> People so often miss this. Science is a slow, evolving and never ending process. The day a new study comes out, people want to use it as evidence that something is 'settled science'.

Unless it is AGW. That's settled science and 99.9% of scientists agree with Al Gore even though in 1970s we were heading for Global Cooling and that was settled science.

That's the fundamental problem: how difficult is it to say "Based on the data that we currently have we are coming to a conclusion that there's X% likelihood we are heading towards a period where the global temperatures would be rise by Y degrees by year Z. Should we get different data we will re-evaluate our prognosis"

No one discovering something new about gravity tomorrow is going to make general relativity or even Newtonian dynamics less applicable today in their domains.

Similarly all climate science today does in fact have to explain how global cooling observations in the 1970s were found.

No one denying AGW though has ever shown any interest in explaining the data.

> Unless it is AGW

That's the catch is that even things that have overwhelming scientific consensus are not "settled science".

There's always more data to collect and more theories to test.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't believe the data or act on the conclusions, far from it. I just don't agree with using the absolute term "settled science". It's not like there's an equation everyone agrees on or a reproducible experiment we can run.

We're still learning as we go and revising projections frequently. But there's no shame in making personal or political decisions based on our best scientific understanding of the day, we do it all the time and it would be just as big of a mistake to act like we know nothing about climate change as acting like we already know everything.

That's exactly the point: if one wants to be taken seriously one's predictions either have to pan out or the predictions should come with a caveat.

When the predictions do not pan out one should not expect the population to trust one's future predictions as much.

"Settled science." The 2100 predictions have varied so widely. Most current simulations predict 1-4ft increase in sealevel by 2100. The predicted effects have varied widely and will probably continue to.

Lets run a thought experiment. It is 2100 and the sealevel increased by 0.25 inches. Did those 1-4ft increase predictions increase or decrease scientific authority?

It's statistical, which a lot of people and I mean a LOT of people don't understand or can't comprehend. The prediction is valid to some error and there's a small change the sealevel increase will be 0.25 inches or 10ft. As time goes on (from 2019) the predictions should get more accurate but I've already seen widely different predictions out to 2100.

> That's the fundamental problem: how difficult is it to say

It's trivial, which is why that's exactly what scientists are saying?

What was your point again?

No, the scientists get on TV and into news media and talk about nearly guaranteed outcomes. When those outcomes do not pan out the scientists are shocked to discover that to the population they look like buffoons.

> the scientists get on TV and into news media and talk about nearly guaranteed outcomes

No, "the scientists" don't get on TV. TV selects some scientists who are willing to dumb things down far enough to be compatible with their business model. If you want to know what "the scientists" say, you have to read their papers and reports, and you might be surprised to find that they are scientists.