Posted on 01/19/2015 12:39:16 PM PST by DeweyCA
OR: Why I Should Have Been an Engineer Rather than a Climate Scientist
I’ve been inundated with requests this past week to comment on the NOAA and NASA reports that 2014 was the “hottest” year on record. Since I was busy with a Japan space agency meeting in Tokyo, it has been difficult for me to formulate a quick response.
Of course, I’ve addressed the “hottest year” claim before it ever came out, both here on October 21, and here on Dec. 4.
In the three decades I’ve been in the climate research business, it’s been clear that politics have been driving the global warming movement. I knew this from the politically-savvy scientists who helped organize the U.N.’s process for determining what to do about human-caused climate change. (The IPCC wasn’t formed to determine whether it exists or whether is was even a threat, that was a given.)
I will admit the science has always supported the view that slowly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels should cause some warming, but the view that this would is any way be a bad thing for humans or for Nature has been a politically (and even religiously) driven urban legend.
I am embarrassed by the scientific community’s behavior on the subject. I went into science with the misguided belief that science provides answers. Too often, it doesn’t. Some physical problems are simply too difficult. Two scientists can examine the same data and come to exactly opposite conclusions about causation.
We still don’t understand what causes natural climate change to occur, so we simply assume it doesn’t exist. This despite abundant evidence that it was just as warm 1,000 and 2,000 years ago as it is today. Forty years ago, “climate change” necessarily implied natural causation; now it only implies human causation.
What changed? Not the science…our estimates of climate sensitivity are about the same as they were 40 years ago.
What changed is the politics. And not just among the politicians. At AMS or AGU scientific conferences, political correctness and advocacy are now just as pervasive as as they have become in journalism school. Many (mostly older) scientists no longer participate and many have even resigned in protest.
Science as a methodology for getting closer to the truth has been all but abandoned. It is now just one more tool to achieve political ends.
Reports that 2014 was the “hottest” year on record feed the insatiable appetite the public has for definitive, alarming headlines. It doesn’t matter that even in the thermometer record, 2014 wasn’t the warmest within the margin of error. Who wants to bother with “margin of error”? Journalists went into journalism so they wouldn’t have to deal with such technical mumbo-jumbo. I said this six weeks ago, as did others, but no one cares unless a mainstream news source stumbles upon it and is objective enough to report it.
In what universe does a temperature change that is too small for anyone to feel over a 50 year period become globally significant? Where we don’t know if the global average temperature is 58 or 59 or 60 deg. F, but we are sure that if it increases by 1 or 2 deg. F, that would be a catastrophe?
Where our only truly global temperature measurements, the satellites, are ignored because they don’t show a record warm year in 2014?
In what universe do the climate models built to guide energy policy are not even adjusted to reflect reality, when they over-forecast past warming by a factor of 2 or 3?
And where people have to lie about severe weather getting worse (it hasn’t)? Or where we have totally forgotten that more CO2 is actually good for life on Earth, leading to increased agricultural productivity, and global greening?:
It’s the universe where political power and the desire to redistribute wealth have taken control of the public discourse. It’s a global society where people believe we can replace fossil fuels with unicorn farts and antigravity-based energy.
Feelings now trump facts.
At least engineers have to prove their ideas work. The widgets and cell phones and cars and jets and bridges they build either work or they don’t.
In climate science, whichever side is favored by politicians and journalism graduates is the side that wins.
And what about those 97% of scientists who agree? Well, what they all agree on is that if their government climate funding goes away, their careers will end.
I thought there was only a 38% chance it was the hottest year ever?
Whatever the f* that means.
But it has been posted.
38% chance of being the hottest year ever.
Does it mean that there’s only a 38% chance of being able to “Hide the Decline in 2014”?
He’s dead right. If you simply append everything you hear or read about global warming or “climate change” with the phrase, “according to Al Gore”, it will instantly remind you of the true underlying motivation.
2 years ago we barely had a winter. Last year was one of the worst I remember. This year is so so but started a month early with February cold in November.
bookmark
can’t we all just get a consensus...
there is no future in truth...
fabrication and manufacturing crises brings in dollars for the researcher and the publisher.
Could it be the Sun....or even Sunspots.....?
The earth has been warming and cooling for more than 4 billion years.
Thanks for the post.
CO2 has a much lower specific heat than water vapor. CO2 consists of 0.03% of the atmosphere while water vapor consist of 3-5%. Yet no one is saying there is too much water vapor in the air.
“Feelings now trump facts.”
Yep, it’s about feeling righteous much more than being right.
Thanks to Dr. Spencer for telling it like it is.
Here in the Houston area, we usually love winter. Our winter is (was) basically like fall to a northerner. Lots of people like to golf here in the winter because it is so hot in the summer and mild in the winter. The past 3 winters (2012, 2013 and this one) have been much colder than usual. I usually like to sit outside on the deck and enjoy a cigar during these cool days. I have scarcely been able to do so the past few years because it has been so cold. Not cold like Chicago, but cold for us.
The side that wins is the one who predicts the future correctly. In about 4 to 5 years, the winters and summers will demonstrate which side is correct. And it won’t matter if the wrong side claims it was the warmest year on record when you suffered frostbite or your roof collapsed under the snow or your garden failed to produce.
Actually the AGW crowd is claiming there us too much water vapor. The entire canard of CO2 is based on a positive feedback from minor CO2 increased heat content causing more water vapor. That water vapor in turn amplifies the warming from CO2. That is the only way to get significant temp increases. So the AGW crowd wants less water vapor. And obviously more drought.
Lying to get grant money should be a crime...
Just a gentle reminder...
We now live in the Age of Obama.
CA....
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