October 03, 2015 01:28 PM UTC

No Breitbart.com, the Globe isn't Cooling

• 10 Comments
• by: PKolbenschlag

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

The headline on Breitbart.com pretty much sums it up: Stupid follows.

GLOBAL COOLING DISCOVERY MAY SCUPPER PARIS CLIMATE TALKS

The article is by James Delingpole, who we can only hope for their sake is posting under a pseudonym.

The lead graph continues with this EARTH SHATTERING “scientific” news, in large type.

Scientists have discovered a hitherto unknown cooling process which may pose a serious threat to man-made global warming theory.

It then cites and completely misappropriates a real study, recently published by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research.

According to a study by the Institute of Catalysis and Environment in Lyon (IRCELYON, CNRS / University Lyon 1) and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), the oceans are producing unexpectedly large quantities of isoprene – a volatile organic compound (VOC) – which is known to have a cooling effect on climate.

That part is the only bit worth reading, at least its as far as I got before I just went to the link.

I read the release that accompanied the study’s publication (the actual paper is in a journal, requiring a subscription), and I noted that it did not mention any global cooling trends, or even climate change over all.

It was specific to its actual research and did not mention, as it turns out, that it had suddenly upturned decades and decades of settled science and tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies. So I sent an email to the scientists who did the study, to let them know the rightwing blogosphere had seized their science. 

The next morning, I had a reply. Of course their research had said nothing of the sort, and Breitbart’s misrepresentation of it was “alarming,” the respondent wrote.

I sent my appreciation for the scientist’s time and prompt reply. I was also struck by the fact that Mr. Delingpole either didn’t bother to take that simple step, or he didn’t give a damn what he had learned if he had.

The scientist’s reply is clearly not written in someone’s native language, but I think is worth including, verbatim and in full:

“Dear Pete,

thank you for the Information.

Our Studie, our paper and also our press release does not support the stated conclusions.

Therefore we completely disagree with http://www.breitbart.com/…/global-cooling-discovery-may-sc…/ who misinterpret https://www.tropos.de/en/current-issues/press-releases/details/surface-of-the-oceans-affects-climate-more-than-thought/ to an alarming extent.

We didn´t made any statement to the “man-made global warming theory” because there is enough scientific evidence since many years that the global warming of the past decades is man-made. So there was and there is even after our new findings no doubt about this.

Our new findings can help to make climate models a little bit more precise. But these small details doesn´t put the models at all into question. Every scientist know that a model has to focus on parts of a complex reality. And climate is very complex system. From our point of view it´s quite unscientific to say: “The model doesn´t include this detail, thus the model has failed at all” as it was done by breitbart.com.

We can´t support this kind of unreliable conclusions and would like to say very clear: Our findings are no argument “that skeptics are right” with “the models used by alarmists to predict future climate change are fatally flawed”. Such interpretation would be a misuse of our research.

We didn´t made any statement about cooling effects. We showed just a new small detail that might have impact on the forming processes of clouds. But clouds can warm or cool. Cloud forming is a very complex system with still some open questions. “Clouds and aerosols continue to contribute the largest uncertainty to estimates and interpretations of the Earth’s changing energy budget.” (IPCC 2013, https://www.ipcc.ch/…/as…/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL.pdf )

This is the reason why we and other research institutes do cloud research since many years.

To put it in a nutshell: There is no question that the global climate becomes warmer. The question is just how much, how fast and how large the effects will change our live.

I hope my answer shows you clear that we completely disagree with the conclusions made by breitbart.com and there are good reason why these strange assumptions can´t be true.”

Best regards

Tilo

Recently Exxon was caught in a climate lie of global scale, to little surprise for most I suppose. The massive multinational petrol-giant has literally been acting against its own science for decades, Big Oil like Big Tobacco before it, long knowing that its products were warming the planet toward catastrophic result.

Perhaps Breitbart.com just relies on lazy writers that can’t be bothered to do their jobs. Or maybe it too would rather push falsehood than accept or report reality, as inconvenient as it may be.

Unfortunately Breitbart.com can only be expected to continue spreading what can only be called bullshit of epic proportion.

But consensus is growing that climate change is real, that it is here, and that we need to act now. And I don’t mean scientific consensus. That has been in place for many years. Planetary and public consensus is growing, and soon even oil giants and oiled politicians will not be able to stand in the way.

The Age of Fossil Fuels is coming to an end even despite the best efforts of its internet lackeys.