“Although it does not negate anything , I choose to trust that Climatologists have a sound basis in scientific thinking.”

How is choosing to trust a form of skepticism? Anyone with a skeptical mind who examined the details of the science and the models in particular will see that there is almost nothing that can be said about human-caused climate change.

We need to focus on the hard data of science – perhaps ignore nothing, but always diligent on the benefit/risks in reducing anthropogenic warming.

I think That I DID understand that some folks are of the opinion that the state of some processes has been so inconstant throughout history that no valid physical model can be built.

Although it does not negate anything , I choose to trust that Climatologists have a sound basis in scientific thinking.

I might refer you to the diatribes of by Creationists in Talk Origins such as “ZOE”, who has proved that the existence of vertically sloped rocks disproves the possibility of determining the age of other rocks .

This rests on the curious belief that division by zero is the same as not dividing at all and so 3/0 = 3 ., for example

RJP

The CO2-water vapor feedback mechanism present in climate models, with its globally constant relative humidity, is an assumption, not an empirically verified fact of climate.

Climate models employ a hyperviscous atmosphere to suppress sub grid-scale turbulence, and their parameter sets are therefore necessarily unphysical. This turbulence, which climate models cannot model, is responsible for about 50% of the heat flux into the upper atmosphere.

Because their physics is incomplete, and even distorted, climate models are not physically reliable, and have no predictive value. Take a look here, for example.

Climate models, with their non-physical constituents, are tuned to reproduce the present, and are then used to impose the same non-physical meaning on the climate of the past.

Therefore, when one assumes that CO2 drives climate, one imposes the same assumed but non-physical meaning on both past and present.

Then hot spells in the past are assumed to be caused by any contemporary high CO2. What is assumed is also deduced, in other words.

All climate models do is explain their own outputs. They don’t explain the climate of Earth. The same assumptions used to construct the climate models are used to interpret their results. The whole business is circular thinking.

It’s climate philosophy, not climate science.

A skeptic has a right to doubt such principles but there are times when doing so can lead to unthinkable flapdoodle.

For examle, in around 1980 a Christian Science Educators Conference (I am not able to track down more specifics. but I distinctly remember reading the document)

“Be it resolved that the Laws of Physics were not in effect until after the Flood”

This resolves a lot of problems.
No circular thinking here, by cracky!

RJP

Deserts *are* an example of Earth’s ecosystems – they are no more or less ecosystems than are forests, grasslands or arctic tundra. Further, the ecosystems *do not care* if they change. Grasslands don’t get bummed out at becoming deserts. Oceans don’t care if only jelly fish can live in them.

People care.

We care because we find some ecosystems more suitable, profitable and pleasant than others. Were we rational beings, the Americans would work tirelessly to maintain the present climate but maybe the Russians and Canadians would subsidize chloro-flouro-carbons production. It is ironic that one of the nations which benefits most from the present climatic conditions seems most ambivalent to maintaining them.

[Note: Whether or not humans are 'to blame' for climate change we have a self-interest in it]

Additionally, Gardner broaches topics like solar variability but doesn’t examine them. This is misleading because the solar astronomy community has reached a consensus that solar variability cannot account for all (or even most) of the change in Earth’s temperature. I once attended a Skeptic’s talk about dealing with creationists and the speaker referred to bringing up points in apparent contradiction without elaboration as a ‘red herring’ argument. It is sad to see skeptics take pages from the creationists’ playbook.

The causality of past events, of course, determined using the same general circulation models that tell us anthropogenic CO2 is warming the climate today.

But such circular thinking doesn’t upset skeptics.