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Going cold on climate change

By Mark S. Lawson - posted Friday, 2 March 2007


“Many scientists therefore rely upon numerical models of the climate system to calculate (1) the nature of natural variability with no human interference, and compare it to (2) the variability seen when human effects are included. This approach is a very sensible one, but the ability to test (calibrate) the models, which can be extraordinarily complex, for realism in both categories (1) and (2) is limited by the same observational data base already described. Thus at bottom, it is very difficult to separate human induced change from natural change, certainly not with the confidence we all seek.” Carl Wunsch. A professor of physical oceanography at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Deterministic computer models predict future climate according to the assumptions that are programmed into them. There is no ‘Theory of Climate’, and the potential output of all realistic GCMs (Global Climate Models) therefore encompasses a range of both future warmings and coolings. The difference between these outputs can be changed at will, simply by adjusting such poorly known parameters as the effects of cloud cover.” Robert M. Carter, James Cook University, Townsville. Professor Carter is a former Head of School of Earth Sciences at the University. (Statement (PDF 86KB) to the US Senate’s committee on environment and public works.)

Greenhouse proponents may try to wave away these criticisms but only one has to be even partially right for the computer climate models to fall into a gigantic heap. The models are, after all, trying to predict the results of an enormously complex physical system, and they are trying to do so a full century out!

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A small error at the beginning could make a nonsense of the result at the end, and there is every reason for thinking that the errors are not small, but colossal.

If all that is not bad enough, the issue really moves from being simply absurd into a farce when one asks what the projections would be used for. No policymaker in his or her right mind would base decisions on computer projections that are so vague and, in any case, are simply computer projections.

Would Australian wineries start moving their vineyards because of the IPCC projections, for example? Would land owners in Britain start planting vineyards again as they did in medieval times, on the strength of computer projections? Of course they wouldn’t. With the possible exception of the issue of emissions, no one would do anything until some sort of trend for their region becomes evident.

About the only use for the IPCC report is as an exercise in conscious raising for climate change, and the need to reduce emissions. In that sense it has been highly successful, but it still seems a bizarre way to do it.

Nor are our diligent computer model makers likely to cease or desist in their activities any time soon. They have too much of their careers invested in the models. In any case, why change? The media fawns on them, they are given awards, sceptics are howled down and, thanks to the long time scales involved, they may be in honourable retirement before it is evident that climatic reality is paying no attention to their models. Or worse, they may be right for the wrong reasons. This issue has reached the stage of theatre.

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About the Author

Mark Lawson is a senior journalist at the Australian Financial Review. He has written The Zen of Being Grumpy (Connor Court).

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