Tag: Hermann Flohn

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Denial

July 2, 1993. Denialists versus the facts, again.

Thirty years ago, on this day, July 2, 1993, the FT reported on a conference where a long-suffering climate expert tried to correct the childish bullshit of Richard Lindzen and Pat Michaels

Conference Report: Global warming – fact or claim? FT Energy Newsletters – Power Europe July 2, 1993 Section: Pg. 3 The hothouse spectre of global warming from emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has become a driving force in the environmental policies of many countries. Flohn versus Lindzen and Michaels.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the UNFCCC had been agreed the previous year, and ratification by enough member states to make it a “thing” was proceeding quicker than had been thought. Meanwhile, the IPCC was working on its next assessment report. And the denialists kept on going.

What I think we can learn from this

Idiots going to idiot.

The debating technique known as a Gish Gallop.

What happened next

Lindzen and Michaels kept being idiots.

Flohn died in 1997.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Germany

June 23, 1997 – RIP Hermann Flohn

Twenty six years ago, on this day, June 23, 1997, German climatologist Hermann Flohn died.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was this – Flohn was aware of Guy Callendar’s work. During the war he had written about the greenhouse effect. By the late 1950s/early 60s was part of the small band of people paying close attention to what was going on. He was present at the January 1961 meeting in New York of the New York AAAS.

By the early 1970s he was briefing senior politicians including Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was engaging with Australian scientists in the 1970s, and in 1982 he was at the 148th meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement Association for the Advancement of science and was quoted in the New York Times on 7th January 1982 and then in the Christian Science monitor in February 1982

In 1993 he had the pleasure of being on a platform with Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels who were denying, well, 19th century physics.

Flohn has not had enough credit for what he did.

What I think we can learn from this

 The official histories don’t always give enough credit to people who deserve it.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Australia

December 11, 1975 – German scientist gives stark climate warning in Melbourne

On this day, December 11, 1975, German scientist Hermann Flohn addressed a number of Australian scientists at Monash University, Melbourne, as part of a conference about… climate change.

“Now if we allow man’s interference with climate to increase exponentially as it has done in recent years, we sooner or later come to a state where this 10% rises to 100%, resulting in continuous warming made by man superimposed on these natural fluctuations of cooling and warming. This would be a really dangerous situation in that in the Northern Hemisphere we have this extremely sensitive area of the Arctic sea-ice. The few people who have dealt with models of the sea-ice have the feeling that this is in fact an extremely sensitive system which will reflect very early and very substantially any sizeable warming of the Northern Hemisphere.  The lifetime of individual ice floes is 5 or 10 years, certainly not more than 10 years, and once the ice is removed the present situation would not allow the reforming of permanent ice cover as we have it today. My feeling is that if man’s interference with the climatic system is uncontrolled for some decades, together with uncontrolled growth of energy use, sooner or later during the next century the warming will overwhelm natural factors which usually produce cooling. Then the Arctic sea-ice could disappear rather rapidly, some models say in a period of 10 years or less.”

Herman Flohn, speaking on 11 December 1975

A book was published, edited by the wonderful Barrie Pittock –

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – In 1974 legendary Australian civil servant Nugget Combs had convinced the Whitlam government to ask the Australian Academy of Sciences to investigate the possibility of climate change (this was partly in the context of the CIA report and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger talking about potential food shortages). The AAS researched the matter and on this day in 1975 at Monash University Herman flown eminent German climatologist said the above.

Why this matters. 

We really did know enough to be worried by the mid late 70s and to start acting on the fact that the climate issue did not hit the headlines until 1988 is a travesty but the fact that since 1988 human emissions have gone up by over 60% is beyond a travesty. It is the beginning of a nightmare, or rather the continuation and amplification of a nightmare.

What happened next?

The AAS report was released in early 1976. It sank without trace because it did not say “yes there most definitely is a problem” (to have done so would have been ahead of the evidence). And in any case, Australia was in political turmoil because the elected government of Gough Whitlam had been removed by John Kerr the governor-general (If this had happened in another country we would have talked about it being a CIA coup there have been more dead bodies but I digress).

Categories
United Kingdom

October 14, 1974 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor is warned about carbon dioxide build-up.

On this day, October 14 in 1974, a UK Cabinet Office civil servant tells his boss about this climate change issue, after having been told about it by German Professor Hermann Flohn.

“The first example I have found of this route is in 1974. Dr P.T. Warren, a Cabinet Office civil servant, reported a conversation to Dr Robert Press [Robert Press], who was the acting chief scientific adviser between April 1974 and 1976. Warren had been at a meeting examining the forces shaping Europe over the next 30 years (Lord Kennet’s Europe plus Thirty project[Europe Plus 30]). There, he had spoken with Professor Hermann Flohn, a respectable climatologist from Bonn and one of the leading researchers into anthropogenic climate change. Flohn clearly impressed on Warren the necessity of taking the subject seriously. 

Warren told Press: 

“His organization has now achieved a ‘reasonable’ model for world climate and this leads to some very worrying predictions when data are fed in on the present output of CO2 into the atmosphere. As I understood him, and I should add that he is no over-zealous enthusiast of the doom-watch school but fully aware of all the limits to modelling, the dangers of premature judgements etc, there is a real likelihood that by the year 2100 the polar ice-caps will disappear if the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere continued at its present rate.”   

TNA CAB 164/1379. Warren to Press, 14 October 1974   

Agar 2015

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 327.28ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – in the aftermath of the 1972 Stockholm conference, more work was afoot about climate modelling (the July-August workshop in Wijk had just happened).

The very hot European summer had led to a certain amount of media speculation as well…

Btw – Flohn, who pops up a lot,  was a total mensch on all this – a really important briefer of people, including Olaf Palme. He died in 1997, and deserves more recognition than he has had.

Why this matters. 

UK Government awareness of climate change did not begin in 1988

What happened next?

Press’s successor as Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Ashworth, kept going on the climate issue. Eventually, in 1980, he briefed Margaret Thatcher who was apparently incredulous and said “you want me to worry about the weather?”

Categories
Ignored Warnings Ireland Science Scientists

October 9, 1979 – Hermann Flohn warns Irish of “possible consequences of a man-made warming”

On this day, October 9 in 1979, Hermann Flohn (major German scientist) gave a talk about “possible climatic consequences of a man-made global warming” at a conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Flohn H. 1980: Possible climatic consequences of a man-made global warming. In: R. Kavanagh (Ed.): Energy System Analysis. Proc. Intern. Conf. Dublin, 9-11 Oct. 1979, D. Reidel Publ. Comp., Dordrecht, 558-568. (1981: Life on a warmer Earth, Possible climatic consequences of man-made global warming. Executive Report 3, based on research by H. Flohn, Intern. Inst. for Applied System Analysis IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria, pp. 59.)

https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/1097/1/WP-79-086.pdf

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 334.24ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – by the late 1970s, scientists who studied climate, energy systems etc had come to some conclusions

  1. Carbon dioxide really was building up in the atmosphere
  2. This would have real consequences 

They tried to get politicians to pay attention.  Oops

Why this matters. 

By the late 1970s we knew enough (earlier than that, I think there was room for doubt)

What happened next?

Flohn kept trying. Others kept trying. Eventually, in 1988, the issue “broke through”.

Categories
Ignored Warnings

April 25th, 1974 – Swedish prime minister briefed on carbon dioxide build-up

On this day, the 25th of April 1974, German climatologist Hermann Flohn is flown –  see what I did there? – to Stockholm (well, maybe he took the train who knows?) to brief the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme on the build-up of carbon dioxide. in the atmosphere This was at the behest of Swedish scientist Bert Bolin, and part of the Swedish government’s increased awareness of environmental issues including climate change.

www2.meteo.uni-bonn.de/bibliothek/HFlohn/fotflo...
Hermann Flohn

 

Palme apparently listened carefully and intently – he was a serious character. One of the things you’d do on Alternative Earth is have him NOT getting assassinated in 1986, so he was able to be a key player in the 1988-1992 policy window…

How do I know this – as usual with this site, thanks to the hard work of climate historians, in this case Kristoffer Ekberg and Martin Hultman…

“Amid the oil crisis and with raised critique against nuclear power, the issue of climate change was presented to Swedish politicians. On 25 April 1974, meteorologist Bert Bolin and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had in Hermann Flohn from Bonn to Stockholm to talk before the government’s advisory board on research. Flohn was a climate scientist who had already in 1941 published a paper discussing anthropogenic climate change. The reporter  present at the time, Tom Selander,46 wrote that Prime Minister Palme listened  ‘thoughtfully’ during Flohn’s exposition.”

(Ekberg and Hultman 2021)

Why this matters. 

We need to know that in the 1970s people with in positions of power, senior politicians and policymakers, were well aware of the co2 buildup 

What happened next?

Flohn keep kept alerting people. His name pops up at all sorts of important events throughout the 70s…. Olaf Palme was assassinated in February 1986. And therefore he wasn’t there to push the issue along during the 88-92 big wave, so it goes.