Looks like the religion of global warming is losing one of its key articles of faith -- the notion of a "consensus" on the issue among scientists.

The last issue of SCIENCE is waffling like mad on the global warming fad, warning its readers that it may not be so settled a question. Under the headline "Another Global Warming Icon Comes Under Attack," SCIENCE writer Richard Kerr writes

"...a group of mainstream atmospheric scientists is disputing a rising icon of global warming, and researchers are giving some ground." ...

"Robert Charlson of the University of Washington, Seattle, (is) one of three authors of a commentary published online last week in Nature Reports: Climate Change. ... he and his co-authors argue that the simulation by 14 different climate models of the warming in the 20th century is not the reassuring success IPCC claims it to be."

(IPCC is the supposed international scientific consensus document on global warming - JL).

"... In the run-up to the IPCC climate science report released last February ... 14 groups ran their models under 20th-century conditions of rising greenhouse gases. ... But the group of three atmospheric scientists ... says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match "conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality," says Schwartz. [....]

"Greenhouse gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should." [Italics added]

What? "Somehow" they missed the biggest unknown factor in climate prediction?

Highly qualified climate scientists have long warned that warming estimates have at least one giant question mark: Water vapor and other tiny particles in the atmosphere. By failing to include reliable estimates of such "hazes" (not necessarily pollutants, as the article says), global warming models are likely to err wildly on the side of warming. It's the unseen elephant in the living room.

Not only that, but the scientific data used to support global warming does not meet the usual standard of proof for scientific publications -- having a 90% confidence rate rather than the standard 95% confidence rate expected of rigorous scientific studies. In other words, not only is the science sloppy, but so is the standard of proof the acolytes of global warming are willing to accept in the name of consensus.

So much for consensus, dudes.

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Posted by: Greg at 05:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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