[ RadSafe ] RE: The hot and cold of history & journalisticcredibility

[Bill Prestwich]

The current models, when run back in time, reproduce the observations.
Bill Prestwich

Gary Damschen wrote:

> If the science behind anthropomorphic contributions to Global Warming is so
> settled, then could someone explain what seems to be a growing number of
> articles similar to this one?
>
>
>
> http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
>
>
>
> I also wonder why we are continuing to insist on taking drastic action to
> forestall the doom and gloom scenarios predicted by computer models when the
> models' predictions about the effects of warming apparently do not even come
> close to approximating the effects contemporaneously recorded during earlier
> known warming periods. Isn't this a bit like the old jokes/stories about
> people getting million dollar phone bills and being told they had to pay,
> even though they couldn't possibly have run up such a large bill by
> themselves, "because the computer said so?" Since when does science discount
> the observation of physical phenomena in favor of computer models when
> checking hypotheses? It seems like almost anyone could postulate a
> hypothesis, develop a computer simulation based on the hypothesis, then show
> the results of the simulation as "proof" that the hypothesis is correct.
>
>
>
> As far as the "scientific consensus" argument goes, the above article's
> author makes an excellent point about the "Global Cooling" consensus in the
> 70's and 80's. Other great consensus views include the invalidity of plate
> techtonics, the flatness of the Earth, the rotation of the Sun around the
> Earth, the immutability of the atom, and the ferocity and magnitude of the
> 2006 hurricane season predicted by.the computer models. If we had followed
> the urgent advice during the cooling scare to melt/nuke the ice caps to
> prevent a new Ice Age, where would we be now? The alarmists of that day
> decried the immorality of inaction to halt the cooling much as the current
> alarmists decry inaction to halt the warming. Perhaps we need to do real
> observational science and work on refining our models so that they
> reasonably approximate observed physical phenomena before we insist on
> potentially ruinous actions that may well be counterproductive based on
> predictions from those models. I mean, really, isn't this somewhat akin to
> demanding immediate action to counter the "radiological threat" posed by the
> increase of background counts from 40cpm to 60cpm over 2 seconds and
> extrapolating that rise for the next 5 minutes? If the average background
> over 30 minutes is 50cpm, might this be within the normal variance? Is it so
> impossible that we might be seeing natural fluctuations? As with radiation,
> I wonder if there is not a large difference between "detectable" and
> "hazardous" in climatology.
>
>
>
> My $0.02,
>
> Gary Damschen
>
>
>
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