[LINK] the weather makers

[Stewart Fist]

Richard asks about model testing
> 
> Is 20 years testing sufficient? If not, how much is enough?

Richard we were both around twenty years ago, and until the mid 1990s, most
of the models were based on the theory that the globe was entering the Ice
Age.



My real argument in all of this is with the false claims to precision and
reliance on empirical evidence.

Climatology, until about 2002, was perhaps the most inexact of all the
sciences.  They have been steadily improving, but generally any predictions
over four or five days in advance were about as good as tossing a coin.

Now all of a sudden it is a precise science, with sea-levels being predicted
50 years into the future, and with discussions of changes involving tenths
of a millimeter.

I don't know how you measure global warming except by averaging measurements
taken from hundreds or thousands of individual sites, and comparing them
with hundreds taken at the same or similar places in the past.

But I don't know how you ensure that the surroundings of these sites are the
same.   Are they now in cities (where previously they were away from cities)
- have nearby swamps been drained -- have the trees been cut down -- are
they downwind from smog.

So I don't see how we can have confidence that they are comparable with the
measurements taken 50 or a hundred years ago -- at least enough to be
confident in 1/10ths of a degree C of accuracy.

And even when you can support claims to some sort of accuracy, then you've
got to allocate proportions to man-made and natural changes or you are
wasting a hell of a lot of effort.

And all those quotes being thrown around which try to prove that cosmic rays
can't produce temperature changes, just fly in the face of the fact that
such natural changes in temperature have taken place in the past, and we
don't know why or how.


-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458