Climate models are wrong — Surprise??
Posted by Henry Bauer on 2013/08/05
The Office of Medical and Scientific Justice posted an informative article from the Providence Journal about the fact that all climate models have predicted continuing temperature rise as carbon dioxide levels have continued to increase, whereas in reality temperatures have not risen for more than 15 years:
“05 Aug (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL) – Climate science is in turmoil. Contrary to predictions by the world’s leading climate models and despite rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years. How can the climate models be wrong?”
My answer is that the models can be wrong simply because they cannot be right. Global climate is influenced by so many factors that no model could possibly be right, especially since some of the factor are simply not understood, for example, the cause(s) of the 7 or 8 temperature fluctuations over a range of 5-6 degrees Centigrade during the last million years or so (see “A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?”).
Karim Ghantous said
I have not done very much reading on climate science so I don’t really know the ins and outs. But I read that the reason – or excuse? – for the lull in temperature increase has been because:
– less solar radiation
– cooler La Niñas
– volcanoes
It’s possible, apparently, that the ocean is absorbing heat (but wouldn’t it always do so, in that case?).
Just by reading news articles on climate science makes me realise how much more complicated climate science is compared to medicine. AIDS is kids’ stuff!
Henry Bauer said
Karim Ghantous:
All mainstream claims are based on models. A model can be used for prediction ONLY if ALL the relevant variables are understood properly. NONE of the climate models incorporate all the relevant variables—as illustrated by the attempted excuse that maybe solar radiation had been less. Solar radiation is THE PRIMARY SOURCE of all global warming: the “greenhouse effect” is the prevention of re-radiation outwards of solar energy coming in. So the variability of solar radiation should be THE VERY FIRST VARIABLE PUT INTO THE COMPUTERS. It isn’t, perhaps because the variability is not understood well enough to predict how it changes.
The Los Angeles Times recently said
http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-ol-climate-change-letters-20131008/10?
they would no longer print letters from people questioning the human cause of global warming. Many commentators online criticized that. I submitted this:
“Please explain:
1. What variables and calculations could conceivably be used to conclude with 95% certainty that human activity is contributing to global warming. How do you take into account the possibility of entirely overlooked factors?
2. What caused the 7 or 8 cycles of global temperature during the last million years, over a range of 5 or 6 degrees Centigrade, without any contribution from human activity, the last cycle having left us at the cold bottom of a cycle from which we are just emerging, indicating that the next 100,000 years or so will see a rise of 5-6 degrees.
3. How the computer models of climate can predict anything so long as they remain ignorant of what caused those historical cycles.
For more, please look at Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth, Jefferson (NC): McFarland 2012
and “A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?”, 25 November 2012
http://wp.me/p2VG42-e“