Climate science is an interesting field. Like geology, it's concerned with large time scales. Unlike geology - more like planetary science - it's primarily concerned with the spatial scale of the Earth and its atmosphere.
Sometimes models are calibrated in part by their ability to "predict" historical events (sometimes when those events were not part of the model's input data). This is not *using* a model, this is part of *testing* a model. In climate science, it's not currently possible or desirable to "validate" models using methods that might make sense in a lab or a few acres of experimental forest. It's a fundamentally different risk scenario; there is no control area we can live in if the treatment area becomes unlivable. So the toolbox is terribly small... ...but you're advocating... what? It sounds an awful lot like "wait and see." But *if* the models are right - and they're the best we've ever had (and probably always will be, in the present) - then we should take the results into account, use the twin buffers of political and social process to moderate our reaction, and do what we can to optimize the risk balance. And no, that messy social stuff is not science in the best sense, but we do not have the option of doing science in the best sense. We don't have extra Earths and fast-time fields to put them into. On the other hand, if I've misconstrued your objection and you're questioning the basic atmospheric science, the physics of CO2, you're ignoring a large body of excellent work. On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Robert Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote: > If the CO2 argument is to be validated in any meaningful way, related > models have to make accurate elegant predictions. So far they have > failed, and mainly are used to "explain" past events; and as such > represent little more than classic pseudo science. >
