{"id":184487,"date":"2010-01-15T04:49:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2010\/01\/15\/a-demonstration-that-global-warming-predictions-are-based-more-on-faith-than-on-science.html"},"modified":"2010-01-15T04:49:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:49:44","slug":"a-demonstration-that-global-warming-predictions-are-based-more-on-faith-than-on-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/184487","title":{"rendered":"A Demonstration that Global Warming Predictions are Based More On Faith than On Science"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.<\/a>
\nWednesday, January 13, 2009<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always searching for better and simpler ways to explain
\nthe reason why I believe climate researchers have overestimated the
\nsensitivity of our climate system to increasing carbon dioxide
\nconcentrations in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

What follows is a somewhat different take than I\u2019ve used in
\nthe past. In the following cartoon, I\u2019ve illustrated 2 different
\nways to interpret a hypothetical (but realistic) set of satellite
\nobservations that indicate (1) warming of 1 degree C in global average
\ntemperature, accompanied by (2) an increase of 1 Watt per sq. meter of
\nextra radiant energy lost by the Earth to space.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u2018consensus\u2019 IPCC view, on the left, would be that
\nthe 1 deg. C increase in temperature was the cause of the 1 Watt
\nincrease in the Earth\u2019s cooling rate. If true, that would mean
\nthat a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by late in this century
\n(a 4 Watt decrease in the Earth\u2019s ability to cool) would
\neventually lead to 4 deg. C of global warming. Not good news.<\/p>\n

But those who interpret satellite data in this way are being sloppy.
\nFor instance, they never bother to investigate exactly WHY the warming
\noccurred in the first place. As shown on the right, natural cloud
\nvariations can do the job quite nicely. To get a net 1 Watt of extra
\nloss you can (for instance) have a gain of 2 Watts of forcing from the
\ncloud change causing the 1 deg. C of warming, and then a resulting
\nfeedback response to that warming of an extra 3 Watts.<\/p>\n

The net result still ends up being a loss of 1 extra Watt, but in
\nthis scenario, a doubling of CO2 would cause little more than 1 deg. C
\nof warming since the Earth is so much more efficient at cooling itself
\nin response to a temperature increase.<\/p>\n

Of course, you can choose other combinations of forcing and
\nfeedback, and end up deducing just about any amount of future warming
\nyou want. Note that the major uncertainty here is what caused the
\nwarming in the first place. Without knowing that, there is no way to
\nknow how sensitive the climate system is.<\/p>\n

And that lack of knowledge has a very interesting consequence. If
\nthere is some forcing you are not aware of, you WILL end up
\noverestimating climate sensitivity. In this business, the less you know
\nabout how the climate system works, the more fragile the climate system
\nlooks to you. This is why I spend so much time trying to separately
\nidentify cause (forcing) and effect (feedback) in our satellite
\nmeasurements of natural climate variability.<\/p>\n

As a result of this inherent uncertainty regarding causation,
\nclimate modelers are free to tune their models to produce just about
\nany amount of global warming they want to. It will be difficult to
\nprove them wrong, since there is as yet no unambiguous interpretation
\nof the satellite data in this regard. They can simply assert that there
\nare no natural causes of climate change, and as a result they will
\nconclude that our climate system is precariously balanced on a knife
\nedge. The two go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

Their science thus enters the realm of faith. Of course, there is
\nalways an element of faith in scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, in the
\narena of climate research the level of faith is unusually high, and I
\nget the impression most researchers are not even aware of its existence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Add star<\/span>Like<\/span>Share<\/span>Share with note<\/span><\/span>Email<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Book Mark it-><\/b> del.icio.us<\/a> | Reddit<\/a> | Slashdot<\/a> | Digg<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Technorati<\/a> | Google<\/a> | StumbleUpon<\/a> | Window Live<\/a> | Tailrank<\/a> | Furl<\/a> | Netscape<\/a> | Yahoo<\/a> | BlinkList<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. Wednesday, January 13, 2009 I\u2019m always searching for better and simpler ways to explain the reason why I believe climate researchers have overestimated the sensitivity of our climate system to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. What follows is a somewhat different take than I\u2019ve used in the past. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}