Thinking about things

There was a lot more than this, and perhaps the scathing tone of the text might help explain why it has taken a year to get the dissentients to this point. But I share some of the feeling in the letter. That at the moment there is not, according to someone, a plausible counter hypothesis to the CO2 as the villain (if villainy indeed is what we are talking about), does not mean that we are forced to accept that it is the villain, especially when there are so many weaknesses in the CO2 hypothesis.

Indeed, though it is easy enough to find examples of his 'potential reasons', that is not really the writer's job. Those who say that there is no plausible explanations other than CO2 need to show that they have explored these alternatives thoroughly, and when they do they come up with a blank each time. Take solar, for example. The normal account from the IPCC and its supporters is that the change in TSI (Total Solar Irradiance, a measure of solar power over all wavelengths) is too small to have had any effect, and this is by and large correct, according to the data. But there are other possible forces, and they are referred to in peer-reviewed publications (see here for example). There is solar wind, cosmic ray ionisation (cloud formation), UV ozone, and others. These factors need the same kind of attention and funding that CO2 and methane have received before one can say that they are of no consequence.

This sort of cop-out is one of the fundamental weaknesses in the IPCC position, which starts with a finding and does its best to support that finding, rather than look at the importance of greenhouse gas emissions in the context of the natural variation in our weather and climate. It's not the way I was brought up to think.

Oh well, another day, another vexing issue…