Guest Post by James Ring
IPCC Third Assessment Report
Chapter 14
Section 14.2.2.2
Last paragraph:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
This information was not included in the Summary Report for Policymakers given to the press and public.
If the climate is indeed a coupled non-linear chaotic system (who can doubt the IPCC) then there is no rational or scientific basis to make a definitive statement about a future state of the climate.At this point, the coupled non-linear chaotic nature of the climate makes scientific observations academically interesting but they have no relevance in predicting the future state of the climate. The climate is a system which means the relationships among these observations are what is important not the observations themselves.
All the public discourse regarding the future state of the climate has been based on the false premise that the current climate models are predicting the future state of the climate when in fact the models are merely projecting these states.
Predictions are the purview of science. Model projections can only agree with predictions when the models duplicate the real world.
To base public policy on an unknowable state of a system defies common sense. However, too much money and political power are at stake for the Central Planners to do otherwise.
I would argue that the Climate Model True Believers are the ones taking an unscientific approach to the subject.
In January 1961 President Eisenhower in his Farewell Address identified the situation in which we find ourselves today:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard, there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”
Another relevant publication is: “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer (pdf).
Read also, the forward by Freeman Dyson (pdf embedded below). It is as important as the rest of the paper.
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