Re: [Phys-L] Garth Paltridge: Climate Change's Inherent Uncertainties

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Paltridge certainly has a point that the climate change "might" not be
drastic because of uncertainties, but the opposite is also a possibility.
He uses the argument that the temperatures seem to be stable for the past
decade, along with the idea of a conspiracy.  A lull has happened before and
is a favorite argument by doubters.  Actually the stability might be due to
the extended lull in the sun spot cycle.  There is a suspicion that such a
lull produced the little ice age.  If so when we eventually completely come
out of this lull, the temperatures may zoom.  As I understand, the current
peak in the cycle is below normal after an unprecedentedly long lull.

If you want to find conspiracies in scientific data, look at medical data
that has been suppressed or even falsified.  I do not know of any widespread
equivalent problems in physics or chemistry.  The medical researchers have
strong monetary incentives to show that their products are safe and
effective.  They can make gobs of money.  The cigarette companies have been
shown to suppress data for obvious reasons.  By contrast the physical
sciences generally do not have such strong ties.  Any researcher who
falsifies data is quickly out of the game once it is found out, so there is
a strong negative incentive to be honest, and little to none incentive to be
dishonest.  Even if climate researchers did not find a global problem, their
research will be funded to try to figure out how climate change happens.  It
is of vital importance to the world economy.  Can we predict wet or dry
cycles?  Why have some areas become deserts while others have not?  Could
the current drought have been predicted, and how long might it last?  If I
were to propose a conspiracy, I might say it is a bandwagon effect.
Certainly researchers communicate with each other, and that can possibly
tend to make their views similar.  However, any researcher who can show that
all of the others are clearly off track will get the prize!  So there is a
strong incentive to disprove other results.  I was on a team that showed how
respected results from Karlesruhe were not correct.  Their cross sections
had dips that were filled in due to inability to properly do time
corrections.  Researchers can and do have their knives ready to fillet
others.

As to the publication, I think the first criticism was that it was not a
"peer reviewed" publication, which means that it is a popular journal and
not necessarily a good source for science news.  The second reference
includes quotes from the journal itself, which makes it appear to be
essentially biased.  A liberal journal that used words like smelly
orthodoxy, extremism... would also be suspect.  So can anyone come up with a
reference to a legitimate paper published by Paltridge in a nonpartisan
respected journal, where he lays out his grounds for doubts about the
current scientific consensus on climate change?

CSIRO is obviously legit as a quick web search shows.  Paltridge is
obviously legit also when he writes about scientific matters in his field,
but conspiracy comments are not legit.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> I am shocked by this. It took a full 8 hours for someone to 
> handwave off Ze'ev's posting because the source of the 
> article was found to be a "conservative" publication. I also 
> found it odd that Paltrige's credentials weren't somehow 
> immediately challenged - after all, who's ever heard of 
> CSIRO? Perhaps the response was a little slow today because 
> many of us are out shoveling snow from our driveways.