Richard Lindzen

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 C (0.015 F), which is below our ability to accurately measure. If the entire world forced net zero...

We note that the atmosphere has distinct tropical and extratropical regimes. The tropical regime is significantly dependent on the greenhouse effect and is characterized by temperatures that are largely horizontally homogenized. The extratropical regime is dominated by large scale unstable convective eddies that transport heat between the tropics a...

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01474-0

This study reviews the research of the past 20-years on the role of anvil cirrus in the Earth’s climate – research initiated by Lindzen et al. (Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 82:417-432, 2001). The original study suggested that the anvil cirrus would shrink with warming, which was estimated to induce longwave cooling for the Earth. This is referred to as t...

The nature of the climate system is reviewed. We then review the history of scientific approaches to major problems in climate, noting that the centrality of the contribution of carbon dioxide is relatively recent, and probably inappropriate to much of the Earth’s climate history. The weakness of characterizing the overall climate behavior using on...

For over thirty years, I have given talks on the science of climate change. When, however, I speak to a nonexpert audience, and attempt to explain such matters as climate sensitivity, the relation of global mean temperature anomaly to extreme weather, the fact that warming has decreased profoundly for the past eighteen years, etc., it is obvious th...

Significance For forecasts of Hurricane Joaquin in 2015, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting model consistently and correctly predicted a track away from the US mainland, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Prediction Global Forecast System (GFS) and Hurricane Weather Res...

In many fields, governments have a monopoly on the support of scientific research. Ideally, they support the science because they believe objective research to be valuable. Unfortunately, as anticipated by Eisenhower in his farewell speech from January 17, 1961 (the one that also warned of the military-industrial complex), “Partly because of the hu...

For atmospheric tides driven by solar heating, the database of climate model output used in the most recent assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms and extends the authors' earlier results based on the previous generation of models. Both the present study and the earlier one examine the surface pressure si...

Recent studies have estimated the magnitude of climate feedback based on the correlation between time variations in outgoing radiation flux and sea surface temperature (SST). This study investigates the influence of the natural non-feedback variation (noise) of the flux occurring independently of SST on the determination of climate feedback. The ob...

We review the nature of the famous paper by Eliassen and Palm, and discuss it in the context of the period in which it was written.

We review the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, the concept of climate sensitivity, a variety of ways of evaluating climate sensitivity and the limitations of the concept of climate sensitivity.

Goldblatt and Zahnle (2011) raise a number of issues related to the possibility that cirrus clouds can pro-vide a solution to the faint young sun paradox. Here, we argue that: (1) climates having a lower than present mean surface temperature cannot be discarded as solutions to the faint young sun paradox, (2) the detrainment from deep con-vective c...

The underlying physics of climate contains important elements that are widely agreed on though frequently misunderstood. In this lecture, the basic physics of greenhouse warming are simply described. It will be shown that the dynamic mixing of the troposphere is essential to the mechanism. It will further be shown that there is nothing intrinsicall...

Goldblatt and Zahnle (2011) raise a number of issues related to the possibility that cirrus clouds can provide a solution to the faint young sun paradox. Here we argue that some of the criticism is not warranted. In particular, the criticism related to cirrus clouds being an "end member" case of possible clouds depends heavily on models that may ha...

Although atmospheric tides driven by solar heating are readily detectable at Earth’s surface as variations in air pressure (Hagan et al. 2003) the output of climate-oriented atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) has rarely been examined for atmospheric tides. In this work we search for the tides in output from GCM / climate models contribut...

The behavior of vertically propagating waves is investigated for an atmosphere with Newtonian cooling, where the cooling rate coefficient is very small near the ground and increases inversely with the atmosphere's density away from the ground. This model for dissipation is unrealistic. However, the results obtained are very similar to those obtaine...

The cloud phase composition of cold clouds in the Antarctic atmosphere is explored using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instruments for the period 2000–2006. We used the averaged fraction of liquid-phase clouds out of the total cloud amount at the clo...

To estimate climate sensitivity from observations, Lindzen and Choi [2009] used the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent responses in the top-of-atmosphere outgoing radiation from the ERBE satellite instrument. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SST were used to evaluate feedbacks. This work...

This study examines the vertically resolved cloud measurements from the cloud-aerosol lidar with orthogonal polarization instrument on Aqua satellite from June 2006 through May 2007 to estimate the extent to which the mixed cloud-phase composition can vary according to the ambient temperature, an important concern for the uncertainty in calculating...

Using TRMM VIRS data, we attempt to replicate the analysis made by Su et al. (2008) to quantify the effect of methodological choices on the magnitude of the observed correlations between upper-level cloud cover and SST. Using brightness temperature thresholds to identify upper-level cloud, we recover a relatively small change in the normalized area...

Measurements from NASA's A-train satellites indicate that spherical or quasi-spherical particles may constitute up to 30% of the total cloud particles at temperatures below −30°C, and up to 10% even for temperatures below −40°C, the temperature range typically found in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere. Current climate models calcula...

In this paper we present radiative-convective simulations to test the idea that tropical cirrus clouds, acting as a negative feedback on climate, can provide a solution to the faint young Sun paradox. We find that global mean surface temperatures above freezing can indeed be found for luminosities larger than about 0.8 (corresponding to ~2.9 Ga and...

Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes im...

The interaction between vertical Rossby wave propagation and wave breaking is studied in the idealized context of a beta-plane channel model. Considering the problem of propagation through a uniform zonal flow in an exponentially stratified fluid, where linear theory predicts exponential wave growth with height, the question is how wave growth is l...

Atmospheric tides driven by solar heating are readily detectable at Earth's surface as variations in air pressure. Above the lower stratosphere the tides attain large amplitudes and can be a significant part of atmospheric motion. Output from the general circulation model WACCM, the Whole-Atmosphere Community Climate Model, contains tidal oscillati...

For a variety of inter-related cultural, organizational, and political reasons, progress in climate science and the actual solution of scientific problems in this field have moved at a much slower rate than would normally be possible. Not all these factors are unique to climate science, but the heavy influence of politics has served to amplify the...

This paper focuses on the relation between local sea surface temperature (SST) and convective precipitation fraction and stratiform rainfall area from radar observations of precipitation, using data from the Kwajalein atoll ground-based radar as well as the precipitation radar on board the TRMM satellite. We find that the fraction of convective pre...

There is observational evidence that the partition of precipitation into stratiform and convective is correlated with the local sea surface temperature. At least two competing mechanisms can be proposed to explain these observations based on an increase in the efficiency of precipitation with higher SST. The first is that the increase in efficiency...

These days it seems hard to get away from talk about global warming. Dramatic stories about potential climate catastrophes fill the front pages of newspapers and receive hours of air-time on TV and radio, while politicians take every opportunity to boost their green credentials. The chief scientific advisor to the UK government Sir David King has d...

Fundamentals of the climate science dispute and common misunderstandings of some issues raised about Part 1 of the Dual Critique of the Stern Review [Vol. 7, No. 4] are discussed. One consideration is that a distinct anthropogenic greenhouse gas signal has not yet been identified within natural climate variations. The slight warming that has occurr...

Cloud and water vapor feedbacks in climate theory will be briefly reviewed, as will the relevant physical processes associated with both cloud cover and water vapor. We will focus on the tropics in this talk. Measurements of these quantities relevant to climate must take account of a number of factors that have often been ignored: 1. Water vapor in...

This paper introduces the concept of potential momentum, which is a nonlocal measure of the thermal structure that has momentum units. Physically, it may be interpreted as the zonal momentum that the flow would realize through an adiabatic redistribution of mass that made the isentropic thickness uniform poleward of a reference latitude. At the sur...

Here, we investigate the possibility of a significant atmospheric contribution to the tidal dissipation of the Phobos-Mars system. We apply the classical tidal theory and we find that most of the gravitational forcing is projected onto the first symmetric Hough mode which has an equivalent depth of about 57 km and is significantly trapped in the ve...

Using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Precipitation Radar (TRMM-PR) over oceanic regions between 20°N and 20°S and data from the ground based radar at Kwajalein (Marshall Islands), we study the dependence of the fraction of convective (cumuliform) to total precipitation in tropical convective systems. We regard the fraction of con...

The issue of man-induced climate change involves not the likelihood of dangerous consequences, but rather their remote possibility. The main areas of widespread agreement (namely that global mean temperature has risen rather irregularly about 0.6°C over the past century, that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased about 30% over the pa...

The Stern Review, described as the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change, was published on 30 October 2006. The twin papers from a combined team of scientists and economists present a critique in two parts of the Stern Review. Part I focuses on scientific issues and their treatment in the Review. It forms the...

Various aspects of convection in meteorology which may have some relevance for astrophysics are discussed. In particular the role of convection in determining the gross thermal structure of the atmosphere, the treatment of convective turbulence in the boundary layer, and the larger scale organization of convection are dealt with.

A climatology of dryline frequency and location is presented based on 30 yr (1973-2002) of April, May, and June surface observations from the Great Plains region of the United States. Drylines having a horizontal specific humidity gradient greater than or equal to 3 × 10-8 m-1 [greater than or equal to 3 g kg-1 (100 km)-1] are found to be present o...

In this two-paper series the equilibration of a baroclinic jet is described, emphasizing the redistribution of momentum and the effects that this redistribution has on the steering level and the potential vorticity (PV) structure of the basic state. In Part I of this series the equilibration of the 2D problem is discussed, using as a model the baro...

In this two-paper series the basic dynamics concerning the equilibration of a baroclinic jet are described, using as a reference the simple Charney Boussinesq model. Though this problem has been studied in the past in more realistic configurations than considered here, this approach is novel. By describing the equilibration in terms of the eddy red...

Interest in tropical waves and their interaction with convection has been rekindled in recent years by the discovery, using satellite infrared data to track high clouds, that such waves closely display the dispersive properties of linear, inviscid wave theory for an atmosphere with a resting basic state and equivalent depths between 12 and 60 m. Wh...

Radar tracking of meteorological balloons, rocket data, RF radar observations of micrometeors, and incoherent backscatter measurements have provided much insight into atmospheric tides during the last decade. A conjectural daily variation in rainfall is the basis for understanding the semidiurnal tide from the earth's surface to 40 km. Existing the...

Global warming Is it a warning? Is it happening? There are basic questions and perhaps no answers, but the debate on the scientific merits of the issue is well under way. What is the indicator that global warming is occurring? What is the time scale for the appearance of this indicator? What can we do to affect the process? Global warming is a chal...

In many respects, atmospheric tides are one of Dick’s more minor interests. I think I am correct that Dick became interested in this problem as a result of consulting activities at the White Sands Missile Range during the early 1960s. However, with his usual combination of insight and originality of viewpoint, Dick’s contribution to this area was m...

No Abstract Available.

1] It is suggested that the much publicized discrepancy between observed surface global mean temperature and global mean atmospheric temperature from 1979 to the present may be due to the fact that the atmosphere underwent a jump in temperature in 1976 (before the satellite temperature series began), and that the surface response was delayed for ab...

In assessing the iris effect suggested by Lindzen et al. (2001), Fu et al. (2002) found that the response of high-level clouds to the sea surface temperature had an effect of reducing the climate sensitivity to external radiative forcing, but the effect was not as strong as LCH found. The approach of FBH to specifying longwave emission and cloud al...

[1] Recent papers show that deep ocean temperatures have increased somewhat since 1950, and that the increase is compatible with the predictions of coupled GCMs. The inference presented is that this degree of compatibility constitutes a significant test of the models. The present paper assumes that the measurements and their analysis are correct, a...

In assessing the iris effect suggested by Lindzen et al. (2001), Fu et al. (2001, 2002) found that the response of high-level clouds to the sea surface temperature had an effect of reducing the climate sensitivity to external radiative forcing, but the effect was not as strong as Lindzen et al. (2001) found. The approach of Fu et al. (2001, 2002) t...

Over the past year, our original work on the iris effect as an important negative feed- back for global climate has been subject to substantial criticism. We briefly review the iris effect in order to explain that it is, in fact, a property associated with cumulus convection, and must, therefore, be scaled by a measure of cumulus activity. What it...

An intriguing feature of tropical waves is the fact that a wide spectrum of such waves seems to be characterized by an equivalent depth of 25 m. The singular exception is the Madden-Julian Oscillation. In contrast to earlier theories of Wave-CISK, we simply allow wave perturbations to pattern pre-existing cumulus convection. This is analo- gous to...

In this paper the authors discuss the vertical distribution of the interior potential vorticity gradients in the extratropical troposphere in an idealized setting. This structure is characterized by large positive gradients at the top of the boundary layer and a narrow homogenized region in the interior. To understand this partial homogenization, t...

A quasigeostrophic barotropic model is used to examine the nonlinear saturation of forced Rossby waves and the role of wave-wave interactions in limiting the wave growth. A simple mechanism, based on wave interference, is used to produce strong transient eddy growth and an analytical linear solution for the flow evolution is used as a starting poin...

The effects of an upper-stratospheric reflecting surface on the vertical structure of stratospheric planetary waves are considered. A diagnostic of the basic-state wave propagation characteristics, which is particularly useful for determining the existence and location of turning surfaces for meridional and vertical propagation, is developed. The d...

The great continental ice sheets of the Pleistocene represented significant obstacles to the Northern Hemisphere midlatitude westerlies. They must therefore have forced large changes in the atmospheric circulation, and consequently also in the patterns of accumulation and melting over the ice sheets themselves. A simplified three-dimensional couple...

 The great continental ice sheets of the Pleistocene represented a significant topographic obstacle to the westerly winds in northern midlatitudes. This work explores how consequent changes in the atmospheric stationary wave pattern might have affected the shape and growth of the ice sheets themselves. A one dimensional (1-D) model is developed whi...

Observations and analyses of water vapor and clouds in the Tropics over the past decade show that the boundary between regions of high and low free-tropospheric relative humidity is sharp, and that upper-level cirrus and high free-tropospheric relative humidity tend to coincide. Most current studies of atmospheric climate feedbacks have focused on...

Harrison's (2001) Comment on the Methodology in Lindzen et al (2001) has prompted re-examination of several aspects of study. Probably the most significant disagreement in our conclusions is due to our different approaches to minimizing the influence of long-time-scale variations in the variables A and T on the results. Given the strength of the an...

Correlations of tropical mean water vapor with its surface values have been calculated for all AMIP1 models and some of the AMIP2 models. The previously noted discrepancy between the GFDL model and rawinsonde data also exists for other models: the interannual correlations of water vapor with its surface values decline to smaller values in observati...

The barotropic point jet problem is used to study the impact of resolution on a numerical simulation of barotropic instability. This particular problem is studied because of the close relation of the linearized version of the problem to baroclinic instability. This study finds that the channel-averaged wave enstrophy and the fluxes at the jet in t...

The barotropic point jet problem is used to study the impact of resolution on a numerical simulation of barotropic instability. This particular problem is studied because of the close relation of the linearized version of the problem to baroclinic instability.This study finds that the channel-averaged wave enstrophy and the fluxes at the jet in the...

Eastward propagating planetary waves of zonal wavenumber one in the zonal wind (u) with phase speeds in the range of 1-10 m s(-1), and also with frequencies in the 30-60-day range, are studied using 39 boreal winter (austral summer) seasons teach of length 180 days) from the reanalyses of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The purpo...

High-level clouds have a significant impact on the radiation energy budgets and, hence, the climate of the Earth. Convective cloud systems, which are controlled by large-scale thermal and dynamical conditions, propagate rapidly within days. At this time scale, changes of sea surface temperature (SST) are small. Radiances measured by Japan's Geostat...

It has long been suggested that the extratropical eddies originating in baroclinic instability act to neutralize the atmosphere with respect to baroclinic instability. These studies focused on the Charney-Stern condition for stability, and since the implication of this condition was the elimination of meridional temperature gradients at the surface...

Estimates are made of the effect of changes in tropospheric water vapor on the climate sensitivity to doubled carbon dioxide (COâ) using a coarse resolution atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a slab mixed layer ocean. The sensitivity of the model to doubled COâ is found as the difference between the equilibrium responses for control a...

Recent studies suggest that either clouds or water vapor in clear air absorb significantly more solar radiation (roughly 25 W m−2 averaged globally) than previously thought. It is interesting, in this connection, that solar diurnal surface pressure tides, which are forced primarily by insolation absorbed in the troposphere, are significantly undere...

A simple energy balance model is used to investigate the response to a volcanic-type radiative forcing under different assumptions about the climatic sensitivity of the system. Volcanic eruptions are used as control experiments to investigate the role of the ocean-atmosphere coupling and of diffusive heat uptake by the thermocline. The effect of va...

The stability characteristics of normal mode perturbations on idealized basic states that have meridional potential vorticity (PV) gradients that are zero in the troposphere, very large at the tropopause, and order in the stratosphere are checked. The results are compared to the corresponding models that have a lid at the tropopause. The dispersion...

The realistic physical functioning of the greenhouse effect is reviewed, and the role of dynamic transport and water vapor is identified. Model errors and uncertainties are quantitatively compared with the forcing due to doubling CO2, and they are shown to be too large for reliable model evaluations of climate sensitivities. The possibility of dire...

This note corrects a numerical error in a prior work of Lindzen. The correction eliminates the strong sensitivity found in the earlier paper to the details of the concentration of potential vorticity gradients at the tropopause. Remaining sensitivities in the simple calculations presented are largely related to variations in the basic state's zonal...

A potential influence of tropical sea surface temperature on the global climate response to a doubling of the CO2 concentration is tested using an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a slab mixed layer ocean. The warming is significantly reduced when sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific cold tongue region between...

Baroclinic instability in two-level models is characterized by a critical vertical shear, for values above which the flow is unstable. Existing studies of nonlinear baroclinic equilibration in two-level models suggest that, while equilibration does occur, it does so for values of vertical shear that are supercritical. The criterion used for the cri...