The 10-year plateau in global temperatures is beginning to draw considerable attention.
A recent New York Times article, "Momentum on Climate Pact is Elusive," documents the fears of global warming pessimists that the prospects for "action" are weakening in the face of hard data. Some pessimists are also warning that the relative stability in temperatures could prevail for another decade due to "cyclical shifts in the oceans" - but rest assured, their models promise us that the long-run outlook is decidedly grim.
Modelers' Hubris. The faith that such forecasters have in their models would be touching if it were not so dangerous. While the most reputable forecasters admit to the vast complexities and unknowns in modeling global climate patterns, that doesn't stop many of them - and their publicists, like Al Gore - from calling for massive economic dislocations designed to forestall modest possible increases in temperature.
You would think that such individuals would take a few lessons from the recent travails of chastened hedge fund managers and the financial market modelers and quantitative analysts who fed them great ideas. They, too, used massive computers and reams of data, along with sometimes plausible theories, to forecast future trends in stocks, bonds, options, and the like. They even had the history of multi-billion dollar collapse of hedge fund LTCM in 1998 to warn them of "long tails" in statistical distributions.
When it comes to climate modeling, while many of the data time series are longer than those of financial modelers, they are subject to much more "measurement error." The daily record of Interest rates and stock prices is a lot more certain and precise than global average temperatures in the 19th or 20th centuries.
Of even greater importance, consider the problems in measuring the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth. While climate pessimists credit the sun spot cycle with a very modest impact on the earth's temperature, some reputable scientists argue that it has a major effect (see Scafetta and West, "Is Climate Sensitive to Solar Variability?" Physics Today, March 2008).
According to NASA, we only have modestly accurate data on solar radiation since 1979, when the first satellite designed to take such measurements was launched. Even now, while we can measure solar radiation to within a few watts (per square meter of earth surface area), the measurement error is greater than the natural fluctuation which takes place over an 11-year sun spot cycle.
Wait Til Next Year! A mini-test of sorts is now underway, since the current minimum in solar sun spot activity is the deepest in a century, according to NASA. By itself, that would suggest less radiation is reaching the earth, and cooler times are ahead.
So, rather than rush to judgment with coercive "cap and trade" regimes and similar steps to reduce carbon emissions, let's simply asked the climate modelers to give us hard forecasts for the next five years, backed up with their own money via bets in Las Vegas (financed by home equity loans and hedge funds?).
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