Maggie's Farm

Cargo cult science.

The Critique has the form of a scientific overview, but none of the substance. While there is not space on this forum to address every point, we have only to start at the beginning.


In fact, the Climate Science Special Report directly addresses uncertainty, and uncertainty forms a large part of the Report.


An ad hominem that posits a vast conspiracy that must involve the scientists from around the globe working in many different scientific fields, from glaciology to ecology to atmospherics.


There is nothing unusual about using computers to model complex phenomena. All scientific models, including climate models, are constrained by observation.


Except for all the climate satellites, ocean buoys, polar expeditions, balloon radiosondes, etc. deployed by climate scientists to collect observations.


The Critique keeps going off the rails. Climate science is all about feedbacks.


They even contradict themselves, apparently ignoring the fact that a primary measure of global warming, climate sensitivity, is stated per doubling of CO2, which is non-linear by definition.


More ad hominem. It's one thing to disagree with other scientists, but quite another to say they aren't even doing science. Remember, climate scientists are the ones who collect vast amounts of data to test their scientific ideas. There are very few naysayers who do more than naysay.


No, it is not a purely theoretical number, but one constrained by observation, including in applied physics. Radiative forcing for CO2 is known within about 1%.

Continuing:


Checking the first citation, Otto 2013, the paper states "we find that the global energy budget implies a range of values for the equilibrium climate sensitivity that is in agreement with earlier estimates, within the limits of uncertainty," contrary to the Critique's representation.


That's simply false. The Earth used to be a mass of molten rock.


Misleading. CO2 is the dominant cause of the current warming trend. As climatologists have discovered, there are many drivers of historical climate change, including changes in solar irradiance, volcanism, orbital variations, composition of the atmosphere, continental drift, mountain building, variations in sea currents, changes in greenhouse gases, even cometary impacts.


Easterbrook conflates relative humidity with absolute humidity. Climate feedback is due to changes in absolute humidity.


But not human civilization. Humans would not prosper if the Earth were to suddenly enter the climate of the Jurassic Period.