A look at climate science written in a cooler and more skeptical day

The hacked emails and papers from the UK’s Climate Research Unit reveal the underside of climate science (as the many bizarre conclusions do the same for the anti-AGW mob).  Spinning data to conceal contrary evidence, avoiding freedom of information requests, purging the profession of skeptical voices.  All familiar things to anyone familiar with the history of science.  All evidence of the most important step needed, and that most strongly opposed by most climate scientists:

Raise the standards when applying science research to public policy questions.   That means requiring full transparency of data and methods used in climate science research, and third party review of the data, analysis, and models.

The saddest aspect of the climate science debate is that this is a regression from the 1970’s, to varying degrees.  We had transparency and replication of climate science research — but lost them when climate science was politicized (which I somewhat arbitrarily date to the publication of “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions“, Carl Sagan et al, Science, December 1983 (for an analysis of this sorry spectacle see “Nuclear winter: science and politics“, Brian Martin, Science and Public Policy, October 1988).

Worse, the public debate — which sets public policy — is thoroughly corrupted.  Both sides misrepresent the facts, feeding feeding their zealot-like followers with a steady diet of lies and exaggeration.  This site has looked at both sides in the debate (albeit not with equal attention to both), finding both to be sloppy and often hysterical.

It need not be like this.  It was not always like this.  To survive, it must get better than this.

A look at science writing from the 1970’s: global cooling or warming?

To understand important issues I recommend reading old reports and books, not just the latest best-sellers on Amazon.  Times serves to wash away the gravel, leaving the gold behind.   The best introductory work about climate change I’ve found is The Cooling by Lowell Ponte (1974).  The subtitle is suitably lurid (good marketing!):

“Has the Next Ice Age already begun? Can We survive it?”

But the content is comprehensive and balanced. Ponte discusses the dynamics and prospects for global warming).  Perhaps its most important revelation to us:  climate science has changed remarkably little during the past 35 years.  We know vastly more, but the big questions remain unanswered (again, no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of science).

It’s a valuable lesson to us, showing that we can discuss these issues in a reasonable and open-minded fashion.  As Exhibit A, read this excerpt from the Preface by Professor Reid A. Bryson.  Bryson was an atmospheric scientist, geologist and meteorologist; Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the U of Wisconsin – Madison; designated Global Laureate by the UN Global Environment Program in 1990.

How many mass-market books about climate science begin with such a balanced perspective?

Preface to The Cooling

By Reid A. Bryson. Bryson was the first chairman Department of Meteorology and Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (see his Wikipedia entry).

The Cooling will be controversial, because among scientists most of the matters it deals with are hotly debated.

• There is no agreement on whether the earth is cooling.
• There is not unanimous agreement on whether it has cooled, or one hemisphere has cooled and the other warmed.
• One would think that there might be consensus about what data there is — but there is not.
• There is no agreement on the causes of climatic change, or even why it should not change among those who so maintain.
• There is certainly no agreement about what the climate will do in the next century, though there is a majority opinion that it will change, more or less, one way or the other.
• Of that majority, a majority believe that the longer trend will be downward.

Nevertheless, it is an important question, as this book points out, and it is time for some of the questions to be settled. Lowell Ponte has summarized the data dn theories very well, and has reasonably concluded that a rapid change in Earth’s climate is possible, perhaps even likely, within the next few decades, and that this would have serious consequences for mankind.

There is surprisingly little argument among those who have actually studied climates over multi-millennial time scales that we will be in an Ice Age 10,000 years from now. There is, however, less agreement about how soon and how rapidly the transition from the present interglacial will take place. One extreme view envisions a “snow blitz” beginning of the ice-age climate, only a few years long, and a rapid growth of continental glaciers. If this were true, response would be almost impossible. The other extreme is the opinion that climates change gradually and almost imperceptibly over many thousand so of years, with plenty of time for adaptation by the ecosystems and man.

My own opinion is intermediate:

• that climates change by relatively abrupt small steps;
• that these small steps are important, for they can be disruptive to stressed ecosystems such as ours is now; and
• that man can prepare somewhat for their occurrence.

… {Mr. Ponte} has put the map of climatic arguments into a reasonable perspective. He has shown that there are potential solutions I hope that scientists will read it as a challenge to set their theories and analysis in order. I hope that all will read it as a serious and thoughtful analysis of a real and pressing problem.

———————————————-

My recommendations about climate science

When reading about any politicized issue I recommend that you exercise skepticism, skepticism, and more skepticism. As for the public policy aspects of climate change, here are recommendations — things that must be done, whatever the cost — although it would be trivial compared, for instance, to global military spending.

1. Raise the standards when applying science research to public policy questions.
2. Provide greater transparency of data and methods used in climate science research.
3. Provide third-party review of the data, analysis, and modeling is necessary.
4. Improve the various global climate data collection and analysis systems – satellites, radiosondes, and surface stations.
5. Rationally apply the precautionary principle.

For more about these things see My “wish list” for the climate sciences in 2009.

For More Information

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see posts about doomsters, about shockwaves, about the precautionary principle, about the keys to understanding climate change, and especially these about global cooling …

1. More forecasts of a global cooling cycle.
2. Good news about global warming!
3. An important new article about climate change.
4. An important letter sent to the President about the danger of climate change.
5. About those headlines from the past century about global cooling — Exaggerations by the anti-AGW mob.