Posted on 01/28/2008 6:28:24 AM PST by mattstat
The short answer, I will disappoint many of you by saying, is no. Like I wrote before, climatologists are generally nice people genuinely struggling with understanding the immense complexities of the oceanic-atmospheric (and space!) system. It might be that many of them are misleading themselves by custom tailoring models to show them what they expect (or desire?) to see, but this has not reached a level where it is done with intent. Most mistakes that are made are honest ones. And it is also true that much has been learned while examining climate models. Still, while scientists are in general noble creatures, there does exists the possibility of them sliding into the abyss.
So suppose, if you are able, that significant man-made climate change is false; further, that it cannot happen, and that all changes to the climate system are due to external forcings, such as those caused by changes in solar output. Just suppose all this is true for the sake of argument.
Now put yourself in the place of a climatologist, one of the many hundreds, in fact, who was involved with the IPCC and so shared in that great validator, the Nobel Peace Prize*.
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
Whew! What a relief! Their errors are unintentional. (though vast)
So would that make them um.... what's the word? Wrong?
I think climateology is more of an art than science. It attempts to use science to explain earths dynamic weather patterns in a short term “stimulus-response” manner when actually earths weather is so long term in nature that discernable patterns are not recognizeable...not enough data. Science is based on predictability.
junk science created for legislative and courtroom monetary profit.
“I think climateology is more of an art than science. It attempts to use science to explain earths dynamic weather patterns in a short term “stimulus-response” manner when actually earths weather is so long term in nature that discernable patterns are not recognizeable...not enough data. Science is based on predictability.”
It’s a science since it is based on data collection and analysis. Interpretation of the data can be an art form in that the same data can be interpreted differently.
As far as precictability, weather is what happens in the short term, climate is VERY long term. Its the study of gross trends that happen over centuries or millenia. Not many climatologists live to see if thier predictions come true.
You could use the same description to refer to “Political Science” yet we all know that college graduates of this discipline receive a BA degree, not BS. Because human beings and our climate are unpredictable you cannot say they are a science. The dictionary defines science as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method”. I see no general laws in climateology, merely efforts to use science to explain observed phenomena and, by extension, assumptions leading to pet conclusions.
Pseudo-religion.
Pseudo-cult!
If "climatology" were really scientific, don't y'all think Al Gore and the IPCC would have won a Nobel Prize in a scientific field instead of in the one area that is -- by definition -- overtly political?
Excellent post. Ditto from me.
Science usually requires at least on control group. If you want to link human activity to increased global temperatures all one needs to do.......within Science....is keep going whole hog on Earth A, and eliminate CO2 producing activity on Earth B. Then wait a few hundred years and compare!
What? No Earth A and Earth B? Just ONE Earth. Impossible to do a controlled scientific experiment on climate then.
Climatology = ‘soft’ science/pseudoscience
No more Scientific than Sociology.
What we're experiencing with the IPCC and Gorebull warming is the Marxist politicization of science. The Soviets did it with Lysenko and of course Gore and his bunch follow the Soviet model in everything they do.
well stated
Ever open a physics book? They are (at the undergrad level) a set of definitions of terms (force, velocity, etc) and then the math that shows how those things interact in the real world.
What undergrad physics has (and bridge building and aeronautics, etc) that climatology doesn't is the complete set of terms important to the result. Or they have at least enough of the terms to compute a dependable result to the safety limits required.
When Climatology matures, and starts getting reproducible results (as in the module accurately retells year 2005 by data from years 2001-2004) and accurate predictions (when the target date is in the future), there will be yet more math involved.
The problem now is that they aren't yet sure of all that they need to measure, and don't know how to model some things like cloud formation that they know they need. They can't even get the models to compute last years weather from the years before.
In the meantime, the psuedo-scientist alarmists are lying about (the hockey stick) or ignoring (sunspots) anything that stands in their path.
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