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Physicist Warns of Overselling Climate Change

posted by Dopefish on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:30AM   
from the climate-change-simply-happens dept.

Papas Fritas writes "Patrick Michaels writes in Forbes that atmospheric physicist Garth Paltridge has laid out several well-known uncertainties in climate forecasting including our inability to properly simulate clouds that are anything like what we see in the real world, the embarrassing lack of average surface warming now in its 17th year, and the fumbling (and contradictory) attempts to explain it away. According to Paltridge, an emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, virtually all scientists directly involved in climate prediction are aware of the enormous uncertainties associated with their product. How then is it that those of them involved in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can put their hands on their hearts and maintain there is a 95 per cent probability that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused most of the global warming that has occurred over the last several decades? In short, there is more than enough uncertainty about the forecasting of climate to allow normal human beings to be at least reasonably hopeful that global warming might not be nearly as bad as is currently touted.

Climate scientists, and indeed scientists in general, are not so lucky. They have a lot to lose if time should prove them wrong. "In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem-or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem-in its effort to promote the cause," writes Paltridge. "It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society's respect for scientific endeavor.""

• Ad Hominem, or Straight from the Horse's Mouth Ad Hominem, or Straight from the Horse's Mouth (Score: 5, Informative) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:09AM

  by girlwhowaspluggedout (1223) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:09AM (#3341)

  Although TFA has Paltridge saying that "we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem-or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem-in its effort to promote the cause", he had previously described Climate Science [afr.com] in slightly different terms...

  Suffice it to say that climate science is an example of what Canadian educator Sue McGregor calls "post-normal science", in which "the facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent". In such circumstances it is virtually impossible to avoid subconscious cherry-picking of data to suit the popular theory of the time. Even Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were not immune from the problem. In their case they were of sufficient genius (and were sufficiently lucky!) for their theories ultimately to trump the inaccuracy of the observations they had selected. Other scientists are rarely so prescient or so lucky. In the modern era, the problem is compounded by the existence of vastly complex computer models that can be tuned, again more-or-less subconsciously, to yield the desired result. From theory to observation and back again - if we are not careful, the cherry-picking can go round and round in an endless, misleading loop.

  But the real worry with climate research is that it is on the very edge of what is called postmodern science. This is a counterpart of the relativist world of postmodern art and design. It is a much more dangerous beast, whose results are valid only in the context of society's beliefs and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied. Postmodern science envisages a sort of political nirvana in which scientific theory and results can be consciously and legitimately manipulated to suit either the dictates of political correctness or the policies of the government of the day.

  There is little doubt that some players in the climate game - not a lot, but enough to have severely damaged the reputation of climate scientists in general - have stepped across the boundary into postmodern science. The Climategate scandal of 2009, wherein thousands of emails were leaked from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, showed that certain senior members of the research community were, and presumably still are, quite capable of deliberately selecting data in order to overstate the evidence for dangerous climate change. The emails showed as well that these senior members were quite happy to discuss ways and means of controlling the research journals so as to deny publication of any material that goes against the orthodox dogma. The ways and means included the sacking of recalcitrant editors.

  Paltridge, incidentally, is the author of The Climate Caper [connorcourt.com], a book that shows that:

  the case for action against climate change is not nearly so certain as is presented to politicians and the public. He leads us through the massive uncertainties which are inherently part of the 'climate modelling process'; he examines the even greater uncertainties associated with economic forecasts of climatic doom; and he discusses in detail the conscious and sub-conscious forces operating to ensure that scepticism within the scientific community is kept from the public eye.

  It seems that governments are indeed becoming captive to a scientific and technological elite - an elite which is achieving its ends by manipulating fear of climate change into the world's greatest example of a religion for the politically correct.

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• Re:Ad Hominem, or Straight from the Horse's Mouth (Score: 5, Funny) by GeminiDomino on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:14PM

  by GeminiDomino (661) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:14PM (#3404)

  I guess "postmodern science" is a more acceptable phrase in academia than "politicized bullshit"(NB: Redundancy noted).

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