Why Global Warming is Probably a Crock

The American Thinker ^ | January 16, 2007 | James Lewis

[oldtimer2]

Why Global Warming is Probably a Crock

By James Lewis

As a scientist I've learned never to say "never." So human-caused global warming is always a hypothesis to hold, at least until climate science becomes mature. (Climate science is very immature right now: Physicists just don't know how to deal with hypercomplex systems like the earth weather. That's why a recent NASA scientist was wildly wrong when he called anthropogenic warming "just basic physics." Basic physics is what you do in the laboratory. If hypercomplex systems were predictable, NASA would have foolproof space shuttles --- because they are a lot simpler than the climate. So this is just pseudoscientific twaddle from NASA's vaunted Politically Correct Division. It makes me despair when even scientists conveniently forget that little word "hypothesis.")

OK. The human-caused global warming hypothesis is completely model-dependent. We can't directly observe cars and cows turning up the earth thermostat. Whatever the human contribution there may be to climate constitutes just a few signals among many hundreds or thousands.

All our models of the earth climate are incomplete. That's why they keep changing, and that's why climate scientists keep finding surprises. As Rummy used to say, there are a ton of "unknown unknowns" out there. The real world is full of x's, y's and z's, far more than we can write little models about. How do you extract the human contribution from a vast number of unknowns?

That's why constant testing is needed, and why it is so frustrating to do frontier science properly.

Science is difficult because nature always has another surprise in store for us, dammit! Einstein rejected quantum mechanics, and was wrong about that. Newton went wrong on the proof of calculus, a problem that didn't get solved until 1900. Scientists are always wrong --- they are just less wrong now than they were before (if everything is going well). Check out the current issue of Science magazine. It's full of surprises. That's what it's for.

Now there's a basic fact about complexity that helps to understand this. It's a point in probability theory (eek!) about many variables, each one less than 100 percent likely to be true.

If I know that my six-sided die isn't loaded, I'll get a specific number on average one out of six rolls. Two rolls of the die produces 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36. For n rolls of the die, I get (1/6) multiplied by itself n times, or (1/6) to the nth power. That number becomes small very quickly. The more rolls of the die, the less likely it is that some particular sequence will come up. It's the first thing to know in any game of chance. Don't ever bet serious money if that isn't obvious.

Now imagine that all the variables about global climate are known with less than 100 percent certainty. Let's be wildly and unrealistically optimistic and say that climate scientists know each variable to 99 percent certainty! (No such thing, of course). And let's optimistically suppose there are only one-hundred x's, y's, and z's --- all the variables that can change the climate: like the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica, the changing ocean currents in the South Pacific, Mount Helena venting, sun spots, Chinese factories burning more coal every year, evaporation of ocean water (the biggest "greenhouse" gas), the wobbles of earth orbit around the sun, and yes, the multifarious fartings of billions of living creatures on the face of the earth, minus, of course, all the trillions of plants and algae that gobble up all the CO2, nitrogen-containing molecules, and sulfur-smelling exhalations spewed out by all of us animals. Got that? It all goes into our best math model.

So in the best case, the smartest climatologist in the world will know 100 variables, each one to an accuracy of 99 percent. Want to know what the probability of our spiffiest math model would be, if that perfect world existed? Have you ever multiplied (99/100) by itself 100 times? According to the Google calculator, it equals a little more than 36.6 percent.

The Bottom line: our best imaginable model has a total probability of one out of three. How many billions of dollars in Kyoto money are we going to spend on that chance?

Or should we just blow it at the dog races?

So all ye of global warming faith, rejoice in the ambiguity that real life presents to all of us. Neither planetary catastrophe nor paradise on earth are sure bets. Sorry about that. (Consider growing up, instead.)

That's why human-caused global warming is an hypothesis, not a fact. Anybody who says otherwise isn't doing science, but trying to sell you a bill of goods.

Probably.

James Lewis

[oldtimer2]

This is the clearest, most easily understood essay about why the climate models can't predict the future weather accuratily that I have ever read.

[saganite]

Uh oh. Another global warming denier! He's an International criminal for daring to dispute the theology. Arrest that man.

[edpc]

The ultimate cop out is when they state waiting for difinitive proof would be too late to change it. How convenient for their agenda.

[longtermmemmory]

fake but accurate science

[River_Wrangler]

Wonder how Colorado is enjoying their "Global Warming" today?

[Delphster]

-15 in Greeley.

[tje]

Excellent article to read on a 32 degree day in Houston. Thanks...

[Maneesh]

Fantastic article. I am a Black Belt in statistics and have always thought this about a phenomenon with so many variables. Any process with more than 10 factors is very difficult to analyze and correlate strongly with 1 factor strongly. In Global warming where we have 100's of factors, none of which we can be absolutely certain about, it is absurd to be able to link warming to one factor. The article explains it very coherently and is an excellent common sense way to explain this to our liberal friends. Oops sorry, I nearly forgot; liberals are devoid of common sense and feel their way through life !

[megatherium]

I would like to take the writer seriously but although he identifies himself as a scientist, I can't seem to find what his credentials, affiliation or even his specialty are. Does anyone know what these are for him?

I get nervous when someone asserts that a problem is too complicated to tackle. He questions the reliability of the current global climate (computer) models, but neglects to mention that these have been succesfully tested on real-world conditions. E.g., if you plug in the initial conditions resulting from the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo (1991), the models correctly predict the amount and duration of the resulting global cooling.

[Made In The USA]

I go deaf to the global warming crowd incessantly wailing about man's impact on climate. There doesn't seem to be a credible argument for it. The message from the global warmist theology is often anti-American, fails to equally judge other nations, and usually calls for solutions that are not practical at best.

What I do buy into can be expressed as follows: Consumption of resources and generation of waste are inevitable - and acceptable. Our ability to manage resources and pollution can positively affect quality of life.

[Paloma_55]

Human Caused Global Warming

One can make an argument that greenhouse gasses are being generated at enormous levels, but there is no data to argue that GG will cause global warming. In fact, we are likely to go into another ice age and then the question will be "Can we generate enough GG to protect us from freezing to death?"

[frithguild]

nice read

[jimfree]

This is the clearest, most easily understood essay about why the climate models can't predict the future weather accuratily that I have ever read.

It's an argument quite a few of us could have made. Thanks to James Lewis for packaging it!

[SmartAZ]

The biggest problem is that many people can't think except in cliches, and we don't have any cliche to say "I don't know." That's why the headline says "probably a crock" instead of "unknown certainty".

[bcsco]

Ping for later read.

[Popocatapetl]

It is important *now* to separate those individuals who "preach" global warming as "faith", from those who accept a preponderance of the evidence. Why? Because if and when it is obvious that global warming is hooey, the "faith-based' global warming advocates must be purged from any position where they can influence science again. There just isn't any room in science for the arrogance of faith. This is because science is like a game of chess. If you play a game of chess, you play by the rules, or it isn't chess. You can play with chess pieces on what looks like a chess board, but unless you follow the rules, exactly, it isn't chess. In science, you can have scientific equipment and work in a laboratory, but unless you follow each and every rule of science, it isn't science. Importantly, what you accomplish is the same, too. If you play a game of chess by the rules, that is *all* you have done: play a game of chess. And if you conduct a scientific experiment to its conclusion, that, too, is all you have done. People mistakenly assume that because you draw conclusions because of a scientific experiment, by interpolation or extrapolation, that they, too, are "scientific". This is NOT true. They are not. While they *may* follow the course of the experiment, and very closely, unless they, too, explicitly follow the rules of science, then they are NOT part of science. This is the great error that non-scientists invariably make. Some accidentally, many on purpose, because they wish to use the legitimacy of science to back up their non-scientific claims. And in the case of global warning, they have pretended that science gives them the *right* to brow-beat and shout down scientists who reserve judgment until observations justify the hypothesis. So they are as mistaken and anti-science as was the Catholic church in its suppression of Galileo. And this is why they must be purged from positions where they can influence and corrupt science further. And why we should remember their names.

[highimpact]

I get nervous when someone asserts that a problem is too complicated to tackle. He questions the reliability of the current global climate (computer) models, but neglects to mention that these have been succesfully tested on real-world conditions.

Wrong. My brother has a Ph.D in atmospheric science and he BUILDS the computer models that you're talking about. His advice: "don't ever trust a weather forecast more than two days out." If they can't predict local weather patterns more than a couple days into the future, what confidence do you have that they can predict global weather patterns years in advance?

E.g., if you plug in the initial conditions resulting from the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo (1991), the models correctly predict the amount and duration of the resulting global cooling.

Those models only worked after the fact. Occasionally a computer model will actually "predict" a weather event to some degree of accuracy, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[AFPhys]

Good essay about the high probability that global warming alarmists are simply statistically incompetent.

[Nevernow]

I feel like leaving that image as the desktop for my fiance, who's European and very, "Americans are killing us with global warming."

[showme_the_Glory]

Why Global Warming is Probably a Crock .....Al Gore supports it.