Climate Science is as Volatile as The Weather

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

"What's Past is Prologue" - William Shakespeare 

The biggest critique of climate science, which is by any measurement a relatively young discipline, is levied against its claim to be able to accurately, if not reasonably, predict our future climate with what John Cox of Discovery News calls "ingeniously devised model simulations."  This critique is appropriate and prudent given the following.

As any scientist will tell you, a good model will be able to not only tell you what the future may hold, but should also be able to recreate accurately what has happened in the past.  According to Discovery News' report our current models, ostensibly as advanced as they are, are unfortunately unable to accomplish this.

GRAPHIC: Read from right to left; representation of temperatures 

in Greenland over 100k year period taken from 

Greenland Ice Core Project II. Originally posted at Discovery News 

by John D. Cox from the National Research Council.

As this graph shows, the Earth's climate is subject to abrupt and intermittent change with variations of almost 50 degrees.  Additionally, starting about 17,000 years ago, according to these ice cores, our planet has experienced a period of global warming with what has apparently culminated in a bit of global cooling.  

Discovery News' article claims the evidence shows Earth's "sensitivity to small changes" represented in the ice cores, ocean sediments, and other geological data.  I would submit, however, this is a difficult assertion to make at least from these core samples and obfuscates what is plainly obvious, that Earth merely experiences just what is represented, "wild weather" patterns.  What these wild variations are due to is exactly why Paul Valdes of the University of Bristol, the climate modeler and "paleoclimate" specialist mentioned in the article, calls for: 

"more computing power, better scientific understanding of the mechanism of change in the climate system, better data for the computer models, and concludes '[current models] are giving us a false sense of security.'" 

According to Discovery "this inclination toward 'abrupt climate change' - found in ice cores...suprised earth scientists as it was uncovered in the 1990s and still it remains outside of much conventional thinking on the subject." Almost 20 years later it is evidently still hard for our conceptual models to adjust to this "new" information and this is why solely operating within the paradigm of "man made global warming" is exactly what makes it so difficult for climate scientists to accurately predict what will happen in the future let alone provide us with the necessary information to legislate climate regulation.  It is time for all of us to emancipate ourselves, at the vary least momentarily, from this hyper-politicized framework and understand that climate change itself is the only constant we have, what it is due to we are all still striving to understand. 

While some uninformed conservatives and climate change nay sayers may balk at climate change at all we may in fact as Paul Valdes suggested be on the precipice a some radical changes in our weather if history is any precedent.  The fact that the sun next year is predicted to enter into an inactive phase and considering, as far as the last 100,000 years are concerned that we've been recently experiencing a warming spell, many signs now point to cooling.  

For those Chicken Littles out there still obsessed with impending Superstorms, rising seas, and generally catastrophic climate change don't worry your sky still may fall, it will just be a lot colder than you anticipated.