"Next, and slightly more troubling, we have some rather misleading and selective recollection regarding Jim Hansen's testimony to congress in 1988. "Dr. Hansen overestimated [global warming] by 300 percent" (p247). Hansen's testimony did indeed lead to a big increase in awareness of global warming as a issue, but not because he exaggerated the problem by 300%. In a paper published soon after that testimony, Hansen et al, 1988 presented three model simulations for different scenarios for the growth in trace gases and other forcings (see figure). Scenario A had exponentially increasing CO2, Scenario B had a more modest Business-as-usual assumption, and Scenario C had no further increases in CO2 after the year 2000. Both scenarios B and C assumed a large volcanic eruption in 1995. Rightly, the authors did not assume that they knew what path the carbon dioxide emissions would take, and so presented a spectrum of results. The scenario that ended up being closest to the real path of forcings growth was scenario B, with the difference that Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, not 1995. The temperature change for the decade under this scenario was very close to the actual 0.11 C/decade observed (as can be seen in the figure). So given a good estimate of the forcings, the model did a reasonable job. In fact in his testimony, Hansen ONLY showed results from scenario B, and stated clearly that it was the most probable scenario. The '300 percent' error claim comes from noted climate skeptic Patrick Michaels who in testimony in congress in 1998 deleted the bottom two curves in order to give the impression that the models were unreliable."
Michael Crichton's State of Confusion II: Return of the Science
"Crichton should know that this assertion is false. He cites in the 'bibliography' at the end of his book, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But he appears unaware, for example, of the 54 page chapter (chapter "8") in that report on "Model Evaluation", which describes in detail how observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models. He also appears unaware of the 44 page chapter (chapter "12") on "Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes" which describes in detail how model-predicted changes are explicitly compared to the actual climate observations in determining the extent to which human influence on climate can be established. Finally, he appears unaware of the 56 page chapter (chapter "10") on "Regional Climate Information - Evaluation and Projections" evaluating the success of model-based regional climate predictions as measured against actual instrumental data."
Crichton: climate expert or biased, very wealthy, publicity-seeking, book-selling activist? You make the call.
Here's my take: When a biased, wealthy, publicitiy-seeking author/activist can successfully call into question the opinions of "climate experts", then said "scientific opinions" have serious shortcomings.
Besides, could we not also say:
"Al Gore: climate expert or biased, very wealthy, publicity-seeking, book-selling activist? You make the call."
Real Climate -- Climate Science from Climate Scientists, links notable for two glaring ommisions...
The first, the disclaimer that,
" The contributors to this site do so in a personal capacity during their spare time and their posts do not represent the views of the organizations for which they work, nor the agencies which fund them. The contributors are solely responsible for the content of the site and receive no remuneration for their contributions."
In other words, anonymous individual opinions.
More importantly, there is a breathtaking lapse in that the Climate Scientists contributing to that blog are not identified. Al Gore calls himself a "climate scientist". How seriously are we to take their anonymous contributions if they won't (or can't) even identify themselves?
A site like that should have the confidence to identify all the contributors by name.
Absent that, their jabber has no more authority for me than pro and con civilians here on FR discussing climate change.
Finally, linking to isolated remarks by anonymous authors without providing the complete context of the remarks is dissimulation in the extreme, and simply more background noise in the discussion.
Wanna compare him to the abundance of Hollywood types as far as wealth or publicity?
What about comparing him to Algore, born into money(oil money), lived in the Watergate but claimed to be a man of the people that could pick cotton with the best of them.
Who jets around the world, rides in limos and SUVs then spouts off about you and me driving big cars, wasting fuel and emitting CO2.
Who thought he was robbed of the presidency and would love to have it but will settle for an Oscar.
Let's compare.