Barry Bickmore (blog administrator): Barry Bickmore is a geochemistry professor at Brigham Young University, an active Mormon, and an active Republican. From 2008-2010 he was a County Delegate for the Republican Party. Anything he posts here (obviously) represents his personal opinions, and does not necessarily reflect the position of his employer, Brigham Young University.
Bill Dinklage: I’m an associate professor of Earth Science at Utah Valley University, and I love it! I love teaching, and I do some research in tectonics and metamorphism of mountain belts, too. I have a BA in physics from Carleton College (MN) and a PhD in geology from UC Santa Barbara. I teach courses in physical geology, rocks and minerals, physical science, meteorology, and energy. I’ve been keeping up with the climate change issue for over a decade and give public lectures on it occasionally.
Andrew Jorgenson: Andrew Jorgenson is an environmental macrosociologist and a faculty member of the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah where he is also affiliated with the university’s Environmental Studies Program, the Institute for Policy and International Affairs, and the Master of Statistics Program. He has published extensively on the human dimensions of global environmental change in top peer reviewed journals in environmental sociology, ecological economics, international relations, and human ecology. Much of this research focuses on the human drivers of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in comparative international perspective. He is also a contributing member of the newly formed American Sociological Association Task Force on Climate Change. Dr. Jorgenson has deep roots in Utah, with most of his extended relatives living in rural parts of the state where they work in agriculture and mining.
Note from Barry: I’m looking for more contributors, so let me know if you’re interested.
Climate Asylum 
Barry, hearing great things about your work.
Hope you have a chance to look at my videos debunking Monckton,
(and other things)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=029130BFDC78FA33
By: greenman3610 on May 4, 2010
at 3:08 pm
I have watched the videos–brilliant!!!
By: bbickmore on May 4, 2010
at 3:11 pm
Brilliant? REALLY?
This clown confuses weather with climate and you find his purely political propaganda “brilliant”?
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/5/YVh7z-0oo6o
There went your credibility.
Try this instead:
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/p/climate-change-science-overview.html
By: SBVOR on October 26, 2011
at 1:53 am
Hi SBVOR,
I took a look at your website, but unfortunately I don’t find that you understand the science you cite. E.g., when you say there’s no consistent correlation between CO2 and temperature over the past several hundred million years, you don’t realize that over that long time period, you have to take into account increases in solar radiation. When you do that, there IS a consistent correlation between CO2 and temperature. Look up “Faint Young Sun” and Dana Royer’s work on the subject.
By: Barry Bickmore on October 26, 2011
at 6:27 am
Greenman3610 presents purely political heat and drought propaganda:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/5/YVh7z-0oo6o
Here’s some real science on the matter:
Click to access 4136.full.pdf
Also “inconvenient” is the fact that your holy church of GISS assured us that AGW would be evident not in summer warming, but in winter warming:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20010423/
Just making it up as you go?
But, I expect you’ll censor all of that — too “inconvenient”.
By: SBVOR on October 26, 2011
at 2:04 am
Sorry Barry,
You’re the one whose insights are lacking. Start at the link below and you’ll find your solar energy canard quite easily debunked:
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/2009/10/climate-change-science-overview.html?showComment=1258072182431#c6322587460772335818
By: SBVOR on October 26, 2011
at 10:12 am
I left a comment on your website. Greenland temperatures are not global temperatures. Scientists are talking about global warming not Greenland warming.
You may find this graph useful: http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/
By: Jose_X on January 17, 2012
at 9:56 am
It seems SBVOR posted my first comment, in which I made a minor mistake he was able to jump on, but has failed to post my follow up on-topic comments offering some corrections to the website (eg, to his critique of the recent BEST studies). SBVOR, you tempt me to think your webpages are an anti-AGW propaganda site with little concern for all the facts on climate change.
.. as goes that Greenland/Arctic issue, http://www.skepticalscience.com/New_temperature_record_for_the_Arctic_in_2011.html gives new data that shows the Arctic keeps getting warmer.
By: Jose_X on February 1, 2012
at 10:48 am
Barry,
I’m interested in contributing to your blog. I have a BS in physics from BYU ’75 and an MBA from Harvard ’79. I’m now retired from a career in semiconductor marketing (Intel, Mitsubishi) and living in Orem.
I have followed the AGW debate for the last few years. I am a believer in moderate warming from co2 but I have strong doubts about the overall climate sensitivity assumed in the scary projections for catastrophic climate change. In fact, the climate sensitivity is the key unknown quantity being debated by the “warmer” and “skeptic” climate scientists.
Most recently, I have turned my energies from debating CAGW to promoting energy sources that can be acceptable to “warmers” and “skeptics” alike since they are clean, low cost and 24/7. I am referring to LFTR the “green” nuclear energy.
http://energyfromthorium.com/2010/07/01/welcome-american-scientist-readers/
So if you are interested in a little AGW balance on your blog please let me know.
By: Charles Hart on November 2, 2010
at 7:29 pm
“I have followed the AGW debate for the last few years. I am a believer in moderate warming from co2 but I have strong doubts about the overall climate sensitivity assumed in the scary projections for catastrophic climate change. In fact, the climate sensitivity is the key unknown quantity being debated by the “warmer” and “skeptic” climate scientists.”
This is 100% true.
What we see is legitimate, correct and scientifically-based skepticism of the AGW alarmism, that is consistently ignored and treated as ‘anti-scientific’.
Just look at the questions from the latest APS review on climate science. It’s about time we had honest dialog about these questions.
By: Patrick M on March 23, 2014
at 4:29 pm
Patrick,
Do you have some example? I find that much of the “skepticism” is really just a complete unwillingness to look at the full spectrum of evidence. THAT is anti-scientific. Do you have some basis upon which to judge which side is right in any of these disputes? If so, please explain.
By: Barry Bickmore on March 23, 2014
at 4:41 pm
Aloha Professor Brickmore,
I learned about you on climatecrocks. Peter Sinclair is my inspiration and his blog is my mentor — much of my AGW work in the newser.com NEWSER BY USERS page originates from ideas on climatecrocks.com. However, as often as possible I go to the “source” to do the summary which is posted on newser. Here’s the link to my summary of your YouTube presentation.
http://www.newser.com/story/133367/a-mormon-geologist-looks-at-climate-science-denial.html
You asked that it be passed on and this is one way I intend to do so.
Here’s my entire “body of work” on newser — at least one if five of my summaries is on AGW and nearly half of them are on client science denial.
http://www.newser.com/user/39776786/1/kokuaguy.html?type=stories
Although i have lived in Hawaii most of my life, I feel a special kinship having been born and raised in Colorado, and having many Mormon relatives among my ex-wife’s family here in the islands. Please let me know if I may be of service “to the cause” in any way.
Kokuaguy in Honolulu
kokuaguy@gmail.com
By: kokuaguy on November 15, 2011
at 1:10 pm
I watched your presentation: Climate Change: What We Know and How We Know It
It’s really well done and I want to present it here in Luxembourg, translated.
Would you accept to pass me your presentation and make use of it citing your name?
By: Robert Leven on November 21, 2011
at 6:23 pm
I’ll send you a link to download it. By the way, Luxembourg City is one of my favorite European cities. It feels sort of old and new at the same time.
By: Barry Bickmore on November 21, 2011
at 8:38 pm
29 Nov 2011
Hi:
Jon Huntsman has famously recognized the existence of climate change and the human role in contributing to it. But, as Utah governor, but what did he do about it?
–Farrell S. Seiler, Chairman (a Republican)
New Hampshire Carbon Action Alliance
By: Farrell S. on November 29, 2011
at 11:59 am
He convened a blue-ribbon panel on climate change and its effects on the state, and then signed the Western Climate Initiative.
By: Barry Bickmore on November 29, 2011
at 12:22 pm
I would love to sit down with Moncton for a few minutes and ask him a few really basic questions about the atmosphere and chemistry to really establish what he does know. Of course I know that he wouldn’t be able to answer them and he would probably go on the attack and call me all sorts of names and threaten to have me locked up. But it would be interesting.
Keep up the excellent work Baz.
By: Paul on January 7, 2012
at 9:09 pm
Dear Climate Asylum,
We need to conserve forests to deal with the climate change problem. A solution to the rainforest problem might be found in the second paragraph below–of which perhaps you can urge your readers to write to their representatives:
People who have made correct predictions in the past, and/or have good BBB ratings, predict that another Great Depression could arise from the popping of our national debt and money printing bubbles. The latter could eventually cause hyper-inflation such as was seen in the early 1920’s Weimar Republic. We must stop printing more money—or we risk starvation, social unrest, and threats to our democratic freedoms.
As for the national debt, I read that due to the drought there is expected to be a shortage of chocolate in the next few years. One of the more sustainable uses of the tropical rainforests is the harvesting of chocolate. If we purchase rainforest land for $75 an acre (we can pass a Constitutional Amendment if need be) and then sell it to chocolate makers for $2,500 an acre (with there being two or three billion acres,) then we can eliminate the current deficits for the next ten years. Perhaps by then the economy’s growth will be enough to cover it.
Best regards, Jeanette Norman
By: Jeanette Norman on January 24, 2015
at 4:35 pm
Barry – your writings (blathering) all rubbish. Go put of some of that mo-mo underwear and leave the thinking to adults.
By: Dave on August 7, 2015
at 8:26 am
I love insults from people who can’t spell.
By: Barry Bickmore on August 7, 2015
at 2:24 pm
A two minute glance at this website. Bickmore is very anxious to let everyone know he is a Mormon and a Republican. The impression is given that those who disagree with him belong in the asylum. I would think that if Bickmore wanted to foster understanding about ‘climate change” he would leave politics and religion out of it and would respect those who disagree with him. If on the other hand Bickmore desires an adversarial atmosphere in his blog then bringing in politics, religion and a mocking attitude toward those who disagree he will succeed. Sorry just my two bits.
By: packbear on December 2, 2015
at 12:07 am
Packbear,
The “asylum” moniker comes from John Huntsman’s “call me crazy” quote, so you are wrong about the meaning of the title. And I absolutely agree that politics and religion should be left out–if it were an ideal world where people assiduously sift through evidence, with no regard for where the information is coming from. But we both know that isn’t this world, don’t we?
By: Barry Bickmore on December 9, 2015
at 8:32 am
Professor Bickmore,
I have observed this debate for many years. In truth, I am uncertain whether “climate warming” has become a religious issue or remains a subject of scientific debate. In reading your blogs and certainly those of Michael Mann and others the opinion is there is no debate and any further debate is simply immoral given the consequences of non-action. The arguments tend toward ad hominem attacks and are quite glib and amusing.
On the contrary the behavior and demeanor of Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT appears serious and deeply thoughtful. On investigation his CV is extraordinary: seminal work in Ozone Photochemistry, atmospheric Tides, Quasi-biennial oscillation and Superstation of Venus. His work followed on flawed efforts of LaPlace and Lord Kelvin to name at least two giants of science and mathematics.
How do you respond to the criticism and comments of a man who is arguably the greatest Climate scientist of the 20th century. I will posit just one easy statement which I believe I am remembering accurately: The Climate system is stochastic and stochastic systems strongly tend to resist change as a consequence of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. How do you square this with the computer predictions of powerful positive feedbacks.
Tom Young MD
By: Tom on March 24, 2016
at 8:32 am
Hi Tom,
1. I would never say that “any further debate is simply immoral”. You can still debate while starting to take action. There has been enough work done to show at least a very significant risk that doing nothing will cost us more than reasonable mitigation efforts. Carbon-based fuels come with a lot of health effects from air pollution, etc., leading to large healthcare costs, so switching to more renewables won’t be nearly as expensive as some want you to believe.
2. Lately, Linden hasn’t published much, and when he has, the work has been dissected and found wanting. Supposing he has become sort of a contrarian/curmudgeon in his twilight years, he wouldn’t be the first brilliant scientist to do so. The same thing happened to Lord Kelvin.
3. The statement about stochastic systems is correct. The computer models don’t contradict this point, however. There ARE powerful positive feedbacks in the climate system, but there are also powerful negative ones. The most powerful negative one is that when a body like the Earth absorbs radiation, it has to re-emit it back into space. (Look up black body radiation.) Taking this into account, the overall feedback is, indeed, negative, which results in a stabilizing force on the system. If you change the energy input to the system (e.g., by changing the amount of solar radiation or greenhouse gas concentrations), however, the equilibrium state will still shift, somewhat. Since you are an MD, you have undoubtedly taken a lot of chemistry, so you would be familiar with Le Chatelier’s principle. (Look it up on Wikipedia if you’ve forgotten.) This describes how the equilibrium of a chemical system will be perturbed when one alters the concentrations of products or reactants. Equilibrium chemical systems are stochastic, so it’s a pretty good analogy to the climate system.
By: Barry Bickmore on March 24, 2016
at 11:15 am
I don’t think your #3 explanation is compatible with catastrophic global warming though it is certainly compatible with some global warming which has always been Professor Lindzen’s point. I would further (at least in the United States) differ with your assertion that fossil fuel plants pose significant health risks. I know the EPA has asserted this but while it justifies their actions it is simply not true. In any event gas fired plants are now cleaner and more economical than coal fired. Methane is also a fossil fuel however which means it is also tarred with the same brush.
No serious individual would argue that we shouldn’t attempt to move to energy sources other than fossil fuels. But everyone has a reason to have concerns as to how quickly, by what means and at what cost. Wind and solar are at this time excessively expensive and require the construction of backup facilities. Home solar installations with present subsidies will bankrupt the utilities and burden the ordinary rate payer while subsidizing the relatively well-off. They will probably never be cost-effective while large scale solar plants properly located may be. Meanwhile Nuclear power is saddled with enormous legal and regulatory costs that make it excessively expensive. By the way, the risks of radiation are vastly overstated also. In short, I find the environmental myths and prescriptions for treatment of this problem lacking. Since the treatment plan is so flawed and expensive we are faced with increasingly hysterical assertions about the severity and imminence of the problem to justify a jumble of inadequate, excessively expensive and ultimately ineffective solutions. This is also Professor Lindzen’s point. And of course, I am just speaking of the United States which accounts for a steadily diminishing percentage of global CO2 production.
By: Tom on March 24, 2016
at 6:18 pm
>> I don’t think your #3 explanation is compatible with catastrophic global warming
I have no idea why you say that without crushing the numbers. We are talking about a few degrees K, a relatively small percentage increase in temp with 1 or more doublings of CO2 (small but stressful to humans). Double or quadruple the concentration of a reagent. Generally, that can result in virtually no observable difference or in a very significant difference. The details make the difference. True in a test tube. True in the atmosphere.
Opinions are great but can be very cheap. Crush the numbers to make a case. Otherwise, I’m not sure why you would tend to favor one way or another.. unless you are talking about the many signs around us of a warming environment.
By: Jose_X on March 25, 2016
at 1:54 am
Sure, crucify Monkton, but that does not take away the massive scam that is being perpetrated upon us by the global warming fraudsters. Here are some other ‘messengers’ to attack. They are the real culprits of the great, great, global warming scam!! See: http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/MKTNews/Global-Warming-climate-change/2014/11/17/id/607827/
By: Paul Tucker, PhD on April 4, 2016
at 12:41 am
Was that link a work-in-progress or just an outdated selection of cherry pickings?
You may want to get your references in order, like Spencer’s satellite data since that sell-job you linked to was written.
By: Jose_X on April 4, 2016
at 6:27 pm
From the link:
“Goal No. 2: Place a Copy of John Casey’s Book Dark Winter in Every Home in America”
[I shakes me head so my eyeballs don’t have to roll around so hard]
By: Jose_X on April 4, 2016
at 6:30 pm
So you’ve got 2 academics from Utah and that’s it. We are supposed to regard this blog as having greater legitimacy and scientific authority than others who are sceptical ? Come on. You object to people who do not slavishly and unthinkingly agree with the CC narrative. There are numerous sceptics with better pedigrees than Monckton; he’s a soft target. What about the 48 former NASA astronauts and scientists who called NASA out for bogus modelling? Even some mainstream media outlets reporting on this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html
I am no expert but when people are threatened with incarceration (as they are proposing in the US) if they criticise or oppose the climate change orthodoxy then you know something very, very dubious is going on and it ill- behoves climate change proponents to support it.
By: cornelius on September 5, 2016
at 3:03 pm
Cornelius, do you have a link to a paper? I know that many adjustments have been made by scientists to account for when the time of day was changed so that the data is tallied properly. eg, Data at location X shows a large drop in temp say 30 years ago. When you look at the details it shows that they moved from measuring the temperature during the early afternoon to measuring early in the morning. The temp didn’t just get colder in that region but you have to measure apples alongside apple, so scientists studying this closer realize adjustments have to be made. You have to move the new temperatures up or the old down in some way if you want them to be comparable to each other. This also happens in the other direction. The overall changes have been minor (notice that even before these changes the upward trend was there fairly clearly), but it’s important for scientists to get it right since they want the most accurate models so you have to make sure the metadata of the data is taken into account. As measurements become more precise, you will find more fine adjustments than was the case before. It’s important for getting models to be better if we want to reduce the error ranges for long term future predictions.
If you want to focus on the 3% you can, but there is a reason most scientists accept certain things. Anyway, I can try and see if I understand the paper if you show me which.
By: Jose_X on December 24, 2016
at 7:21 am
Data is always processed (hopefully ever more accurately). The raw data is still there. Will you help spread misunderstanding or clarity? If you get a link to the paper you are talking about, we can start there.
By: Jose_X on December 24, 2016
at 7:23 am
Weird, I just got an email to this comment by cornelius but when I look at this page, it shows a date of Sept 5, 2016 (it’s now late december).
By: Jose_X on December 24, 2016
at 7:26 am
BTW, what incarceration are you talking about? That could be very serious.
By: Jose_X on December 24, 2016
at 7:29 am
Barry, have you worked out why you are so fat?
By: Janet Sharpley on February 6, 2017
at 5:07 pm
No, but that’s ok. Christopher Monckton has a cure for it!!!
By: Barry Bickmore on February 7, 2017
at 9:37 am