In a recent blog posting, cartoonist Scott Adams (drawer of "Dilbert") took climate scientists to task for his own failure to understand how climate science (and as it turns out, science in general) works.
Actually, I quite sympathize with Scott. He clearly spends a lot of time reading "fake news" on climate skeptic websites, and that takes so much of his time that reading real science just gets crowded out. Like Talking Barbie used to say, "Math is hard!" And science is even harder, especially when there are vast reams of fossil-fuel-funded nonsense non-science out there, deliberately designed to fool the gullible. And those booby-traps really do trap quite a few boobies.
Scott starts by telling us he's not a scientist, but that he accepts the scientific consensus on climate change. Then he spends the next 20 paragraphs telling us why he doesn't really accept the scientific consensus. Well, I am a scientist. Not a professional one, but a rather advanced amateur; I've had a handful papers published in peer reviewed journals in astronomy, astrophysics, history of astronomy, but nothing in climate science.
But I do read climate science far more than the average person, and as I read Scott's blog I see exactly the traps he's falling into. They're the same traps that have been carefully laid for him by the skeptical blogosphere. So let's take a look at Scott’s questions, point by point.
"1. Stop telling me the “models” (plural) are good. If you told me one specific model was good, that might sound convincing. But if climate scientists have multiple models, and they all point in the same general direction, something sounds fishy."
This is very bad thinking. If climate models didn't all point in the same general direction, that's when something would certainly be fishy. The fact that they do point in the same general direction shows that different scientists, using the same data and the same scientific laws, get about the same answer, even when modelling an extremely complex system -- just as we would expect if they're doing it right.
"If climate science is relatively “settled,” wouldn’t we all use the same models and assumptions?"
Not at all. The climate is an extremely complex system, with millions of moving parts. It is possible to devise a really, really good model, that retains most of the complexity of the real world, and when you're done you might find that it takes a day and a half of computer time to model one day of the climate system itself. Such a model is clearly worthless for making predictions.
To model the climate in a useful way, you have to simplify the model, so that the model can run in real time. But where you decide to simplify, and where to bite the bullet and retain the complexity, is not a straightforward matter. The fact that different models, having made different choices, still give similar answers means that the models are robust, and do in fact work well.
"And why can’t science tell me which one of the different models is the good one, so we can ignore the less-good ones? What’s up with that? If you can’t tell me which model is better than the others, why would I believe anything about them?"
Since all models give similar answers, the question is rather silly. We already have more than enough precision to make policy decisions. Assuming, of course, that the “Great Unread” will get out of the way and let us make them.
"2. Stop telling me the climate models are excellent at hindcasting, meaning they work when you look at history. That is also true of financial models, and we know financial models can NOT predict the future."
Financial modelling and climate modelling are totally, completely different. Climate modelling is based on the laws of science. There is not a single "law" of economics, including the law of supply and demand, that is nearly so perfectly known as Newton's Second Law. Indeed, economics textbooks are chock-full of situations showing places where supply-and-demand doesn't apply. You won't find a single similar example in any physics textbook.
When CO2 in the air increases, surface temperature WILL increase. That's not a guess. That's Conservation of Energy, that's Kirchoff's Law, that's quantum mechanics. And it cannot be avoided.
"3. Tell me what percentage of warming is caused by humans versus natural causes. If humans are 10% of the cause, I am not so worried. If we are 90%, you have my attention."
It's about 105% humans, plus-or-minus 25%. I hope that has your attention.
"And if you leave out the percentage caused by humans, I have to assume the omission is intentional. And why would you leave out the most important number if you were being straight with people? Sounds fishy."
Who left it out? Of what discussion? Sounds like you've been reading the wrong blogs again. Sounds fishy.
"There might be a good reason why science doesn’t know the percentage of human-made warming and still has a good reason for being alarmed. I just haven’t seen it, and I’ve been looking for it."
Then you haven't been looking in the right places. You need to expand your search parameters, because you’re missing most of what’s out there.
"Today I saw an article saying humans are responsible for MORE than 100% of warming because the earth would otherwise be in a cooling state. No links provided. Credibility = zero."
Since you didn't provide a link to that article, should I point out that your own credibility on that point is also zero? But since you ask for links, here are a few.
And I've got more if you want them. So, why don't you know about these studies? Here's a thought: instead of blaming scientists for your own ignorance, why not blame the fake-news climate websites you frequent, that have so utterly failed to keep you informed?
I'm skipping the completely irrelevant point 4, and moving right along.
"5. Skeptics produce charts of the earth’s temperature going up and down for ages before humans were industrialized. If you can’t explain-away that chart, I can’t hear anything else you say."
And if you haven't heard the explanations, that shows one again that your browser has been well trained to visit the same old tired fake-news climate sites.
When you go back more than a few million years, you have to account for the fact that the Sun was cooler back then. Those kind of changes are way, way to slow to account for anything that happens over the course of a millennium or two, but if you ignore that factor over geological timescales (which the purveyors of the fake-news sites you favor invariably do), then the resulting graph you get, that magical graph that allows you to suspend your ability to hear, becomes as worthless as used toilet paper.
If, on the other hand, you allow for the very-long-term increase in solar output, then it becomes abundantly clear that even over geological scales, carbon dioxide is still the dominant factor controlling Earth's climate. (See Royer et al. 2007.) And if you've never heard of that paper either, don't blame scientists. Blame the fake-news climate websites that once again failed to keep you properly informed.
Are you listening now?
"6. Stop telling me the arctic ice on one pole is decreasing if you are ignoring the increase on the other pole."
Nope, not gonna do that. Because when the massive decrease at one pole is hugely significant, and the slight increase at the other pole isn't much, and was predicted by models anyway, then there's a qualitative difference that is worth paying attention to. It's perfectly fine to pay attention to what's significant, and to ignore the stuff that isn't.
And by the way, Antarctic sea ice did show a very significant change this summer, far more significant that any previous year: it went way, way down. And it was reported, because it was significant.
"7. When skeptics point out that the Earth has not warmed as predicted, don’t change the subject to sea levels. That sounds fishy."
Once again a complaint without specifics. Who changed the subject? In what Congressional testimony? Or are you just reading fake-news climate sites again?
"8. Don’t let the skeptics talk last. The typical arc I see online is that Climate Scientists point out that temperatures are rising, then skeptics produce a chart saying the temperatures are always fluctuating, and have for as far as we can measure. If the real argument is about rate of change, stop telling me about record high temperatures as if they are proof of something."
If you're seeing conversational arcs like that, then your reading is far too restricted, and far too skeptic-heavy. But we knew that already.
Scientists don't use the word "proof", because science is always open to new evidence. What we have is evidence. And yes, record high temperatures are evidence of something. They're evidence that it's getting warmer. For most people that's a no-brainer, but many people on the fake-news sites you prefer can't even get that far. Which is why it gets brought up again and again.
Those of us who know Thing One already know that the real issue is the rate of change. But if you're still stuck in a decaying orbit around Planet Monckton, we're just not going to get to that point.
"9. Stop pointing to record warmth in one place when we’re also having record cold in others. How is one relevant and the other is not?"
Weather is not climate. What's climatologically relevant is when the number of hot records exceed the number of cold records over long periods. That's what we're seeing, and that's what climatologists look at.
"10. Don’t tell me how well your models predict the past. Tell me how many climate models have ever been created, since we started doing this sort of thing, and tell me how many have now been discarded because they didn’t predict correctly. If the answer is “All of the old ones failed and we were totally surprised because they were good at hindcasting,” then why would I trust the new ones?"
What an utterly ridiculous expectation. That's like saying you won't buy Windows 10 unless you know how many bugs they fixed to get it right, including the bug fixes for Vista. Seriously? Who cares?
Climate models, like software, are always improving and have evolved significantly over time. But even the old ones did a decent job, considering the much more serious constraints on processing power of computers back then.
"11. When you claim the oceans have risen dramatically, you need to explain why insurance companies are ignoring this risk"
First, oceans haven't yet risen dramatically; the problem is that they will, and by the time they do, it will be way too late to stop it. The only way to stop it is to take action now, before the rise becomes dramatic. Second, insurance companies are most certainly not ignoring the risk. Take a look at the historical graphs put out by Munich RE, one of the world's largest re-insurance companies.
" ... and why my local beaches look exactly the same to me."
Because where you live in northern California, sea level rise has been insignificant. Many other places in the world are not so lucky. Sea level rise is different in different parts of the world.
"Also, when I Google this question, why are half of the top search results debunking the rise?"
Probably because you're using www.google.com, rather than scholar.google.com. So that's your issue, not google's.
"How can I tell who is right? They all sound credible to me."
Here's how: pick the ones that are peer-reviewed, and if none of them are, pick the ones that cite peer-reviewed literature, rather than just linking to somebody else's blog.
"12. If you want me to believe warmer temperatures are bad, you need to produce a chart telling me how humankind thrived during various warmer and colder eras. Was warming usually good or usually bad?"
We can’t do that, because the world has never been as warm as it is now during the whole of human civilization. We do know that crops show a very non-linear response to increased temperatures; yields increase slowly up to a tipping point, then decline very rapidly after that point. There may also be tipping points with ice sheet collapse and sea level rise. When we reach those tipping points, things will get very bad, very quickly, and with no way to recover.
"You also need to convince me that economic models are accurate. Sure, we might have warming, but you have to run economic models to figure out how that affects things. And economic models are, as you know, usually worthless."
Because climate doesn't mean anything unless you can assign a monetary value to it? What nonsense. In 1848, more than forty nations across Europe had simultaneous revolutions, due to crop failure. The price of food shot way up; people spent all their money on food and stopped buying anything else; factories closed because sales cratered; people were laid off in droves; and suddenly the whole continent was full of hungry unemployed people. And hungry people are desperate people. An economist would look at that and say, gee, only $X million in crop damage, not so bad! But when there are food riots in the streets and a general breakdown of law and order, it's not just the economy that counts, it's the norms of civilized society.
Civilization depends on food, food depends on weather, weather depends on climate. What's the value of civilization, in monetary terms? How much would you pay so that your grandkids don't live in the world of Mad Max?
"13. Stop conflating the basic science and the measurements with the models. Each has its own credibility. The basic science and even the measurements are credible. The models are less so. If you don’t make that distinction, I see the message as manipulation, not an honest transfer of knowledge."
A well known maxim in science is: all models are wrong, but some models are useful. We use models because they're useful. They tell us what's causing the current warming (spoiler alert: it's long-lived greenhouse gases) and therefore what policy steps should be taken to stop it. In the present case, the agreement between various models, and between models and data, is more than good enough to provide the needed policy prescription.
"14. If skeptics make you retreat to Pascal’s Wager as your main argument for aggressively responding the climate change, please understand that you lost the debate. The world is full of risks that might happen. We don’t treat all of them as real. And we can’t rank any of these risks to know how to allocate our capital to the best path. Should we put a trillion dollars into climate remediation or use that money for a missile defense system to better protect us from North Korea?"
The world is full of risks that might happen, but there are darned few that we know, to a scientific near-certainty, will happen, unless we take rapid remedial action. If we spotted an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth, and had a means to prevent the collision or to mitigate the damage, it would be absolutely idiotic not to do so. And that's where we are now with climate.
"Anyway, to me it seems brutally wrong to call skeptics on climate science “anti-science” when all they want is for science to make its case in a way that doesn’t look exactly like a financial scam.* Is that asking a lot?"
No it's not. The problem is that the case was made a long time ago, and you weren’t listening. Perhaps your ears had been turned off when you ran across some graph on a blog somewhere.
So neither is it asking a lot to ask climate skeptics to actually read and understand the literature that's already out there, and to get their information from credible, reliable sources instead of fake-news climate websites, so that they can stay reliably informed on a critical issue.
The scientific debate over whether it's warming was settled 3 decades ago, but you wouldn't know it by reading those websites. The scientific debate over what's causing the warming was settled 2 decades ago, but you wouldn't know it by reading those websites. The intellectual debate over what needs to be done (rapid, deep decarbonization) is also essentially over, but you wouldn't know it by reading those websites. Those fake-news climate sites you visit missed every part of that. All that remains is the political debate, and yet, thanks to the fossil fuel industry-funded fake news and denial think-tanks, half the country is still partying like it's 1999.
Scott, you've asked for a lot of proof from others in your post, so now I will ask you for some proof too. One of the main differences between the way adults and children think is that adults are capable of seeing the consequences of their actions. Right now, all the adults in the room, the ones really thinking of the consequences of climate change, are Democrats.
Prove to me that's not true.