Global Science Report is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”
In our post last week titled “Climate Alarmism: When is this Bozo Going Down?” we described how new research increasingly casts doubt on the validity of climate models and their projections of future climate change. It is increasing clear that climate models simply predict too much warming from human greenhouse gas emissions.
But the scientific community, or at least that part of it which makes its living off climate alarm, is slow to accept this.
Who can blame these folks? More money flows from the government into universities (or government labs) to study the effects of climate change if we all agree that human greenhouse gas emissions are leading to climate change of a dangerous magnitude.
So it is left to the emeritus or retired profs to lay bare the truth.
A fine example of this can be found in a recent article in the New York Times’ DotEarth blog run by ex-Times science reporter Andy Revkin. In his story looking into the implications of new scientific findings concerning the potential impacts of ocean circulation variability on our understanding of the behavior the global average surface history (parts of which we described in our last post), Revkin interviewed four prominent climate researchers. The level of confidence that each showed in the mainstream (climate model-driven) global warming meme (despite this new research suggesting that something may be rotten in the state of Denmark) appears proportional to how much professional advancement still lies ahead.