This is not a political position, it is an expert's evaluation after having looked at the code and documentation for some of the better models. You simply can't parameterize away as much of the physics as they do, or impose conservation conditions by hand the way they do, and expect a long-term integration to produce anything but the crudest approximation to reality.
System-wide averages are likely accurate in terms of scale. That is, global heat content is increasing at the order of 1 W/m2, probably not 0.1E-2 W/m2 and certainly not 10 W/m2. This is important, because 1 W/m2 is consistent with observtions and likely problematic in terms of local climate. The global economy is heavily optimized to the current climate, and even relatively modest changes would turn trillions of dollars of investment into malinvestment. This is a bad thing, if you care about global capitalism.
Climate scientists are not computational physicists. They have not spent most of their careers modelling systems that are ultimately subject to laboratory testing, and as such they have not seen their best laid plans gang aft agley.
I have long wondered how much of the hubris in climate prediction was coming from the policy level and how much was coming from the scientists themselves. This release suggests that it really is coming from the scientists, and that's unfortunate. Twenty years from now most of these predictions will prove to be false. That falsity will be in all directions: some will have temperatures or rainfalls far too low, some far too high. And the enemies of science will use that to further attack us.
Unfortunately, when I stand up and say this, I get attacked as an enemy of science by people who think they love science, but who are actually drawn to it simply as a useful stick with which to beat their political opponents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing#/media/File:...
Also, using the phrase "global warming denialist" distracts from your point. When some scientists thought neutrinos traveled faster than light, they weren't called "light speed denialists". Have some respect for alternate scientific opinions.
The problem with GW predictions is that most of them are wrong and the ones that are correct aren't correct for the right reasons.
It comes down to the evolutionary history of Earth throughout life's 4 billion year tenure on this planet. The climate has gone through EXTREME changes [1][2], including the Chicxulub impact, which radically impacted the atmosphere's composition and life on this planet. Yet, the biosphere has always adapted and life continued.
Assuming that mankind is destroying the biosphere at an unprecedented rate (we are), and burning hydrocarbons at an even faster rate (we are), are these two factors enough to turn the earth into a Mars-style wasteland, completely devoid of all life?
It just doesn't seem plausible to me on an intuitive level. We can use linear regression models of the atmosphere and show temperatures rising until life becomes impossible, but that is not how complex biospheres work.
In any case, climate science is definitely a worthy scientific discipline to study, but it is becoming akin to economics in the prediction department. As in, the principles are sound, but the predictions of the experts are laughably wrong on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, this is all due to Al Gore and his "moment of genius" which instantly politicized the scientific process, thereby destroying any potential for real scientific progress through the feedback loop of empirical testing and model formation. If you disagreed with Al Gore's version of climate change, Al Gore's version of climate models, and Al Gore's version of climate science, you suddenly became a heretic "climate change denier".
Alas, we humans really are terrible at science.
1. http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg
2. http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/images/CO2History.h...
I'm old enough to remember when the Scientific Consensus was that we were causing global cooling. Amusingly enough, one of those guys became one of the most notorious global warming "scientist".
At this point, that should be worth at most an eye roll. But it bears re-iterating: never happened. Not true. And repeating it is dishonest.
Try again.
Like, for real. He more or less explicitly lied when reviewing the stolen Climategate source code, very deliberately and consciously presenting commented out code in a way to deceive his audience and provide talking points for right wing media. And when called out on it, he refused to take it down or even acknowledge the critique.
Unless you also think it's mean to call Rush Limbaugh a global warming denialist, calling ESR out on this is totally fair game. He's a hack. I wouldn't say the same thing of, say, Lindzen, but ESR is very committed to motivated, destroy-the-liberals reasoning, for the good of the Party.
Science works by building theories and programmes of research. A single counterexample, contrary to what you seem to think, doesn't invalidate a theory--it's driven by multiple lines of evidence. And ESR's strategy of digging through comments of source code to quote out of context fragments doesn't even approach providing a single counterexample, particularly when he admits that he's in a quest to show that climate scientists are a conspiracy, part Gaian-religionists and part KGB psyops. Like, really.
I took that to mean that you considered his criticism of climate models to be invalid because he hasn't produced better models himself.
Perhaps I mistook your meaning.
Or, hell, any global warming denialist to publish predictions at all, or build any model at all beyond their day jobs of quote mining and writing clever PR releases that prey on the public's scientific illiteracy and fossil fuel barons' desire to violate other people's lives and properties with untrammeled carbon pollution.