Richard Lindzen, 1989 – 1992 Articles

Many good papers written by real scientists on global warming prior to Al Gore’s vice presidency are scanned as images and are not indexed by Web search engines.  These three articles by Richard Lindzen belong to this set.  Emphasis in the excerpts is mine.

Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming (1990, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society)

The existence of skepticism on this issue has only recently been publicly recognized. Whatever the truth may turn out to be, there is an unusual degree of extremism associated with this issue. White environmental scares are not unheard of, few have been accompanied by recommendations that skepticism be stifled (an editorial to this effect in the Boston Globe [17 December 1989] is but one of a series of examples).

Some Remarks on Global Warming (1990, Environmental Science and Technology)

The thought that C02 is a polluting gas is particularly daunting. After all, C02 is a product of virtually all burning — including breathing. Increasing C02 is closely related to increasing population and standard of living. Although the United States contributes proportionally more per capita to C02 emission than other parts of the world, its contribution is only about 20% of the total (1). That C02 is increasing is not open to serious question.

Absence of Scientific Basis (1993, National Geographic Research and Exploration)

There is a societal tendency to give special credit to results obtained with sufficiently large instruments or computers. I would not that such bias is completely unwarranted.

… Finally, the term equilibrium should be explained. It refers to the response achieved over an infinite time. In point of fact, the actual response time (largely determined by heat transport into the ocean) increases proportionally to the expected equilibrium response.