Climate "Science"--Still Not Ready for Prime Time

Satellite data suggests that the tropospheric temperature anomaly may be inconsistent with the global surface temperature anomaly calculated from surface station temperature data.

Greenhouse theory states that CO2 exerts its effect high in the atmosphere--absorbing infrared emitted from the surface. If such atmospheric greenhouse absorption was truly the source of CAGW, why does the data not support the theory? Why the divergence between surface station data and satellite data?Some data seem to suggest that over the past 4 years much of the world's oceans have also stopped warming. Given the lack of data support for alarmist GCM models, you would think that the IPCC would encourage the exploration of alternative hypotheses--such as solar variation, alternative anthropogenic forcings, various negative feedback mechanisms affecting climate, etc.



I began as a climate skeptic questioning previously dominant "global cooling" scenarios. It seemed obvious to me that all the CO2 that humans were producing was bound to exert a warming affect on climate. Then, as the greenhouse theory of global warming heated up, I began to look more carefully at the actual quantities and multiple forcings and feedbacks involved. Although it was still obvious to me that humans were influencing some of the forcings involved in climate, it became clear that the human components of forcing could not possibly be the dominant component.

Then, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) became fashionable in the media, among scientific funding organisations, the UN etc. CAGW became the new politically correct dogma--the orthodoxy. Nothing raises my skeptical curiosity more than a dogmatic orthodoxy that tries to take over a branch of science. I began to wonder if there were any objective climatologists left? "Green science" had become PC science, and most of the grants for climate scientists were going toward the orthodox view.

The largest problem with "politically correct science" and "green science" is that they are not really science at all. They are the ideologically motivated suppression of any science that diverges from the "correct" conclusion or hypothesis. Unfortunately, realclimate.org never had a chance to be an objective science blog. From its very beginning, realclimate was forced to fight a rearguard defensive battle--motivated by a rather unscientific desire to protect status and grant funds earned by previous findings called into question by superior data analyses.

I am still looking for objective climate scientists. Steve McIntyre is certainly as objective as any human, but he is not a climate scientist, and does not have access to the big research money that the more PC "scientists" have. Roger Pielke Sr. is quite objective, and deserves wider readership. David Smith appears fairly objective. No doubt there are many more that I have yet to discover.