The science is not done

This is a Part 1 of 2 response to comments regarding my recent article, “The dirty little secret about climate change.”

Thanks to the thousands of private emails uncovered via the 2009 Climategate scandal, many of the world’s most influential climate scientists were exposed as climate activists.  One in particular was Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was also a key contributor to the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports. But in one of his emails to fellow IPCC scientists, he laments the following, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”  Darn. Do you think that if they can’t produce true global warming, they might not get paid? Either way, it’s only our tax monies.

But that hasn’t stopped Trenberth’s valiant ‘Don Quixote’ quest in search of a scorched earth.  In an attempt to criticize Rush Limbaugh’s illuminating description of the sad state of climate models, Trenberth said, “Utter nonsense. … The Earth is now hotter than it has ever been on record.” Not only did he avoid the “computer model” issue, but his comment was made for public consumption.  In a not-so-public, 2007 Nature.com section called “Predictions of Climate” blog, he candidly said, “None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.” He next reveals, “I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.” And then he amazingly goes on to conclude, “However, the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”

(For those not familiar with computer modeling, Trenberth’s reference to “initialized” means that the models do not have sufficient data to accurately create a numerical representation of the current climate within the computer.)

Sadly folks, there are numerous, well documented articles detailing the numerous deficiencies in the 100+ climate models.  It’s especially important to note that they all contain special “fudge factors.” Let’s hope those IPCC scientists are not using those fudge factors as “insurance policies” for expected results. 

As a government trained meteorologist and computer programmer, I am well aware of  these limitations and challenges. Currently and unfortunately, no climate model can repeatedly deliver valid climate forecasts. Remember “Deep Blue” — the famous computer chess program?  It publicly proved it could do what it claimed.  If there was just one climate model worth its salt, it would have already been on the front page of the NY Times. Until then, the bottom line for those IPCC climate models is: garbage in – garbage out. 

Villager John Shewchuk is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com.