by E. Gardey, Jul 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Climate change activists are dogmatic. Greenhouse gases released by human activity are warming the Earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Thus, doom and gloom and civilizational collapse await us if we don’t decrease the number of cows, gas-guzzling cars, and factories.

But is it really that straightforward? [emphasis, links added]

In a Wall Street Journal column published Sunday, Andy Kessler proposes that Earth’s atmosphere is actually able to regulate itself such that temperatures remain relatively constant despite changes in greenhouse gases or the radiation of the sun.

The mechanism for doing so, Kessler believes, is a negative feedback loop. This is a natural process by which the negative effects of a reaction cause that reaction to slow down or stop.

The hypothesis on climate self-regulation, which is termed the Iris Effect, was first proposed by atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen in 2001. It postulates that cirrus clouds in the tropics dissipate in reaction to rising temperatures. 

Additional radiation can then escape from Earth’s atmosphere, causing a cooling effect. Kessler calls this a “safety valve.”

In an interview with Kessler, Lindzen, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “This more than offsets the effect of greenhouse gases.”

…

…