Dr. Steven E. Koonin has impeccable scientific and political credentials to write on the science of climatology which he has for
The Wall Street Journal. See how the Journal
describes him:
Dr. Koonin was undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during President Barack Obama's first term and is currently director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. His previous positions include professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, as well as chief scientist of BP where his work focused on renewable and low-carbon energy technologies.
Koonin states baldly that climate science is far from settled, that scientific consensus is actually quite limited in scope, that all of the computer-based climate models disagree with each other, and that none is likely to be accurate except by chance. Some choice quotes:
The crucial scientific question for policy isn't whether the climate is changing. That is a settled matter: The climate has always changed and always will.
Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax: There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate.
Rather, the crucial, unsettled scientific question for policy is, "How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influences?"
Even though human influences could have serious consequences for the climate, they are physically small in relation to the climate system as a whole. For example, human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere's natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%. Since the climate system is highly variable on its own, that smallness sets a very high bar for confidently projecting the consequences of human influences.
As far as the computer models go, there isn't a useful consensus at the level of detail relevant to assessing human influences.
Rigidly promulgating the idea that climate science is "settled" (or is a "hoax") demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, retarding its progress in these important matters.
If you only read one climate change article this year, this should be the one. As an Obama appointee, Koonin can't be knocked as a conservative know-nothing. As he notes, there is still too much we don't know about climate, the oceans, and he never even mentions the issue of solar variability.
