Professor Richard Lindzen, Phd. -- A summary of his lecture at GWPF

A speech by 

MIT Professor emeritus, 

Richard Lindzen, 

a former participant 

in the UN's IPCC, 

who resigned. 

Atmospheric physicist 

Richard Lindzen 

was the Alfred P. Sloan 

Professor of Meteorology 

at MIT, working in 

dynamic meteorology, 

atmospheric tides, 

ozone photochemistry, 

quasi-biennial oscillation, and 

the Iris hypothesis. 

A summary of

his key points,

with the complex

"PhD sentences",

formatted for 

easier reading

on a smart phone:

“While some 

might maintain 

that ignorance 

of physics 

does not impact 

political ability, 

it most certainly 

impacts 

the ability of

non-scientific 

politicians 

to deal with 

nominally 

science-based 

issues. 

The gap 

in understanding 

is also an invitation 

to malicious 

exploitation. 

Given the 

democratic necessity 

for non-scientists 

to take positions 

on scientific problems, 

belief and faith 

inevitably replace 

understanding, 

through 

trivially 

oversimplified 

false narratives 

serving to reassure 

the non-scientists 

that they are not 

totally without 

scientific 
‘understanding.’ 

The issue 

of global warming 

offers 

numerous examples 

of all of this.”

Lindzen describes 

Earth’s climate system 

as the circulation of 

two turbulent fluids 

-- the atmosphere 

and the oceans.

They interact 

with each other

and the land, 

made turbulent 

by the rotation 

of the globe,

exposing 
the fluids 

and the land 

to uneven heating 

by the sun. 

These 

circulations 

carry heat 

to and from 

the surface, 

so the 

surface itself 

is never 

in equilibrium 

with space. 

There is never 

an exact balance 

between 

incoming heat 

from the sun 

and outgoing

infrared radiation 

generated by 

the Earth

"cooling off". 

Heat is always

being stored in, 

and released 
from the oceans, 

causing 

surface 

temperatures

to vary. 

Air flows 

interact with 

uneven 

topography 

of the land, 

playing 

a major role in

regional climates. 

These air-flows 

generate 

fluid waves 

that alter climate 

at distant locations. 

The atmosphere

includes water 

in the liquid, solid 

and vapor phases.

Changes in phase 

have vast impacts 

on energy flows. 

Quote on the

greenhouse effect:

“...that the two 

most important 

greenhouse 

substances, 

by far, 

are water vapor 

and clouds. 

Clouds are also 

important reflectors 

of sunlight.

“The unit 

for describing 

energy flows 

is watts per 
square meter. 

The energy budget 

of this system 

involves 

the absorption 

and reemission

of about 

200 watts 

per square meter. 

Doubling CO2 

involves a 

2% perturbation 

to this budget. 

(and) so do 

minor changes 

in clouds 

and other features, 

and such changes 

are common ...” 

"Consider 

the massive 

heterogeneity 

and complexity 

of the system, 

and the variety 

of mechanisms 

of variability 

as we consider 

the current narrative 

that is commonly 
presented 

as ‘settled science.”

“Now 
here is the 

currently 
popular narrative 

concerning 
this system: 

The climate, 

a complex 

multifactor system, 

can be summarized 

in just one variable, 

the globally averaged 

temperature change, 

and is primarily controlled 

by the 1-2% perturbation 

in the energy budget 

due to a single variable 

– carbon dioxide -- 

among many variables 

of comparable importance.

“This is 

an extraordinary 

pair of claims 

based on reasoning 

that borders on 

magical thinking. 

It is, however, 

the narrative 

that has been 

widely accepted, 

even among 

many skeptics."

“Many 
politicians ...

endorse 
carbon dioxide 

as the 
controlling variable. 

And although 

mankind’s 

CO2 contributions 

are small 

-- compared to 

the much larger 

but uncertain 

natural exchanges 

with both the oceans 

and the biosphere -- 

they are confident 

that they know 

precisely 

what policies 

to implement 

in order to control 

CO2 levels.” 

“At the heart 

of this nonsense 

is the failure 

to distinguish 

weather from climate. 

Thus, global warming 

refers to the welcome 
increase in temperature 

of about +1 degree C.

since the end 

of the Little Ice Age, 

about 200 years ago. 

On the other hand, 

weather extremes 

involve temperature 
changes 

of the order 

of 20 degrees C. 

Such large changes 

have a profoundly 

different origin 

from global warming. 

Crudely speaking, 

they result from 

winds carrying 

warm and cold air, 

from distant regions 

that are very warm 

or very cold. 

These winds 

are in the form 

of waves. 

The strength 

of these waves 

depends on 
the temperature 

difference 

between the tropics 

and the Arctic 

(with larger differences 

leading to stronger waves). 

Now, the models 

used to project 

global warming 

all predict this

temperature 
difference 

will decrease, 

rather than 
increase. 

Thus, 
the increase 

in temperature 
extremes 

would best 
support 

the idea of 

global cooling, 

rather than 

global warming. 

However, 

scientifically 

illiterate people 

seem incapable 

of distinguishing 

global warming 

of climate 
from 
temperature 

extremes 

due to weather. 

... there doesn’t 
really seem to be 

any discernible trend 

in weather extremes.”

Lindzen concludes:

“None of the 
proposed policies 

will have much impact 

on greenhouse gases. 

Thus we will 

continue to benefit 

from the one thing 

that can be 

clearly attributed 

to elevated 

carbon dioxide: 

namely, 

its effective role 

as a plant fertilizer, 

and reducer of 

the drought 

vulnerability 

of plants. 

Meanwhile, 

the IPCC 

is claiming 

that we 

need to 

prevent another 

+0.5 degrees C.

of warming, 

although 

the +1 degree C.

that has occurred 

so far, has been 

accompanied by 

the greatest increase 

in human welfare 

in history. 

As we used to say 

in my childhood home 

of the Bronx (NYC): 

‘Go figure’”

Your Editor 
needs to add:

The UN's IPCC 

claims its process

is real science

... but that does not 

make it real science.

It is actually 

"political junk science",

which is the ise of 

'climate astrology'

to make false predictions 

of doom to scare people,

which makes them

much more likely to 

accept increased 

government power

to 'manage' 
the economy,
( AND SAVE THE PLANET,
WHICH DOESN'T NEED SAVING  ! )
better known
as socialism.

Modern "climate science"

is 99% politics,

and 1% real science.