When Professor Chris Folland of the British Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research said: “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models,” he was being exceedingly honest about the way alarmists view science.
Because of the subsequent uproar, he is now willing to admit some role for robust scientific data. But he still seems unable to clearly separate storytelling and computer simulations from real science.
He should know that if it is not anchored in logic and evidence, it is not science. Non-scientists may find this difficult to understand, because they have been fed a steady diet of climate alarmism from the media. Tall tales, anchored in “consensus” (politics) and “belief” (religion), are not science. Greg Jayne’s Columbian editorial (Nov. 23) was an extreme example of media complicity and ignorance.
Similarly, all who preached the gospel according to Al Gore at the recent climate debate at the Vancouver library lacked appropriate education. Yet the three scientists who opposed them had Ph.Ds in physics or geology. If we are to believe Jayne’s preposterous claim of 97 percent scientific consensus, his fellow believers should have been able to find 97 Ph.D scientists to bless their dogma. But they could not find one.
Appropriate scientific education is also lacking among prominent alarmists such as Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Dr. Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. Railroad and electrical engineers should be able to understand this topic, but these two certainly do not.
Past presidents of the NAS who were genuine scientists, such as Dr. Philip Handler, had a better understanding: “Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference — science and the nation will suffer.”
What about Folland? It turns out that he has only a bachelor’s degree in physics, hardly enough education to be a real professor. Yet he has won many awards for adhering to the paradigm.
Could he be correct that climate simulations actually work? A report by alarmists in the Proceedings of the NAS (Santer 2012) contained the striking admission that their models are high by a factor of two in predicting the global temperature trend. Of course, that admission was buried where no one saw it. Another critique by climatologist Dr. John Christy showed that the models are wrong by a factor of 3.5 in the tropical mid-troposphere where there is supposed to be a “hotspot” caused by carbon dioxide warming. Robust satellite and radiosonde data show no hotspot.
What about the “unusual warming recently” claimed by President Barack Obama’s National Climate Assessment 2014? The only thing unusual has been the lack of global warming for more than 15 years. The Arctic did warm more than any other region after 1975, the tropics only slightly and the Antarctic not at all. But the Arctic also warmed significantly after 1900, to a peak around 1940 that was warmer than today. Surprise! Our climate is cyclical over decades! That’s an ocean effect, not a CO2 effect.
With climate models that do not work, with a missing hotspot, and no net global warming in a long while, the government’s scientific case for alarm strikes out. As a former sports editor, Jayne should acknowledge that the San Francisco Examiner had it right in 1888: “There is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out.”
Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D, lives in Corbett, Ore., and can be reached at gordonfulks@hotmail.com. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago, Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research.
