3 The Views of the Climate Deniers from within the Scientific Community
Somewhat surprisingly, some prominent individuals from within the scientific community who have been labeled as climate deniers have actually conceded that increases in CO2 concentrations have consequences for surface warming. For example, the CO2 Coalition (2015), a sharp critic of the scientific consensus, whose members include the well-known influencers Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, Roy Spence, and William Happer, has explicitly acknowledged the greenhouse effect. It notes that predicting greenhouse-induced warming is difficult because atmospheric processes are very complicated. It then pivots back and reports that it believes that the data suggests that the warming associated with a doubling of CO2 levels will be very modest. In its words,
“Basic physics implies that more atmospheric CO2 will increase greenhouse warming. However, atmospheric processes are so complicated that the amount of warming cannot be reliably predicted from first principles. Recent observations of the atmosphere and oceans, together with geological history, point to very modest warming, about 1 C (1.8 F) if atmospheric CO2 levels are doubled.” CO2 Coalition, 2015
The CO2 Coalition’s assertion that the warming associated with a doubling of CO2 will be modest appears to be largely premised on a belief that the recent warming is about the same as before the 1940s (Lindzen, 2020, pp. 12-13). As will be seen, this belief is not supported by the data in northern Alaska.