Thursday, March 29, 2007

How Trustworthy are Climate Change Models ?

Watch THIS CLIP of the MIT professor talking on the subject.

At the 11:56 mark, the issue of whether CO2 is the cause or the effect of global warming is raised in a question from the floor.

The professor responds that it is a "chicken and egg problem" and says "we don't have an answer to that" but then adds that it is "a firm conclusion".

"A firm conclusion"? Maybe he was hoping nobody would notice that comment and nail him with follow up questions like :

"What is a firm conclusion? That CO2 is the cause of global warming? Didn't you just say 'we don't have the answer to that'?"

But they just let him get away with it.

At the 13:36 mark he puts up a slide showing the discredited and dishonest "hockey stick" graph.

Why dishonest ?

There was a period in recent human history which was hotter than it is now but you wouldn't know it from the way the "hockey stick" shoots up at the right side of the graph. The graph does not reflect the historical fact that Vikings were farming in Greenland around 1000AD.

At the end of his spiel on the "hockey stick" graph he again uses the expression "another firm conclusion". I think they have a term for that in psychology : it's called overcompensating.

The rest of his hour long talk (if you can bear it) is all about his model.

After you've taken that in, read THIS and ask yourself the question in the subject line of this post.

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