Dear Rob, I doubt that ignoring the conclusions of previous climate studies will improve the vitality of Ecology or Climatology as fields of inquiry.
You seem to assume that climatologists don't use the scientific method, but what you describe is exactly the process they have used to assess whether and how CO2 contributes to climate change. They developed alternative explanations of warming trends (e.g., CO2 vs water as drivers), derived predictions from these explanations (e.g., "annual mean temperatures should correlate with CO2 levels", or "CO2 should absorb and re-emit infrared radiation more than other atmospheric gases"), and tested these predictions using observational studies and/or experiments. To ignore the results of these previous studies and deny their most fundamental conclusions (e.g., that CO2 contributes to global temperature increases) would be counter-productive and keep science from progressing. If their conclusions turn out to be wrong, then eventually the weight of evidence will move the field in a new direction. But, the weight of evidence is pretty strong now for CO2-induced warming, so I sort of doubt that conclusion will be overturned anytime soon. Personally, I am grateful to the many climatologists who have cared deeply enough about the causes of climate change to test their ideas and publish their results. This is partly because I suspect many of them have made personal and financial sacrifices to maintain their research programs. Sincerely, Tom Raffel On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:27 PM, Robert Hamilton <roberthamil...@alc.edu>wrote: > I really don't care if CO2 causes global warming or not. It is irrelevant > to what I am trying to say. If the science was being done right we would > look at a variety of theories regarding human causes of climate change, and > there are several, derive basic statements (to test risky predictions) from > various theories and test them. Some theories would make accurate > predictions and survive, others would not and would be falsified and > discarded. > > We do have a whole "industry" of people promoting the theory that > anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause climate change. They are 100% vested in > that conjecture. If it is falsified they lose their jobs and or their > influence. I find it curious when some of these people claim to be > "underground" in some sense when they in fact are the establishment; they > are the man! Enormous wealth is being generated based on consequences of > the belief that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause climate change. > > The last climate model I looked at was last year, someone had a model that > included "clouds"! These models, in my experience, predict a static effect > of water vapour, when it is clearly highly dynamic, and generally they > don't consider winds, and I don't see why they cannot include the dynamics > of water vapour and winds if they are simply trying to model climate. > > As for the fact I live in coal country, my view on coal is that its future > value greatly exceeds its present value; it is worth far more in the > ground. It is somewhat of a waste to burn it as there are probably a lot of > hydrocarbon based materials that can be made from coal, types of materials > that are in great demand and whose value will increase as other fossil fuel > reserves decline. > > My last word on this at this time, and hopefully I will be able to curb my > tongue on this in the future. What we say doesn't really matter anyways, > and I certainly have no real influence in this area, and thus don't need > the aggravation of this sort of a "discussion". All I really care about is > the vitality of the Science of Ecology with respect to this issue. > > Rob Hamilton > > -- Thomas R. Raffel, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor Biology Department, Dickinson College 28 N. College St. Carlisle, PA 17013 Phone: 717-254-8193
