In the 1960s I did work with Professor Reginald Newell at MIT. We used data from the X15 and the SR71 to determine the chemical dynamics of the upper atmosphere. I published the results in 1971. Although my specialty at the time was the "inversion problem", solving such things as what the brain looked like inside by measuring X rays passing through it and where a small nuclear explosion was based upon seismometers placed around the world, I was called upon to assist Newell.
He truly was a brilliant man, a true English gentleman. I enjoyed his research teas on Thursday afternoon, the few times my American work ethic allowed me to "waste precious time" on talk and thought.
He spent years examining the meteorological history of the earth. He understood the complexities of the atmosphere as well as the extreme complexities of the ocean and how the ocean was ofttimes the controlling factor and how little we truly understood. Finally he understood the complex issue of measurements and the many incorrect ones that existed.
In an article concerning a paper published by Newell in MIT Technology Review it states:
"Since the mid-nineteenth century, merchant-marine captains of all nations have been required to log air and water temperatures every six hours for weather services such as the British Meteorological Office. Crews on each watch have hauled water from the sea in standard buckets, dipped in standard thermometers, recorded the data, and, generally, radioed it back. The result is an incredible storehouse of information about global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
Reginald E. Newell, Jane Hsiung, and Wu Zhongxiang of MIT, along with colleagues from the ``British Met,'' as they call it, have collected and analyzed these data. MIT Press intends to publish them in the Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas. One of the most striking results suggested by the data is that there appears to have been little or no global warming over the past century. The advantage of ocean readings is that they are not contaminated by urbanization: the growth of structures and roads even in the small towns where many weather stations are located can raise temperatures, Newell explains. Unfortunately, ocean readings are not entirely reliable either.
One of the chief problems is that prior to World War II, the buckets for collecting water were made of canvas. As it was hauled onto the deck, the water could be cooled by wind and heated by sun. Christopher Folland of the British Meteorological Office and Jane Hsiung attempted to correct for such problems, for example by measuring the cooling of the buckets at different wind speeds. Gauging long-term temperature change required more analysis. First, Newell, Hsiung, and Wu needed to measure the cooling caused when volcanoes inject dust and gases into the atmosphere.
They discovered an intriguing piece of work that measures the atmospheric ``turbidity'' from the dust over the past century. Beginning in the late 1800s, weather stations have used devices known as Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorders that burn a track in a paper card each day, indicating how long the sun was up. Researchers at the University of Mainz in West Germany collected and analyzed numerous such cards, noting particularly the beginning and end of the burn, which correspond to sunrise and sunset. Whenever atmospheric turbidity rose, the burn started later and ended earlier. The weather station in Sonnblick, Austria, almost unaffected by urban pollution at an elevation of 3 kilometers in the Alps, provides a record of turbidity back to 1887.
Newell, Hsiung, and Wu also assessed the periodic change in tropical temperatures caused by the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, a complex of ocean and air currents. Factoring out the effects of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the cooling caused by volcanoes, they found that global temperatures have warmed by only 0.2xC over the past century, which is within the estimated margin of error. In other words, the results leave open the possibility that there has been no warming at all.
In a paper based on the same data in Geophysical Research Letters, Nicholas E. Newell (Reginald Newell's son) joins the other researchers to examine a third temperature variation: a roughly 22-year cycle of warming and cooling that has occurred since 1856, when the marine data begin. This may be caused by the 22-year solar magnetic cycle, during which the sun's magnetic field changes polarity and then returns to its original state. The magnetic cycle
is reflected in changing sunspot patterns. When the authors subtract from the basic temperature record all cycles of less than 26 years -- the chief one being this 22-year warming-and-cooling pattern -- they find ``no appreciable difference'' between temperatures in 1856 and 1986.
Both studies are at odds with some other research. For example, using land data that attempt to factor out effects of urbanization, James Hansen of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Sergej Lebedeff of Sigma Data Services Corp. conclude that the globe has warmed 0.5 degrees C to 0.7 degrees C over the past century.
The conflict is far from resolved. Unfortunately, despite all the models of how global climate may change, there is relatively little funding for research on the actual record."
In my work with Newell, short as it was, we also examined models, models of the atmosphere and models of global circulation. We knew that often the models were themselves inherently unstable. The would go off into cycles and would explode from time to time. These were artifacts of the mathematics of the models as well as demonstrations of the lack of correctness of the models as well. Nature is ofttimes self correcting and sometimes surprising. It frequently self corrected but infrequently slipped a cycle with some form of instability.
He had not yet understood the details and were quite a distance from doing so. The conclusion was that we mus work on better understanding and not become some type of religious zealot. The latter behaviour will always lead to distortions and lies.
Now from MIT to Princeton.
In a recent article by Paul Krugman he states:
He truly was a brilliant man, a true English gentleman. I enjoyed his research teas on Thursday afternoon, the few times my American work ethic allowed me to "waste precious time" on talk and thought.
He spent years examining the meteorological history of the earth. He understood the complexities of the atmosphere as well as the extreme complexities of the ocean and how the ocean was ofttimes the controlling factor and how little we truly understood. Finally he understood the complex issue of measurements and the many incorrect ones that existed.
In an article concerning a paper published by Newell in MIT Technology Review it states:
"Since the mid-nineteenth century, merchant-marine captains of all nations have been required to log air and water temperatures every six hours for weather services such as the British Meteorological Office. Crews on each watch have hauled water from the sea in standard buckets, dipped in standard thermometers, recorded the data, and, generally, radioed it back. The result is an incredible storehouse of information about global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
Reginald E. Newell, Jane Hsiung, and Wu Zhongxiang of MIT, along with colleagues from the ``British Met,'' as they call it, have collected and analyzed these data. MIT Press intends to publish them in the Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas. One of the most striking results suggested by the data is that there appears to have been little or no global warming over the past century. The advantage of ocean readings is that they are not contaminated by urbanization: the growth of structures and roads even in the small towns where many weather stations are located can raise temperatures, Newell explains. Unfortunately, ocean readings are not entirely reliable either.
One of the chief problems is that prior to World War II, the buckets for collecting water were made of canvas. As it was hauled onto the deck, the water could be cooled by wind and heated by sun. Christopher Folland of the British Meteorological Office and Jane Hsiung attempted to correct for such problems, for example by measuring the cooling of the buckets at different wind speeds. Gauging long-term temperature change required more analysis. First, Newell, Hsiung, and Wu needed to measure the cooling caused when volcanoes inject dust and gases into the atmosphere.
They discovered an intriguing piece of work that measures the atmospheric ``turbidity'' from the dust over the past century. Beginning in the late 1800s, weather stations have used devices known as Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorders that burn a track in a paper card each day, indicating how long the sun was up. Researchers at the University of Mainz in West Germany collected and analyzed numerous such cards, noting particularly the beginning and end of the burn, which correspond to sunrise and sunset. Whenever atmospheric turbidity rose, the burn started later and ended earlier. The weather station in Sonnblick, Austria, almost unaffected by urban pollution at an elevation of 3 kilometers in the Alps, provides a record of turbidity back to 1887.
Newell, Hsiung, and Wu also assessed the periodic change in tropical temperatures caused by the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, a complex of ocean and air currents. Factoring out the effects of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the cooling caused by volcanoes, they found that global temperatures have warmed by only 0.2xC over the past century, which is within the estimated margin of error. In other words, the results leave open the possibility that there has been no warming at all.
In a paper based on the same data in Geophysical Research Letters, Nicholas E. Newell (Reginald Newell's son) joins the other researchers to examine a third temperature variation: a roughly 22-year cycle of warming and cooling that has occurred since 1856, when the marine data begin. This may be caused by the 22-year solar magnetic cycle, during which the sun's magnetic field changes polarity and then returns to its original state. The magnetic cycle
is reflected in changing sunspot patterns. When the authors subtract from the basic temperature record all cycles of less than 26 years -- the chief one being this 22-year warming-and-cooling pattern -- they find ``no appreciable difference'' between temperatures in 1856 and 1986.
Both studies are at odds with some other research. For example, using land data that attempt to factor out effects of urbanization, James Hansen of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Sergej Lebedeff of Sigma Data Services Corp. conclude that the globe has warmed 0.5 degrees C to 0.7 degrees C over the past century.
The conflict is far from resolved. Unfortunately, despite all the models of how global climate may change, there is relatively little funding for research on the actual record."
In my work with Newell, short as it was, we also examined models, models of the atmosphere and models of global circulation. We knew that often the models were themselves inherently unstable. The would go off into cycles and would explode from time to time. These were artifacts of the mathematics of the models as well as demonstrations of the lack of correctness of the models as well. Nature is ofttimes self correcting and sometimes surprising. It frequently self corrected but infrequently slipped a cycle with some form of instability.
He had not yet understood the details and were quite a distance from doing so. The conclusion was that we mus work on better understanding and not become some type of religious zealot. The latter behaviour will always lead to distortions and lies.
Now from MIT to Princeton.
In a recent article by Paul Krugman he states:
"And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet...
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events....
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is."
Well to the good Mr. Krugman, he should be reminded that the facts are still at play. The oceans dominate the dynamics of the atmosphere and they have yet to be adequately understood if not modelled and the upper atmosphere is a partially solved problem and the past and its temperatures are hardly closed for debate.
It was Newell and men like him who were willing to stand up and deal with facts. It is the Krugmans of the world who pontificate with words that are both harmful and false. Science is not like macroeconomics, it must deal with the facts.
Macroeconomists are what we see now in DC, spinning tales with no rhyme or reason. One need look at the problems at Harvard and it financial mess and look towards its most recent past President, we have moved hims from Harvard and its problems to the country and our problems. Thus when a macroeconomist talks one should not only be wary but run for the hills.
Back to Newell, as he reached the end of his life he spoke out but ever so softly because of the pressure of the evils of the political correctness. In many ways the school of global warming is akin to genetics in Stalinist Russia, it disavowed Marxist thought of a dialectical materialist. The same goes for the school of global warming. The truth is that we really do not know, and if we believe the "treason" logic of Krugman we will unfortunately never know. Perhaps when we look back on this history in a few hundred years we will see the mania of the macroeconomists, the Romer and her roaming multipliers and the Krugman and his dialectic.
One final point, using charged words like treason as Krugman does debases it for when it must be used. Men of wisdom and judgement do not use words lightly, perhaps being a left wing media star has gone to his head, or perhaps it is Princeton.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is."
Well to the good Mr. Krugman, he should be reminded that the facts are still at play. The oceans dominate the dynamics of the atmosphere and they have yet to be adequately understood if not modelled and the upper atmosphere is a partially solved problem and the past and its temperatures are hardly closed for debate.
It was Newell and men like him who were willing to stand up and deal with facts. It is the Krugmans of the world who pontificate with words that are both harmful and false. Science is not like macroeconomics, it must deal with the facts.
Macroeconomists are what we see now in DC, spinning tales with no rhyme or reason. One need look at the problems at Harvard and it financial mess and look towards its most recent past President, we have moved hims from Harvard and its problems to the country and our problems. Thus when a macroeconomist talks one should not only be wary but run for the hills.
Back to Newell, as he reached the end of his life he spoke out but ever so softly because of the pressure of the evils of the political correctness. In many ways the school of global warming is akin to genetics in Stalinist Russia, it disavowed Marxist thought of a dialectical materialist. The same goes for the school of global warming. The truth is that we really do not know, and if we believe the "treason" logic of Krugman we will unfortunately never know. Perhaps when we look back on this history in a few hundred years we will see the mania of the macroeconomists, the Romer and her roaming multipliers and the Krugman and his dialectic.
One final point, using charged words like treason as Krugman does debases it for when it must be used. Men of wisdom and judgement do not use words lightly, perhaps being a left wing media star has gone to his head, or perhaps it is Princeton.
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