Tuesday, March 22, 2011

American Thinker: More Climate Disruption Drivel

The revelations of Climategate and ten years of stagnant global temperatures have produced a decline of public belief in human-induced climate collapse.  But, rather than strengthening the foundations of climate science by increasing transparency in data analysis, releasing raw data for third party evaluation, and allowing their hypotheses to be debated in the literature, government-funded scientists instead have decided it's best to just change their method of messaging.  The latest tactic is for these man-made global-warming faithful to sharpen their communication skills and tighten their influence on the editorial boards of the environmental journals of record.  The intent is to deflect or bury challenges to their climate-catastrophe canon, not defend their hypotheses.
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So it's not surprising that those who have broken ranks from the "blame humans" crowd have been atmospheric scientists and professors of a certain stature.  They include, for instance, physicist Dr. Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and meteorology professor Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These are scientists who have either retired, who do not rely on government coffers for their research, or who have just been gutsy to pursue an honest quest for knowledge.

Science is never "settled."  It is a never-ending journey of investigation, with hypotheses proposed, and data gathered and analyzed to prove or disprove them.  Climate investigations are particularly complex, because the scope of the test platform is literally global.  The assertion by anyone or any group, even in the wake of a terrific natural disaster, that the cause of climate disruption is clearly settled, and due primarily to human action, is and should be characterized as pure political drivel.

Anthony J. Sadar is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and primary author of Environmental Risk Communication: Principles and Practices for Industry (CRC Press/Lewis Publishers 2000).  Stanley J. Penkala, Ph.D., is a chemical engineer and President of Air Science Consultants, Inc.
 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/more_climate_disruption_drivel.html