No, you're wrong about this. The scientific evidence for climate change is multi-faceted and abundant.
All science involves some modelling. No model captures all forces on a system. Despite this, we are able to determine causal relationships based on simple models and empirical observation.
99% of experts consider the evidence for climate change caused by human carbon emissions convincing. Do you think that would be the case if the only evidence was a large, opaque, uncertain, buggy program?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_clim...
Appeals to popularity have obvious pitfalls.
The parallel is clear, this is how critics of the narrative around the movement of the Earth, Sun, stars and planets were treated in the 1600's. In that case it was the power of the established Church which saw its monopoly on "truth" threatened by some upstart with a telescope. If his revelations about the orbits of the planets was accepted it would undermine their interpretation of scripture which would undermine their authority so they lashed out to silence the heretic. There is a striking resemblance to the way critics of current narratives are treated, as heretics who need to be silenced before their wayward teachings can poison the populace. This is now how science tends to be done and it is not how science (with a small 's') should be done. Everything should be open to criticism, theories should be mercilessly attacked. The more these attacks falter, the strong the theory will be. Should the attacks succeed in proving the theory wrong everybody will benefit from it.
In the discussion around climate models this means the models need to be subjected to rigorous and merciless testing to find their flaws. They should be tested against historical data, the code should be scrutinised for everything from simple errors to the use of fudge factors and 'magical constants' or 'damping mechanisms' or any other such unproven/unprovable manipulations of the data. If the models withstand these tests and actually manage to follow historical data on which they have not been tested to a reasonable degree of accuracy they will be the stronger for it and their predictive ability will be far higher. This would be a good thing for everyone involved.
Ah, the fabled /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument raises its ugly head again. This claim has several sources, let's have a look at them.
In 2009, the University of Illinois sent a survey [1] online to about 10200 scientists (of many disciplines) with the following two questions:
1: Do you agree that global temperatures have generally risen since the pre-1800s?
2: Do you think that human activity is a significant contributing factor?
3146 responses were received of ~10,200, and of that 31%, 90% said yes to the first question while 82% said yes to the second question. When narrowed down to actual experts in the field (mostly meteorologists) 64% answered 'yes' to the second question. Of the 3146 responses 77 were selected which came from self-professed 'climate experts'. Of these 77 individuals 75 answered 'yes' to the second question. 75/77 = 0.97 -> 97% of experts agree
In reality a self-professed "expert" group of 2.4% of the answerers were selected who in turn formed 0.8% of those who received the survey. The well-known saying about statistics - there's lies, damned lies and statistics [2] - comes to mind here.
Then there was the '2013 Cook study' [3] entitled 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' which is often cited as another source for the '97%'. Cook and his team searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change", then categorised the results to what they considered to be their level of endorsement of anthropogenic global warming. While Cook's conclusion - “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” - was taken for gospel by those who were looking for more endorsement of the earlier '97%' study. What is it based on? Cook created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification” (papers in which the author did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man). He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming without quantification of the effect. These were the categories used to calculate the '97%'. Many scientists whose papers were classified in these categories protested to Cook [4] for being selective in which papers were cited and misrepresentation of their positions on the subject of anthropogenic climate change.
In short, don't use the /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument in an attempt to appeal to authority, especially not in the context of a discussion around the viability of global climate models as evidence for future climate change. First because of the mentioned reasons but also because the '97%' argument has no bearing on the validity of climate models since it just - rightly or wrongly - claims that '97% of experts agree that anthropogenic climate change is a fact'.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.h...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...
[3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024...
[4] http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-cl...
There's no doubt a scientific consensus that human carbon emissions are causing global warming. There are multiple extremely heavyweight sources for this, starting with the IPCC reports.
I'm not a climatologist and can't claim to know the extensive literature. But I do understand the proposed mechanism, I trust people are generally not falsifying data, and I don't see any reason for why thousands of scientists and the IPCC would conspire to make up a lie like that.
On the other hand, the fossile fuel industry has a very clear incentive, and it's well documented they have financed researchers supporting their interests.
You mention the clear incentives the fossil fuel industries have in toning down the environmental impact - I explicitly use that term instead of 'climate impact' which has replaced it in popular media since I consider the former to be a known and proven problem - their products have. This is certainly the case and stands without doubt. You do not mention the clear incentives the 'green' industry has in pushing climate panic. Don't you think this is a factor or do you simply agree with their messaging? Does it bother you that several fossil fuel giants have jumped on the 'green' bandwagon so they get to play both sides in this game of charade?
> There's no doubt a scientific consensus that human carbon emissions are causing global warming.
Sure, when you increase the emission of greenhouse gases there is some impact. How large this impact is is less clear, nor is it clear that the increased CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is the main cause of the recent warm spell or whether it is caused by it. Historical climate records show CO₂ concentration trailing temperature changes, not leading them, the theory being that change in concentration is caused by the change in seawater temperature with colder water absorbing CO₂ (and other gases) which is released when the water warms up again. Another factor in play is the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere - it shares 3 of the 4 main absorption areas in the spectrum with CO₂ - as is cloud cover (which has a significant effect on the planet's albedo (reflection coefficient)). Since temperature, CO₂ concentration, water vapour concentration and cloud cover are related and interdependent a change in one causes a change in the others. These relationships have not been not taken into account in most models until recently [1] while they are sure to play a role. There are many other factors which are either not taken into account or set at assumed values.
[1] this is one of the areas in which climate models have been improved in the last years: 'Cloud feedbacks have been confirmed as a primary source of these differences, with low clouds making the largest contribution. New observational and modelling evidence strongly supports a combined water vapour-lapse rate feedback of a strength comparable to that found in General Circulation Models (approximately 1 W m–2 °C–1, corresponding to around a 50% amplification of global mean warming). The magnitude of cryospheric feedbacks remains uncertain, contributing to the range of model climate responses at mid- to high latitudes.'(https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-chap...)
You're wrong in thinking so, these models have an enormous impact since they are what are being used as 'scientific evidence' for the current 'climate change' craze. Without these models there would be only those measurements you mention which in no way indicate the type of trends which the models are being used to warn about. All the measurements show is that it sometimes gets really warm, sometimes really cold, sometimes really windy and sometimes really dry. Measurements do not show a steadily and unerringly upward climbing curve of 'sometimes really warm' and - important in this context - they do not show the current period to be the extreme which it is made out to be. Taking the continental USA as an example - an area for which much data has been collected in a standardised fashion for a long time, making such comparisons possible - it is noticeable that most temperature records - high but also low are found in the early 1900's, mostly centred around 1936 [1]. If you look at newspapers from around that time the tone was comparable to what it is now (in more ways than one given the threat of war on the horizon but that is unrelated to this issue). Looking back further it can be seen that the average temperature has been steadily dropping (as "average over many years", not "average of the last 5 years") since about 8000 years ago when the climatic optimum is to be found [2] somewhere. It is also noticeable that this temperature decline does not follow a straight line, sometimes the average temperature was supposedly - these measurements can only show averages over longer time frames, not year by year - higher than the average during the optimum, sometimes they were lower. The trend is clear and is pointing downwards towards the coming glaciation, whenever that may be. Without the models to use as 'evidence' there would be no 'climate deniers' (an astoundingly dishonest term since most people who are called such do not deny anything about climate, they just do not trust these model calculations with good reason) since current phenomena would just be "weather", not "proof of climate change" - just like they were in the early 1900's.
These models are The Science™ for climate alarmists, no more and no less. They are not the oracles of wisdom as they are made out to be since they suffer from the Garbage In, Garbage Out problem like so many other simulations. As such they are not good tools to use to direct policies but more clubs to wield against recalcitrant opponents.
Does this mean the climate does not change? No, it does not, it changes as it always has and may change in the direction the model calculations show, at least for a while - look at the variations in [2] for an indication of such changes - and it makes sense to prepare for the consequences of a warmer - or colder - climate when possible. Does this mean there is no need to cut 'emissions'? No, it does not mean that either, there are other good reasons to reduce those since these emissions do not just consist of CO₂ but encompass other substances which are actually polluting. It does mean that the laser focus on 'cutting emissions' is most likely the wrong approach since there are far more effective ways to prepare for the effects of a changing climate. No amount of emission reduction will stop the next Katrina disaster but raising levies will, no amount of extra carbon taxation will solve the problems caused by drought but investing in desalination plants [3] will, no milestone in electrification of road vehicles will help with dealing with increased precipitation but upgrading storm drain systems will, etc.
There are other reasons to want to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels as can be seen in Europe which had become unhealthily dependent on natural gas from Russia or the many wars fought by the USA to secure the supply of oil from the middle east - these substances often end up being used as tools to achieve some geopolitical end. Reducing these dependencies where economically feasible is a good investment in future stability and security.
Many of the mentioned reasons - and more - speak for a reduction in 'emissions', they just do not focus on CO₂ as being the reason for reducing them. What all these reasons lack is a sense of urgency and that is most likely why these models are used in their stead. It is much easier to get people scared, then tell them what they have to do to feel safe again than it is to try to convince them of the wisdom of reducing pollution and reducing dependencies for a more stable future.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_tempe...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/med...
[3] ...yes, yes, they produce brine which needs to be handled in some way - this can be solved in many ways so