I was born near the beginning of the 1940-1975 period when the world (or aat least the north of England) was experiencing a period marke by a slow decline of surface temperature.
Experiencing the very cold winter of 1962-62 that followed the cold summer of 1962 was enough to convince my immature-self that we were slipping into another ice age.
It was only a century since the last cold spell of the Little Ice Age ended and it seemed a well-founded theory that, due to natural climate variability, we were slipping back towards a similar cold-spell.
In the middle of the 1960s, I studied for a degree in Chemistry and then went on to do research for my Doctorate in a laboratory studying reflectance, transmission and absorption in the far-infrared and microwave region.
The only academic paper to emerge from the laboratory at that time was on the phase-shift Kramers-Kronig (KK) relationship that connects the phase shift of a wave (in reflection or transmission) to the amplitude attenuation (or absorption) over all frequencies. The fundaments of this paper are based on causality.
During my doctoral reasearch, I extensively used empirical modelling using the, at the time, magnificent power of ccomputers programmed in machine language. The technique I used was based on my supervisors guidance that led to his 1973 book ‘Multivariate error analysis’. This, summarised, deals with determining a number of parameters from a much larger number of observable quantities. The parameters can be determined by least-squares techniques but in order to determine correctly the probable errors one must resort to multivariate analysis, which takes account of the covariance of the parameters.
This experience was invaluable in later life culminating in formulation of the Cardinal model that is described in its own section.
The laboratory also investigated how electromagnetic radiation interaction (at the quantum level) might be observed through absorption and reflection spectra.
This informs my suggestion that a suitable empirical description of the Greenhouse effect might best be described by a hyperbolic tangent - tanh() - relationship rather than an Arrhenius-form logarithmic relationship.
Re-locating to the Southern hemisphere in the early 1970s, I missed the opinion changing hot summer of 1976 which corresponded with a cold winter in the southern hemisphere.
No one seems to remember now that the following northern hemisphere summer (1977) was very cold and, on a short visit to the UK towards the end of 1978 I personally experienced the bitter cold of the winter of 1978/79.
My naïve view that the Earth was slipping into a new ice age remained with me throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
This period also stimulated my interest in the environment, nature and wildlife. Along with many others I became concerned with the pollution, loss of biodiversity and general degradation of the environment resulting from human population growth.
To my shame, I went along with the 1980’s theory of Global Warming without question. I even enjoyed reading, and half believed, the 1972 report 'The limits to Growth' of the Club of Rome.
I had the scientific background to challenge the increasingly fashionable idea of anthropogenic emissions causing warming.
I even welcomed the idea of Global Warming as it presented the possibility of staving off the coming ice age.
Many scientists – including Margaret Thatcher – embraced the Global Warming theory because we made the mistake of arrogantly assuming that we ‘knew’ the mechanism of how the Greenhouse effect worked (vibrational rotational absorption of suitable frequency photons) so we broke the Royal Society’s motto and took the word of those proposing the theory without question.
In my later career in alternative fuels, I became expert in calculating lifetime emissions for different fuel-manufacture routes. The requirement for these calculations is based on the assertion that extra CO2 causes Global Warming and unless we switch to low-carbon fuels the warming might become excessive and upset the Earth’s climate
Now that I know CO2 is not responsiblee for Global Warming and Climate change I look back on the time I spent studying different manufacturing routes as time wasted.
However, one valuable lesson I learned during this time is that any apparently pure-scientific calculation based on logical application of 'known' data is influenced by the belief-position of the person performing the calculations.
In the early 2000’s I was heavily involved in a project to introduce methanol as a road fuel in the UK. Methanol is superior to hydrogen in every way but, unaccountably, hydrogen is still being pushed as a ‘green’ alternative fuel.
Retiring from active project participation in the mid-2010s, I only followed the Climate Change debate in a desultory manner.
At the start of 2020 two things came together to re-awaken my interest.
Firstly I became irritated by the increasing hysterical tone of Climate Change alarmists. The Shakespearian quote is apposite, here: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
Secondly, I observed during the 2020 lockdown period that computer models and 'following the science' were used to justify freedom-restrictions never seen before in a forrmerly free-democracy. That these models were proved wrong time and time again but still used by politicians to justify restrictions got me thinking about Climate Change models increasingly being used, by the same technocratic globalists politicians, to justify economy-destroying policies.
My fundamental research and alternative approach to modelling led me to my current belief that there is almost no truth in the assertion that 'Anthropogenic emissions cause Climaate Change'. That they have spurred trillions-of-dollards scale businesses of confirmatory bias research and altenative electricity generation means there is a huge section of society with a vested interest in keeping the mytha alive!
The books ‘Natural and Anthropogenic Climate Variability’ and the Cardinal model are the result of five years research, data gathering and model-building.