Every once in a while we get unfriendly emails. This one came last week:

I am very disappointed to see such a lack of credibility relating to climate change in your organization. It is arguably the single biggest threat to the planet and to dealing with the issue of poverty. The fact that your organization is in denial not only does damage to the planet but also to the Christian faith in general. It’s time start [sic] embracing science and to move beyond blind ideology.

Presumably some of you face similar comments when you question catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Perhaps our answer to this anonymous critic will help you respond:

Grace and peace to you in Christ. Thank you for your message. With the extent to which most public discussion of climate change is biased in the catastrophist direction, I can readily understand your thinking that anyone who questions it lacks credibility and is “in denial.”

However, the reality in the scientific world is quite different.

First, “consensus” isn’t a scientific value, yet the catastrophists consistently appeal to it to silence critics.

Second, the alleged catastrophist consensus isn’t nearly so strong as often asserted—if it exists at all. (See, e.g., Joseph L. Bast, “The Myth of the 98 Percent.”)

Third, the catastrophists routinely misrepresent the critics, claiming that the critics deny all human influence on global climate, whereas in fact the vast majority affirm it but estimate it to be much smaller than the catastrophists claim.

That the critics have a credible scientific argument here has become increasingly clear over the last decade as more and more studies conclude that “climate sensitivity” (how much global average temperature will rise because of doubled atmospheric CO2, after all climate feedbacks are accounted for) is significantly lower than the catastrophists have thought—in the range of 0.3C to 2C instead of the range of 2C to 4.5C. See, e.g.,

• Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, Summary for Policymakers (PDF),
• Climate Change Reconsidered II: The Physical Science (large PDF, allow time to open),
• Spencer and Braswell, “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance,”
• Spencer and Braswell, “Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration,”
• Spencer, “Satellite and Climate Model Evidence Against Substantial Manmade Climate Change,”
• Spencer, “Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation,”
• Spencer, “Cloud and Radiation Budget Changes Associated with Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations,”
• Lindzen and Choi, “On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications,”
• Lindzen and Choi, “On the Determination of Climate Feedbacks from ERBE Data,”
• Schwartz, “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,”
• and the ongoing discussion of sensitivity and feedbacks athttp://judithcurry.com/category/sensitivity-feedbacks/.)

Even the IPCC has, in its new assessment report just released, reduced its lower range of climate sensitivity from 2.0C to 1.5C. This has happened largely in response to the widespread recognition that the most reliable real-world observations (satellites and radiosondes—the latter being instruments carried aloft on weather balloons) show there has been no global warming for at least the last 16 years (since 1997), probably the last 18 years (since 1995), and possibly the last 23 years (since 1991), despite the fact that the computer models on which the IPCC depends all projected in the range of 0.3C to 0.5C (or more) warming during that period, as illustrated in these two graphs (both by climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, and a Senior Fellow of the Cornwall Alliance):

As you can see, even the best of the models forecast about 60% more warming 1980–2013 than the observations show actually happened. The model mean is about 300% above observations. And many models are 400% or more above observations.

Why is this so important? Consider what the late great physicist Richard Feynman wrote in The Character of Physical Law (1965):

In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.

The enormous conflict between model projections and real-world observations shows that the models are wrong—and the models are the mathematical expression of the underlying theory, which means the theory is wrong. Precisely what’s wrong with it isn’t clear yet, but it’s most likely in that the theory identifies some climate feedbacks (especially clouds) as positive when they’re negative and others as strongly positive when they’re weakly positive or weakly negative when they’re strongly negative.

Since you wrote that climate change “is arguably the single biggest threat to the planet and to dealing with the issue of poverty,” it’s strange that you also asserted so firmly that you think our approach lacks credibility and that we’re “in denial.” If it’s arguable, what’s wrong with arguing about it?

I can’t help wondering whether you actually took the time to read much of our website’s discussion of climate change, for if you had done so, I think it unlikely that, whether you were persuaded to agree with us or not, you’d have concluded that we lack scientific credibility and are “in denial.” You’ll find, for one thing, that we have a large number of Ph.D.’d scientists, including some of the world’s leading climate scientists, amongour network of scholars. Our major papers on climate change (An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy, 2005; A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming, 2006; A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming, 2010) all had outstanding climate scientists among their authors and reviewers and presented excellent scientific arguments for their conclusions. If you’ve not read those, I invite you to do so, practicing what the Apostle Paul urges all Christians to do: test all things, hold fast what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Again, thank you for your note. I hope you find this discussion helpful. I would welcome further discussion of the scientific arguments pro and con about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, the economic arguments pro and con about the comparative costs and benefits of attempting to reducing future warming by reducing CO2 emissions, and the ethical and theological arguments pro and con about competing climate policies.

 

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