Live Science’s Graham Wayne wonders if there is one. He’s also one of those Warmists who think Someone Else should act locally, preferably at the barrel of a government regulation (if he’s like most Warmists), while thinking globally, which is really a copout for making no changes within ones own life. Anyhow, here’s the first of two money quotes
It is often said that climate models are like crystal balls. Scientists can gaze into them, but due to the basic constraints of any modeling, the results are cloudy. Scientists know the basic physics of the atmosphere well enough to capture the big trends, but the smallest atmospheric features are still being fine-tuned. So unlike soothsayers and fortune-tellers, climate scientists don’t make bold pronouncements, but instead couch their projections in caveats and careful language to be honest about the uncertainty involved.
Except, they do. They’re constantly making bold predictions of doom and gloom.
Here’s the most important quote
Studying short-term climatic responses (TCR), Shindell found that a number of assumptions about the way the atmosphere responds may be skewing the models to underestimate climate sensitivity. So, in essence, this study is polishing the crystal ball, finding that previous TCR findings might be too low.
So, a prediction of more doom. Furthermore, we were supposed to make past policy predictions on things like fossil fuels, economic conditions, taxation, cap and trade, limitations on personal freedom, etc, in crummy assumptions and skewed data, of which they were telling us previously that “the science is settled”.
They’re saying their old crystal balls were flawed, but now we’re supposed to trust that their Crystal Ball 2.1 is fixed? What happens in 10-20 years when they come back and say “um, guys, the 2.1 version was skewed, sorry about that, please give us more money for CB 3.0.” Will they apologize for all the economic and personal freedom damage?
BTW, if anything, their findings seem to be drastically over-estimating the effects of man released GHGs.
Well, “climate science” computer-model projections (not predictions, they say) are just as correct as Malthus` projection of population increases causing mass death tolls, Ehrlich`s projection of resources running out by 1990 or earlier, or for that matter the guy who projected in the late 19th Century that by 1910 the streets of New York City would be covered to a depth of ten feet by manure.
In each case, the best such was based on nothing else happening other than the particular problem at issue, whether of natural (eg solar output varying in a way even astrophysicists did not expect) or human change (automobiles, advances in resource use and supply, etc).