Monday 9 September 2013

Embarrassing...

Back in December 2007:
Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
And now that we have reached 2013?
There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, they equivalent of almost a million square miles.
In a rebound from 2012's record low an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia's northern shores, days before the annual re-freeze is even set to begin.
The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year, forcing some ships to change their routes.
A leaked report to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seen by the Mail on Sunday, has led some scientists to claim that the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century.
Yes, all hail the new mantra... we are at risk from Global Cooling.  Let me guess, this can be solved by a range of government initiatives funded by new green taxes which will involve a huge expansion of State spending and impose a range of restrictions on businesses - and the time to act is now!

More seriously, what we have just seen is called, in technical terms, an "experiment".  We set out a "hypothesis", i.e.  that the computer models are accurate predictors of future climatic trends, from that we obtain a "prediction", i.e. that northern polar waters would be ice-free in summer by 2013, and now we have observed a "result", that they are anything but.  So we reach a "conclusion", which is that the hypothesis is false, i.e. that the 2007 modelling studies were "wrong".  Those would be the modelling studies based on science that was settled, presumably?  In which case that science is "wrong".

Apologies for the technical scientific terms in that paragraph, I've put them in quotes so that you can spot them.

2 comments:

  1. Let me guess, this can be solved by a range of government initiatives funded by new green taxes which will involve a huge expansion of State spending and impose a range of restrictions on businesses - and the time to act is now!

    Don't be so ridiculous. It will only mean that if those in power are stupid or wicked. Clearly, if they are consistent, they will want to encourage business, especially those which produce Green House Gases. It will do this, by handing money back to everyone that was taken when we thought we needed to cool the world, instead of warm it.

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  2. I'm sure that in return for a generous subsidy EDF and friends will build some coal powered power stations to help the situation.

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