok, two questions. What would it be doing differently right now? And, how can you prove what it should be doing right now without our influence?

    • CJ June 3, 2014 at 12:44 am #

      @Neilio

      Neilio answer me this question, do you have any scientific degree relating to this field? how about even taken a class in college? All of your sources are complete trash and not peer reviewed. Did you really cite forbes and wiki? That is hilarious. Your non-related link is ridiculous, he writes very well which convinces people such as yourself that he knows what he speaks. I personally know and work with Peter Clark (lead author of the CH.14 in the 2014 IPCC report) and can tell you this is not BS like you seem to believe. I guess ignorance is bliss, enjoy your conspiracy theorist life.

      • Neilio June 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm #

        First of all, when replying to a post you should answer the question I posited in the post. Not ask me a question about my background. If you read this blog for long enough you would know the answer to your question. Besides, would a lack of a science degree invalidate my question?
        Now, back to my question.

        What would the climate be doing differently right now, if Man was not here?

        If you can answer that maybe I will answer your questions. If not go cry on Peter Clark’s shoulder, since you’re such pals with him. That’s actually pretty pathetic. I never said anything about Dr. Clark. Why are you dropping his name? I don’t care who you are, or who he is to you.

        • Neilio June 4, 2014 at 6:28 pm #

          I often wonder just how great peer review is. You now, and especially Feister, keep discounting articles and posts because they are not peer reviewed. That’s ok, but the problem is that this blog is an opinion blog, not a scientific blog. If it were then yes, everything should be “peer reviewed”, or otherwise endorsed by scientific rigor. But it is not, so anything goes here. Now if you want a science blog you can take your mouse and navigate away from this blog. Have a nice day. But you don’t! So it makes me think that you feel threatened by us lil’ ol’ opinionated “deniers”. If you were confident, why do you feel threatened? Why must you come here and browbeat us? But, I digress. There are problems with peer review itself, and you can see them here; http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/problems_with_p056241.html

  8. Shanar May 22, 2014 at 9:56 am #

    The amount of GHG in the athmosphere is measurable and it’s a fact that they are increasing (you CANNOT deny this without looking like a caveman). It is also a fact that agriculture, industry, fossil fuel burning etc. releases GHG in the atmosphere. So asking what the world would look like if Man was not polluting it is like asking how your plant at home would look like if you hadn’t torn it to pieces. It would probably look like a green, healthy plant.

    • Neilio May 22, 2014 at 6:37 pm #

      So are you saying that without us there would be none, or never be any increases in GHG’s from natural sources, i.e. natural fires, volcanoes, ocean outgasing, etc? It does not answer the question. I didn’t ask what the world would probably look like, I asked what would the climate be doing differently without us. It should be easy to answer! We are constantly told what AGW is doing, so just subtract what AGW is doing and you’ll have the answer. Right? Simple.

      • Neilio May 23, 2014 at 6:08 am #

        No other takers? Come on, really? I thought more of you would want to tell us about how much cooler it’d be. How we wouldn’t have extreme weather events. How there wouldn’t be polar vortexes, sea level rise, changes in the ocean’s pH level, retreating glaciers, or anything ever associated, or tenuously linked to anthropogenic global warming. No species extinction, pine beetle infestations, Polar Bear populations would be booming. Right?
        Well the problem is that you can’t say any of those things because there is no way to measure what effect anthropogenic production of GHG’s has had on any of it. Is there?

    • Neilio May 24, 2014 at 5:05 am #

      Even though I thought your response did not give the answer(s) I was looking for Shanar, I want to thank you for giving it a shot. So far, you’re the only one.

    • John M July 1, 2014 at 11:19 am #

      Humans and other animals exhaling and cows farting also produce GHG.

      What do you propose we do about that?

      • Neilio July 2, 2014 at 5:53 am #

        That’s simple, a personal CO2 sequestration bag! Just strap it over your mouth and nose, and you’re set! Once the bag is full, you can just take the train and drop it off at your local EPA CO2 collection center. Fun eh?

    • viktoree July 18, 2014 at 1:25 pm #

      It is a fact that dihydrogen monoxide in relatively small amounts, if inhaled will kill a person instantly? It is corrosive and can cause severe electrical short circuits?
      Just because you define Carbon Dioxide as an evil does not make it evil. We breathe out Carbon Dioxide. Many processes natural and man-made generate certain combinations of gases. Do you think it is all bad?
      If the idiots who want to destroy capitalism are ignored…we could actually focus on curbing pollutants that are actually dangerous, rather than creating false boogey-men doomsday scenarios to manipulate the population.
      1. The amount of GHG in the athmosphere is measurable
      A. duh
      2. it’s a fact that they are increasing
      A. Everywhere? at what agreed upon rate? Do you mean the models predict this? What are the lifecycles of the various atmospheric gasses…have they always gone up? Or are there fluctuations?
      3.It is also a fact that agriculture, industry, fossil fuel burning etc. releases GHG in the atmosphere
      A. All life processes and many inorganic processes involve intake and release of gases among other things.
      You hate humanity and capitalism…you can admit it…it is ok

  9. Rob N. Hood May 24, 2014 at 7:24 am #

    I thought her response was very good. Anyway, you deniers like to talk about money wasting, etc. Try this on for size:

    Though the military assistance freeze to Egypt was announced last October, the US has continued to send the Egyptian military millions of dollars worth of parts for tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and guided missiles. More specifically, the US sent $44 million worth of guided missiles in February; $24.9 million worth of parts for armored fighting vehicles, including crucial parts like cannons and gun mounts for M1 Abram tanks from October to February; $5 million worth of parts for Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jet parts. Significantly, M1 Abramtanks, F-16fighter jets and Apaches were all explicitly said to be suspended in the State Department’s arms freeze statement. And that’s just part of the “aid”.

    • Neilio May 24, 2014 at 5:14 pm #

      Whoa there! Is there a point about global warming in there somewhere? I don’t see one, but I could just be in denial… I guess. But about what you’re saying, I’ll just ask; who is the commander in chief? Ask the white house about it. Or do you think he doesn’t know, like he didn’t know about the VA, Fast & Furious, Benghazi,…. everything else?

      • Rob N. Hood May 26, 2014 at 7:38 am #

        Obama is about as militaristic as all Presidents have been, and are pre-selected to be. Plus their terms are limited the people running the MIC mostly do not such constraints. Your childish finger-pointing to what are either non-issues or long standing problems is silly. The VA’s problems are so entrenched and enabled by career militarists your point about that is moot. Remember the Walter Reed scandal when W was Prez? We libs didn’t just blame him (it was his war that vets were coming back from needing better services than was available) we blamed the VA medical system and Walter Reed too. You should actually like all our Presidents Dem or Repub, they all support the MIC. And waste much tax dollars in the process, to continuing enriching the few, the proud and the wealthy.

        • Neilio June 5, 2014 at 8:11 pm #

          Well there is just the little matter of O campaigning on fixing the VA Bro. It was a campaign issue. Dismiss it all you want but he said he was going to fix it and he hasn’t done anything. So………..

  10. Neilio May 24, 2014 at 6:15 pm #

    I just want to wish everyone a happy memorial day. Have fun, enjoy yourself, but also say a thank you for all of those who have fallen in the service of this great country of ours.

  11. Fietser May 25, 2014 at 6:08 am #

    Does anybody here know of peer-reviewed papers in the last year proving global warming is a scam? I haven’t seen them.

  12. Ian Thomson May 27, 2014 at 4:39 am #

    One only needs to go to the following link and check out the Vostok Ice Core historical carbon dioxide and temperature graph from Antarctica (bottom right of the page and click to expand it) to realize that climate change has happened before (an approximate 120k year cycle) and it will happen again and again and again…..

    The cause is astronomical people… Just like the moon, the earths position in space is cyclical and there isn’t anything we can do about it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

    • Neilio May 27, 2014 at 5:43 am #

      That’s great Ian. Thanks. Unfortunately facts and truth are meaningless to the warmers. Look at the post above this one. This guy Fiester has asked before for peer-reviewed papers proving global warming is a hoax. I have provided the same link twice now. People like him don’t want to see reality, and will not listen to reason.

    • Fietser May 30, 2014 at 7:38 am #

      You regard the wiki as peer reviewed? OMG.

      • Neilio May 31, 2014 at 9:26 pm #

        Milankovitch’s theory is not new.

        http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/a/milankovitch.htm
        “Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch developed the mathematical formulas upon which these orbital variations are based. He hypothesized that when some parts of the cyclic variations are combined and occur at the same time, they are responsible for major changes to the earth’s climate (even ice ages). Milankovitch estimated climatic fluctuations over the last 450,000 years and described cold and warm periods. Though he did his work in the first half of the 20th century, Milankovich’s results weren’t proven until the 1970s.

        A 1976 study, published in the journal Science examined deep-sea sediment cores and found that Milankovich’s theory corresponded to periods of climate change. Indeed, ice ages had occurred when the earth was going through different stages of orbital variation.”

        This from the wiki link that was posted above.

        “Not until the advent of deep-ocean cores and a seminal paper by Hays, Imbrie, and Shackleton, “Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages”, in Science (1976)[1] did the theory attain its present state.”

        So, you see that even though it’s wikipedia, it does mention the peer-reviewed study that is relevant. I think it is a little arrogant of you to just discount it without even looking at it. Even I actually watched the Cosmos-Neil Degrasse Tyson clip before I dismissed it. I mean really, the butterfly effect? Come on, you don’t actually buy that do you? And if I want to play by your rules I could say that it doesn’t matter what he says about it because he doesn’t have any peer-reviewed studies on climate, and he’s a cosmologist, not a climatologist. Is that not your criteria? Grow up.

  13. Dave May 30, 2014 at 12:33 am #

    I have a couple of questions for all your global warming believers …

    1. If humans are responsible for a significant portion of climate change then why is the planet Mars warming up also. How are we doing that?..

    2. If we are able to predict with accuracy what the temp will be in a hundred years then why can we not predict accurately what the temp will be in 30 days.

    Seems to me that if Mars is warming and we are not causing it yet on earth we are unable to tell you the temp in a month how in the world are we going to be able to say for certain that in hundred years we are all doomed…. Besides when I was in the 70’s all the experts told us another ice age was coming and I am still waiting for it…

    • Neilio May 30, 2014 at 5:52 am #

      Careful Dave, you may cause a momentary cognitive dissonance! 🙂

      • Rob N. Hood June 5, 2014 at 5:19 pm #

        Aww, look at Neil using big words. And Dave, your attempt at adding anything remotely pertinent is a fail.

    • Fietser May 30, 2014 at 7:41 am #

      Actually, weather is more difficult to predict than climate. Here’s a tutorial about the difference between weather and climate.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBdxDFpDp_k

      • Neilio May 30, 2014 at 6:53 pm #

        Oh, ok. So tell me if climate is so easy to predict, why is it that every single model in the last 20 years has been wrong? Well to answer that here’s a good starting point.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E-ryS5ehPo
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3M0EBsDnE
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSxubKfTBU

        The Freeman Dyson video is fascinating.

      • Neilio May 31, 2014 at 6:51 pm #

        Ok, in this video we have a renown physicist say;

        “Weather is chaotic. Which means that even a microscopic disturbance can lead to large scale changes. That’s why those ten day forecasts are useless. A butterfly flaps its wings in Bali, and six weeks later your outdoor wedding in Maine is ruined.”

        He’s talking about the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is complete fantasy. Can you explain to me how a butterfly in Bali flapping its wings can ruin an outdoor wedding six weeks later? How does that process work? And if that’s the case, what effect does a Condor flapping its wings have? Or what about an Elephant fart? I would think an Elephant fart displaces a lot more air than a butterfly flapping its wings. It is ridiculous.

  14. Rob N. Hood June 5, 2014 at 5:21 pm #

    Neil- settle down. He was obviously suing that as a metaphor, sheesh. OMG, you are very humorous, thank you.

    • Neilio June 6, 2014 at 6:18 am #

      Who’s suing who? Or is that a bit of dyslexia? And no, the way it was presented was as an explanation of how a chaotic system operates.

  15. Rob N. Hood June 6, 2014 at 2:16 pm #

    It’s a typo, you know, something really weird and hard to comprehend. You dissing people with dyslexia? I thought you were so concerned about offending people and all that. Oh wait, it was a metaphor… nevermind.

    • Neilio June 6, 2014 at 7:12 pm #

      Just a poke in the ribs, that didn’t knock the wind out of you did it?

  16. Russ June 6, 2014 at 3:50 pm #

    They can jump up and down about the sly is falling until their head’s burst. Two facts…
    1:The earth is still cooler now than the medieval warming period. (by a lot)
    2: The “consensus” is arguing over 3% of all co2 created on earth. That is MY 97% ill use to explain their idiocy.

    • Neilio June 6, 2014 at 6:53 pm #

      Russ I agree with you, but can you do me a favor and turn your spellchecker on? Being persuasive requires, at least, the appearance of competency. See, I spelled persuasive, and competency wrong but the spellchecker steered me right!

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