Human-caused global warming.  More and more it gets my dander up, most recently in the Amazon.com discussion forums.  Here's the byplay I had with one fellow over the past few days.

It started when I posted Freeeman Dyson's article about climate change.  Here's how it progressed on Amazon.com:

BPL: Dyson is wrong. Global warming will mean more drought in continental interiors--ask the Australians, who have lost a third of their agricultural production to drought in the past few years. It will mean more violent weather along coastlines (think Katrina). It will mean the disappearance of fresh water for a billion people in Asia and Latin America who depend on glacier melt to feed their rivers. And in the long run it will mean the destruction of trillions of dollars worth of coastal infrastructure due to sea level rise. The effects of global warming will be much more bad than good.

And if Dyson objects to computer models, he ought to stop flying on airplanes or driving over bridges, both of which are routinely developed with computer models these days.

The Town Crank: >> And if Dyson objects to computer models, he ought to stop flying on airplanes or driving over bridges, both of which are routinely developed with computer models these days. <<

I believe that I can respond to that. Models of the aircraft or bridge sort: 1) can be tested, 2) are used to engineer useful things, and 3) are natural outgrowths of aircraft and bridge technology in order to make improvements.

Climate models are none of these things. Climate models have gained importance because the modelers are so desperate to have them be considered important...and those modelers want to have their funding renewed.

I'm still waiting for models to adequately model the past, as in the Medieval Warming Period or The Little Ice Age or even one of the regular ice ages. How about modeling the dip in average temperatures recorded in the 70s that led to predictions of another ice age?

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI

BPL: Excuse me, climate models are routinely tested against empirical data. Where did you get the idea that they weren't? And there wasn't a dip in temperatures in the 1970s, there was a dip in the 1940s and it was roughly flat until it started picking up in the 1970s. The shape of the curve is well reproduced if you take industrial aerosols into account. Here's a typical web page with charts showing how the models do with various inputs:

http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~johnroberthunter/www-swg/

You don't seem to have actually made any effort to learn how climate models work. You might want to do some research. You can start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model

The Town Crank: Ah! I misspoke about the 70s except that that was, indeed, the period of time when much talk of new ice ages emerged.

I "got the idea" that climate models can't be tested because they truly can't be. An aircraft model can be tested by building the aircraft and putting a test pilot into it. In what way can a climate model be tested in anything even approaching a similar fashion?

I can certainly understand that climate models are jiggered based on historical weather records, glacier and permafrost data, etc. Aircraft models are adjusted based on flight characteristics of existing aircraft and that informs the design of new types of aircraft...but they can still be built and tested.

With climate models constantly changing, what do we have that we can point at and say, "Yep! That climate model we constructed 20 years ago correctly predicted that temperatures would average such-and-such by this year!"

All I hear is that we should trust the models and determine drastically expensive political policy based on them. Never mind the bobbles in the weather. "Weather" isn't the same as "climate", they say. Never mind that a record hurricane season in '05 is followed by two average hurricane seasons in '06 and '07. Never mind that this very June has been just about the coolest on record. None of that matters...it's the climate model that matters. The climate model will tell us what to expect.

All right, what can we expect? Will average temperatures be 1 degree Celsius higher in 20 years? If that is so devastatingly terrible, how many trillions should we spend to keep the temperature where it is today?

Being told to make "an effort to learn how climate models work" is about the least useful advice I've heard in a long time. I will NEVER learn enough to satisfy you and your ilk that I have learned enough. There will ALWAYS be some newly revealed study showing decrease in permafrost depth that I won't have read that you can throw in my face as proof that I haven't learned enough.

What I know is that a few basic facts of human nature will surface ever more strongly:

1. Some people love the idea of controlling the actions of other people. The global warming cause is the latest in a long history of political causes that give those folks leverage to attempt to exert that control.
2. Some people love the idea that others are not enlightened, to put it mildly. Proselytizing is a favorite activity of such people, and they will never go away.
3. Folks are basically conservative in that they don't like change. Being dunned endlessly about how their modes of living are unsustainable and that drastic change is necessary isn't ever going to influence them very much. Their faces have been rubbed in too many changes to make them willing to go along with the latest global destruction scenario.

Therefore I return to my thesis of a couple weeks ago: this whole global warming thing will essentially blow over. After a few more years the fear mongerers and the alarmists and the oh-so-much-smarter-than-you-are folks will be revealed as hucksters. There will be some money spent on prevention, but not nearly as much as the global warmists want. At least in this country, global warming will be shown to be simply another form of control over our lives. Politicians will realize that they can't be re-elected by standing on a global warming platform, no matter how good the science seems to be.

And the science? When global disaster does NOT occur in 20 years there will be much less respect for science than there is already. People hiding behind science in order to push a global warming political agenda will have nothing to push.

I have faith in human nature. If there's REALLY a threat, people will move heaven and earth. But woe betide the global warming johnnies and their constant mantra of disaster.

Don't get me wrong: I love science and math. Normally, I might very well make climate modeling sort of a hobby. But to be scolded that I don't know enough about them and that I should start with Wikipedia...all I can say is, good luck to you and your fellow alarmists. Let me know how your presentation before Congress goes when you tell Senator Bedfellow that he should go to Wikipedia and really learn more about climate models before he makes comments about them.

Sincerely,

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI

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