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"Crichton talks about the over-reliance on 'models' to understand the climate. What else are we supposed to do? Science relies on models, without which we can't

"Crichton talks about the over-reliance on 'models' to understand the climate. What else are we supposed to do? Science relies on models, without which we can't predict anything. " You are correct, we can't predict anything (this complex). There's plenty of falsifiable science that doesn't require computer models. Just because models are all we can pull out of our scientific backsides doesn't mean that they are sufficient. I think his point that our models can't predict 12 hours of weather is pretty apt. "The physics is easy to understand: carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, letting visible light in, and reflecting infrared back. This warms the earth." If it's that simple, why is it that a mess of climatologists don't agree with you (including one commenting here)? Either they are stupid (I'm doubting that), they are evil, or the issue isn't quite as simple as you think. I honestly don't know-- so I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you... But I think history (even RECENT history) shows how utterly wrong scientific consensus can be, especially in the arena of climatology.

DaniFong 18y ago
I have no idea why any climatologist would try to dismiss the theory that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. There's been nothing even resembling a physical theory floated that would contradict CO2 lowering Earth's thermal radiation to space. As far as I have seen, all serious challenges to the standard climate models status quo either challenge that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas (as physics goes, the evidence for this is remarkably solid) or invoke questions of completeness: things like, have we modeled the effects of water vapor and cloud albedo well enough (we have tried to model the effects, but there are many assumptions on cloud cover that are probably inaccurate), have we modeled how the biosphere reacts properly (probably not, as it is so complicated, and new species would thrive under new environmental conditions), have we modeled the effects of lowered icecap albedo (yes, though we don't have good models for the glacial rate of decay, it's pretty universally true that as the icecaps melt, the solar thermal incidence increases), etc. None of these contest whether or not CO2 is an influence. The question is whether the other factors regulate the earth's temperature sufficiently to cause the CO2's influence to saturate out. (As far as I know, the climatologist apparently commenting here was actually just quoted person from an article.) Here's another example: Crichton asks rhetorically 'Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?' Maybe it would be foolish to buy any particular stock. But the climate isn't a good analogy: it is macroscopic, long-term, average behavior we are interested in. One can instead buy stock in something much larger, the assumption being that it will be worth more in a long time. These are called national bonds.

DaniFong 18y ago

I have no idea why any climatologist would try to dismiss the theory that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. There's been nothing even resembling a physical theory floated that would contradict CO2 lowering Earth's thermal radiation to space. As far as I have seen, all serious challenges to the standard climate models status quo either challenge that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas (as physics goes, the evidence for this is remarkably solid) or invoke questions of completeness: things like, have we modeled the effects of water vapor and cloud albedo well enough (we have tried to model the effects, but there are many assumptions on cloud cover that are probably inaccurate), have we modeled how the biosphere reacts properly (probably not, as it is so complicated, and new species would thrive under new environmental conditions), have we modeled the effects of lowered icecap albedo (yes, though we don't have good models for the glacial rate of decay, it's pretty universally true that as the icecaps melt, the solar thermal incidence increases), etc. None of these contest whether or not CO2 is an influence. The question is whether the other factors regulate the earth's temperature sufficiently to cause the CO2's influence to saturate out. (As far as I know, the climatologist apparently commenting here was actually just quoted person from an article.) Here's another example: Crichton asks rhetorically 'Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?' Maybe it would be foolish to buy any particular stock. But the climate isn't a good analogy: it is macroscopic, long-term, average behavior we are interested in. One can instead buy stock in something much larger, the assumption being that it will be worth more in a long time. These are called national bonds.