From the late 1970s until about 2006, I was a global warming stooge. I saw how the weather was warming in the southwest and in the UK. As much as I like to make fun of Viner, I completely bought off on the idea that snow was a thing of the past in England. The idea that increasing greenhouse gases raises the temperature, seemed quite reasonable as a hypothesis.
In the autumn of 2006, I started noticing that the weather was getting noticeably cooler again. I began to research the quantitative aspects of Hansen’s theories – going straight to the source of NCAR’s radiative transfer models. What immediately became obvious is that the impact of rising CO2 is very small, and that Hansen’s theories are entirely based on an irrational view of the world.
Hansen believes that the system is inherently unstable, and that tiny radiative transfer changes greatly amplify – except in the case of solar irradiation. He ignores that case because it wrecks his theory.
The real world is buffered – i.e dominated by negative feedback. The bottom line is that Hansen’s beliefs are complete scientific garbage, and only serve as an indicator of his wildly paranoid view of the universe. He got so desperate to prove his theory, that he started cheating with the data. Probably the most egregious abuse of science in history.
