The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World s Top Climate Scientists

This was a fascinating read for me. I am a PhD chemist who is no expert in climatology but I read as much as I can find on this topic. I know that the CO2 greenhouse effect is real. My interest is in the feedback loops in climate systems, since this determines the magnitude of the ultimate effects of greenhouse warming, and clouds are the major feedback factor. In all I have read previously the feedback from clouds was simply described as either: a) more clouds form as the atmosphere warms (negative feedback), or b) fewer clouds form as the atmosphere warms (positive feedback). A few months ago I wrote to a leading scientist on the IPCC with my questions about this. He returned a friendly email that said "Of the many feedbacks in the system, the cloud feedback has proved most vexing. As you pointed out in your message, we are not even confident that we know the sign of the feedback, globally". He also said in one of his lectures that cloud feedback is entered into the global circulation models as a single parameter, since these models do not estimate the cloud feedback. The uncertainty in the model predictions, just from this one parameter, is so large that the worst case greenhouse warming is obtained if strong positive feedback is input, and zero warming occurs if a strong negative feedback is input.

The Author's approach I found to be fully valid scientifically, and he is innovative in his approach. The science he does is exactly typical of the methods that I learned, and are the methods that have been used by scientists for hundreds of years. He is an expert in his field, and a leading expert in satellite monitoring of greenhouse warming. His concept that clouds have a dual function in greenhouse warming is insightful, and really opened my eyes to the concept of cloud formation as a chaotic process. His use of simple column models to explore the system is the same method as is favored by many climatologists. Prof. Spencer's concept of cloud feedback&forcing with a time delay between the forcing event and the climate effect cannot be modeled as a simple parameter. It is obvious to me that the 'overwhelming majority of climate scientists' don't bother to read, much less consider all information that is in the available literature. This is something that should raise concern among citizens.

To end my review here I have to recommend everyone read the Amazon 'one star' reviews of this book. One review recommends that people should read only the government websites to learn the 'science'. Others admit they didn't read the book, and would -never- read the book out of principal, yet feel fully qualified to review it. Most are just bitter and nasty without any substance. Hard to imagine how science can inspire ignorance like this. I suppose these are the same sort of people that persecuted Galileo for having an alternate viewpoint.

Please note: This is a book review. I will neither address the larger issues of global warming nor attempt to defend a position on the issue as a whole. Please read this review as one experienced PhD physicist's evaluation of this particular book.

This book was first published in 2010, and the second edition was published in 2012. The author's central thesis, in his own words, is "that natural cloud variations cause temperature variations, which give the illusion that the climate system is very sensitive to humanity's greenhouse gas emissions." [Preface, Kindle Locations 86-87]. It's at least arguable that this book has played a role in influencing the popular discussion of anthropogenic global warming versus natural climate change. Therefore, the author's ideas are worth consideration.

CONVINCING POINTS. Spencer's book makes some convincing points about the physical processes, data, and calculations related to climate change. Not all of these ideas are original, but they are adequately presented. 1) Climate changes have occurred over the whole of Earth's history through natural processes, that is, over long timescales and without mankind's influence. 2) The most detailed data available for climate study covers the period since modern monitoring methods and satellites have been deployed, a period of 50-100 years. Data at earlier times is less direct and less complete. Even the best modern data cannot measure all aspects of the processes involved in climate change. 3) The most widely used climate modeling employs very large, complex computer models. These computer simulation models are still "models"; they fall short of including all the physical processes involved in determining the climate, and they represent but do not duplicate even those processes that are included in the computer program. The treatment of the behavior and effects of clouds is uncertain in current models. In general, large computer models are not infallible. The models must be constrained by careful comparisons with good, relevant data. 4) In analyzing satellite data, it is inadequate (and can be misleading) to perform a single-variable linear fit to data from a non-linear, complex phenomena such as the amount of cloud cover. Although this is obvious, Spencer spends a great deal of effort making this point and succeeds. 5) The natural processes involved in climate change are not well understood and should receive greater research funding and effort than has been the case. 6) Predicting the future of something as complicated as the climate is difficult and prone to error.

However, as you can tell by my overall rating, I found this book seriously deficient. Here, I will discuss some areas where the book fails, in my opinion.

CONSPIRACY THEORIST. Spencer embeds his scientific insights within a suffocating blanket comprising his conspiracy theory. Climate scientists, journal editors, the IPCC, the media, and politicians are all conspiring, for various reasons against poor Dr. Spencer. Lest you think I am exaggerating, here are a few excerpts expressing his allegations. The IPCC is probably Spencer's primary nemesis, but everybody gets some notice:
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"Our most recent paper supporting the theme of this book was peer-reviewed and accepted by top experts in our field, and published in the journal Remote Sensing in 2011. Astonishingly, as a result of that paper being published, the chief editor of Remote Sensing was forced to resign after apparent pressure by an influential "gatekeeper" for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-even though our paper was never retracted by the journal." [Preface, Kindle Locations 94-97].
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"The Keepers of All Climate Knowledge have erected a nearly impenetrable barrier to any new science that does not support the current paradigm of anthropogenic global warming, as defined and guided by those controlling the IPCC process. Published research that should be causing the climate modeling community to sit up and listen is instead being ignored. Groupthink has taken over." [Ch. 5, Intro, Kindle Locations 1363-1365].
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"The House of Representatives has already passed cap-and-trade legislation to regulate carbon dioxide emissions by businesses. The EPA may regulate CO2 production now that the Supreme Court has told them to consider it a 'pollutant.'" [Ch. 5, Intro, Kindle Locations 1367-1369].
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"I do believe that there is a conspiracy among some politicians and some of the IPCC leaders to get international agreements to regulate greenhouse gas emissions no matter what the science says." [Ch. 5, Sec. 1, Kindle Locations 1387-1389].
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Spencer goes completely off the rails in speculating that a clever (hypothetical) whistleblower might meet a sad (and nefarious?) end:
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"The story ends with a small obituary in the local newspaper for the prominent, Nobel Peace Prize-sharing scientist who died in a freak accident while filling his hybrid with gas." [Ch. 8, Sec. 3, Kindle Locations 2451-2452].
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By this time, Spencer has lost all credibility with me on the subject of how the world (in and beyond physics) works. It was hard to plow through all this muck in the book.

VALID, IMPORTANT SCIENCE? Now, I will put aside the muck and discuss Spencer's main scientific ideas and defense of them.

Spencer goes to considerable length to demonstrate point (4) above, regarding the analysis of satellite data. I am easily convinced on this subject. One glance at Figure 14 is enough to convince me that the data cannot be used to extract a single, linear characterization of the processes involved. However, in case you are too inexpert to understand this point, the author goes on to demonstrate it using a simple model.

Spencer calls his model a "simple climate model". However, I think the "climate" connection is very tenuous. I would characterize it as a simple, ad hoc, non-linear model constructed to show that extracting a physical parameter from the output of a nonlinear process or model can be misleading. His demonstration of this point is technically correct and convincing, if you follow the details.

However, in his next step, he tries to use his simple model to tie together satellite observations and the index for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Here he commits the very blunder he accuses other climate scientists of making: circular reasoning. His simple model contains four parameters; Spencer treats these as arbitrary, curve-fitting parameters. He uses a computer to explore the parameter space covered by his model and selects the solutions he "likes". Let Spencer describe his error in his own words:
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"It took only a few minutes to run the 100,000 different combinations of knob settings. Out of all these model simulations, I saved the ones that came close to the observed temperature variations between 1900 and 2000. Then, I averaged all of those thousands of temperature simulations together, which produced the curve labeled 'PDO' in Fig. 25." [Ch. 6, Sec. 3, Kindle Locations 2058-2061].
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In short, he chooses, then averages, the results that fit the data and, low and behold, he obtains a (not-very-good) fit to the data. This is just a lot of hand-waving, considering that the observations in Fig. 25 are nearly a straight line, aside from short-time scale fluctuations (which he does not address).

There are other parts of Spencer's technical arguments that I consider questionable. However, the assessment above is sufficient, I think, to discredit the author's science.

MY BOTTOM LINE. "Blunder" is a book that mixes a few interesting thoughts into a mish-mash comprised of paranoia and weak, sloppy (or just plain bad) science. Spencer's book does not convince me of either the conspiracy or the so-called scientific blunder of the IPCC (and most of the rest of the world's "foolish" scientists). Balancing the limited positive content against the extensive negative, I find the balance strongly tipped to the negative. Readers, beware (or skip it).

As someone who is doing his level best as a layman to get a firm grasp on the state of climate science, I found this book very engaging. However, if you're "brand new" to the topic, I wouldn't start here. Spencer explores in great detail a particular theory of his regarding clouds, one that has opened a promising line of inquiry, though it isn't likely to be the "last word" on the subject. On the other hand, his general approach to the topic of climate change is in line with other "giants" among the skeptics, such as Lindzen and Michaels, and his own contribution has been noted by his fellows. Spencer continues to study and publish on the issue of clouds and their relation to El Nino, La Nina, and Pacific Decadal Oscillation to this day.

While Spencer is generally careful not to mislead the reader in the body of the book, in the Summary & Conclusions section, he makes a lamentable mistake. Here is a quote that confused and disappointed me from that section:

"The first conclusion is that recent satellite measurements of the Earth reveal the climate system to be relatively insensitive to warming influences, such as humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. This insensitivity is the result of more clouds forming in response to warming, thereby reflecting more sunlight back to outer space and reducing that warming."

The first sentence makes sense to me, and he defends it well in the book. The second sentence bothers me. Having gone back and re-read the part of the book where he lays out his cloud theory, I can now see that this statement would be misleading for a sloppy reader, and confusing to someone who follows his arguments carefully. Spencer didn't defend this statement in the body of the book. Rather, I thought that his argument was simply that a decrease in low cloud cover causes warming, and an increase in low cloud cover causes cooling, and also that clouds were acting as a "forcing" rather than a "feedback." The consensus view of clouds (based on models) has assumed that they act as a positive feedback, amplifying global warming. I thought he demonstrated logically that clouds almost certainly do not decrease as a result of warming (cloud feedback) but rather global warming is caused by decreasing clouds (cloud forcing). But nowhere in the book did he defend the notion that clouds increase "in response" to warming. In fact, Spencer has repeatedly affirmed (in public appearances) that the behavior of clouds remains mysterious. Perhaps the words "in response" were a "slip of the pen," albeit a significant one.

One other issue I had with this book was its failure to adequately defend (with data) the truth of the devastating impact of the green movement's energy and climate policies on the world's poor. I loved Spencer's passion here, but I wanted more facts.

While his conclusions about clouds are debatable, the important takeaway is this--the consensus view that says that the climate system is dominated by positive feedbacks (hence, the system is "unstable") is almost certainly wrong. Climate scientists need to explore natural internal variability in the climate system much more carefully.

My dad recommended this as part of the monthly book club he, my brother, and I do. His goal was to challenge our liberal leaning view of climate change while asserting something akin to "a bunch of this stuff about man-made climate change is government and individual driven misinformation"

Reading an argument against man made climate change - especially in the current political environment - is a good intellectual challenge. This book wasn't definitive or ultimately convincing, but it did offer up a cogent alternative hypothesis.

Spencer is one of the few voices of reason among the crowd of those elegantly describing the emperor's wardrobe. Spencer must be heard.

I love it. For someone who was only interested in the weather forecast, this was a college level introduction to climate science. The author goes into great detail about how climate is determined. He points out where technology is lacking, so there are still important issues to be resolved. He points out where he believes the ICC view of climate is lacking. I was amazed about how complicated the forces are and how much contributes to temperatures. It is obvious that the science is not settled. However, since climate has been politicized by the Left, it is important to know their take on warming cannot be believed.

I like what I have read from Roy Spencer. Both Spencer and Lindzen are doubters when it comes to the IPCC projection of 1.5 to 6 degree C heating, and both imply that clouds could have a big effect on the picture. Spencer points out that most IPCC models predict clouds aggrevate heating from increased carbon dioxide in the air, or in his terminology, have a positive feedback. He on the other hand, feels clouds could be a neutral or even negative feedback force, acting, as it will, as a thermostat. This argument resonates more with me personally than the "wildly out of control" arguments posited by the hockey stick crowd. I also like the analogy he uses of a car sitting in the sun, building up heat, and temperatures coming to equilibrium - this is a good laymans explanation of how things heat up and then come to equilibrium after being exposed to an outside source. He also discusses other forces of nature such as the PDO, or Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which seems to correlate fairly well with recent temperature changes. Scientists have learned a great deal about our climate and the many forces at work on it over the last 40 years, but the ones who seem to have it all figured out I am skeptical of. There are still mysterious forces at play, perhaps undulations in the liquid core of the earth, which also affect climate on an as-yet unknown timeline. By the same token I think it was a bit carmically uncool for Spencer to bash the pro-AGW forces with the title of the book. If you are trying to convince someone of your point of view, it's probably not a good idea to call them fools at the beginning of the discussion - you should let your arguments do that by themselves. I think Spencer has good arguments,but as they say, only time will tell.

Global Warming has been definitely proved for over two decades. There are always a few cranks out there, though, who can muster up enough technical sounding arguments to fool the lay public. But in order for Spencer to be right just about everybody with a solid scientific reputation must be wrong. I chose to believe the 98% or 99% of climatologists who agree that global warming is real and human driven. I truly wish it wasn't so.

Definitely enjoyed Dr. Spencer's dose of reality in his explanations of planet Earth's naturally occurring climate processes. Much appreciated is Dr. Spencer's even tempered approach to exposing some of planet Earth's real climate history and how nature and reality so handily refute the armageddonist claims of snake oil salesmen like Al Gore, et al. Dr. Spencer's book is a must read.

He makes the case that the APGW Warmists need to open their minds to much historical and now, modern satellite data that validates via Dr's Spencer's research that the Earth's atmospheric feedback loops are highly negative (lose heat much more readily than trap it). The current political environment and cronyism toward any energy sources that are non-carbon based may be a very costly tax on the poor around the world in the coming years.