A brief history of global warming

This is the way I remember it. My memory ain't great for details like dates, but the overall progression reflects my recollections. Specific dates refer to New York Times articles.

1975: Earth's overall temperature observed declining sharply in recent decades.
Climate experts are alarmed by global cooling. Solution: expand government powers, fund more climate research.
1981-08-22: Earth's overall temperature observed rising.
Climate experts are alarmed by global warming. Solution: expand government powers, fund more climate research.
1988-08: Unusually high temperatures.
Climate experts say this confirms the validity of their global-warming models.
1996-01-14: Worst blizzard in 48 years paralyzes the northeast.
Climate experts say this confirms the validity of their global-warming models, explaining that "warming" is just shorthand for many complicated things that they didn't mention before but that definitely included blizzards, as they knew all along, absolutely.
2004: Very bad hurricane season.
Climate experts say this confirms the validity of their global-warming models.
2005: Another very bad hurricane season.
Climate experts say that this further confirms the validity of their global-warming models, and that it gives us a taste of what we're in for if we don't take their advice and expand government powers and fund more climate research.
2006: Extraordinarily mild hurricane season.
No hurricanes made landfall in the United States. Climate experts are unavailable for comment. [1]
2006-12-13: NASA reports that, in the US, 1998 was the warmest year on record.
NASA also reports that all five of the warmest years on record occurred after 1980. Climate experts say this confirms the validity of their global-warming models.
2007-08-14: Oops. NASA admits goof: warmest year was 1934.
NASA also reports that three of the five warmest years on record occurred before 1940. Climate experts warn against overinterpreting individual data points.
2009-11: Leaked UEA/CRU files.
An anonymous source reveals tens of megabytes of notes, software, emails, and data from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Prominent climate experts are seen to have behaved in a fashion unbecoming of scientists -- or indeed of law-abiding citizens. The ensuing hubbub is named "climategate".
2010: What happened to the warming?
Subsequent temperatures fail to match the 1998 peak, and a flat or cooling trend is evident thereafter. Climate scientists now emphasize that the years 2000 through 2009 were the warmest decade on record. When actual temperatures are plotted alongside prior years' expert projections, the projections look silly. Journalists reflect on "why temperatures have stayed flat since 2000 despite global warming" (WSJ, 2010.01.29, page 1).

Apology to honest climate experts:

This is a portrayal of climate experts as they appear after being filtered through the media. I'm sure there are many competent, honest climate experts out there, but whatever reasonable and balanced things they're saying are not getting into our public discussion.

And my point is . . .

My point is that our public discussion of climate change is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." In particular, it is not an honest scientific discussion. See if you can recognize today's climate-science establishment in Nobel physicist Richard Feynman's critique of Cargo Cult Science (from his delightful book, Surely You're Joking):

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. … It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. … It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked … Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. … If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.

Note 1: To give proper credit, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included one participant, Chris Landsea, who advised against reading a global-warming story into hurricane data. However, Landsea subsequently withdrew from the IPCC report process, which he criticized as "being motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and as "scientifically unsound."

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2010-02-19

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