Abstract: in many instances, the conversation around the scientific proof of climate change is riddled with logical fallacies. Climate Change appears to have become a closed system, quite like communism or organized religion, and as impervious to dispassionate criticism, a la Koestler
A recent article [1] in Rolling Stone serves as a case in
point.
> here are some hard numbers
about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across
the United States.
That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th
consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the
20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x
10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.
I wonder what the word "hard" in the phrase
"hard numbers" refers to. Perhaps it attempts to convey the
impression that the numbers represent unyielding truths. It is fascinating that
the author makes no attempt to disclose his sources. If we allow this, surely
we may also allow the author to make the assertion: "On a scale of 1 to
10, with 10 representing imminent destruction of our ecosystem, and 1
absolutely no anthropogenic climate change, we are now at 9.5". That would
be enough, and our author wouldn't need to put together a list of
unsubstantiated statistics.
Of course, these statistics may be accurate, but the
phenomenon of climate change would be true even without the author writing this
article. If the author wishes to disseminate his wisdom and would like to build
a chain of evidence, then he must at least make a good -faith attempt to allow
a critical reception.
Also, it's not just the unattributed observations of
empirical data (of which we remain ignorant - who collected it, under what sort
of governance, over which time frame etc.), but also the really large number:
3.7 x 10-99. How, sir, I must ask, did you derive that number?
Are we sure that it's 3.7 and not 3.8? That it is 10 raised
to the ninety ninth power, and not the sixtieth? Perhaps the third of July, 2010 is a memorable date for
the author.
> it crushed the old record by
so much that it represented the "largest temperature departure from
average of any season on record."
Ah, the double-quote device. So it's not the author who
claims but - ah, we don't know who claims this, apart from that it is a bunch
(how many?) of meteorologists. A formal, unanimous statement from a
professional guild of meteorologists, backed by data? Or the author's second
cousin and his roommate, both of whom have just graduated from meteorology
school?
This theme of unattributed quotes and statistics continues,
and is briefly interrupted by some hyperbole:
> the hottest downpour in the
planet's history.
The entire history of our planet? Really? We have
meteorological records that stretch back all the way? Half the way?
But the author appears to be aware that some might question
his numbers. He forestalls them:
> How good are these numbers?
No one is insisting that they're exact, but few dispute that they're generally
right.
Excellent, so our author says they're not exact, and
suggests that it would be pedantic and boorish to demand exact numbers, but
claims that it is a minority who dispute them. But the scientific method does
not really tend to side with the majority view (it courts multiple, independent
lines of reasoning, and a theory supported by eighteen sources is probably more
credible than one with only three)! The opinion of the masses may be the voice
of God, but it does not count towards scientific proof.
The author makes the statement a second time ("The
numbers aren't exact, of course,..").
Quote numbers, without sources or reasoning, and later put
in the caveat that even these – potentially made up numbers – are not exact.
This is one way of constructing a chain of reasoning.
> The 565-gigaton figure was
derived from one of the most sophisticated computer-simulation models that have
been built by climate scientists around the world over the past few decades.
And the number is being further confirmed by the latest climate-simulation
models currently being finalized in advance of the next report by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The operative words here are "sophisticated" and
"latest". No data, no articulation of the methodology, no sources. It
is possible that the science is too complicated for the author's audience. But
then the author might have saved himself the trouble of all these words and
just said, "The situation is bad. Believe me. And you lot won't get the
science anyway - it's chock full of sophisticated models".
This is not unlike the priestly caste in organized
religions. The select few receive the God's messages and derive their temporal
power from it. To the masses is only revealed the truth that won't corrupt
them, the simplified version. As Nietzsche puts it somewhere:
“Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and
gods when man becomes scientific.
Moral: science is the forbidden
as such -- it alone is forbidden.
Science is the first sin, the original sin. This
alone is morality. ‘Thou shalt not know’ -- the rest follows.”
In spite of the author's use of numbers without source and
context, he is remarkably certain that we will accept him when he refers to them
as "hard numbers". He varies his terminology:
> iron logic of these three
numbers
First, the numbers are "hard". Now, they are
"iron". What comes next - platinum? Actually, it's a slight variant:
"hard math".
But it's not that hard, is it?
All this is not to say that climate change or global warming
does not have a scientific basis, but that the quoted article does not reveal
what the basis is.
The Wikipedia (English) article on the subject [2] starts
with:
“The scientific opinion on
climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and
it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing it through activities that
increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as
deforestation and burning fossil fuels.”
That seems pretty conclusive. This statement has four
sources associated with it, three of which belong to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC states in its “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis
Report” [3]:
> Warming of the climate
system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in
global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice
and rising global average sea level. {WGI 3.9, SPM}
The reference appears cryptic. WGI appears to be Working
Group 1, SPM Summary for Policymakers – although this is not contained in the
report. One of these documents [5] has plenty of data, but no sources.
Specifically, Figure SPM.1 on the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide
etc. on page 3 does not have a source listed to it.
According to one UN source [4]:
> The IPCC does not conduct
new research. Instead, its mandate is to make policy-relevant assessments of
the existing worldwide literature on the scientific, technical and
socio-economic aspects of climate change.
So who is actually doing the research? Who is collected the
empirical evidence to test our sophisticated models?
A cursory search on the Internet suggests that it is the Met
Office in the UK
[6]. Reading their sampling restrictions, lack of raw data and policy on
sourcing from other institutions, one gets the impression that, whilst even the
current state of the date might be adequate to support the general conclusion
that the planet is heating, it is by no means presented in a lucid and
transparent way.
Climate Change may well be a reality, but the reasoning
behind it appears to be esoteric.
[1] Global Warming's Terrifying New Math, Bill McKibben,
2012, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
[3] http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
[4] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?Cr1=change&Cr=climate&NewsID=21429
[5] http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
[6] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records
