Articles by Coby Beck

Understanding what is happening right under our noses does not require paleoclimate perfection

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Climate science can't even fully explain why the climate did what it did in the past. How can they claim to know what is going on today?

Answer: There are two requirements for understanding what happened at a particular point of climate change in geological history. One is an internally consistent theory based on physical principles; the other is sufficient data to determine the physical properties involved.

‘Chaotic systems are not predictable’–Sure, but who says climate is chaotic?

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Climate is an inherently chaotic system, and as such its behavior can not be predicted.

Answer: Firstly, let's make sure we define climate: an average of weather patterns over some meaningful time period. We may thus discount the chaotic annual fluctuations of global mean temperature. That's weather, and one or two anomalous years does not represent a climate shift.

Quite a few people believe that climate is a chaotic system, and maybe on some large-scale level it is. But it is not chaotic on anything approaching the time scales of which humans need to be mindful.

‘We can’t even predict the weather next week’–But weather is not climate

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Scientists can't even predict the weather next week, so why should we believe what some climate model tells us about 100 years from now?

Answer: Climate and weather are very different things, and the level of predictability is comparably different.

‘Aerosols should mean more warming in the south’–More North. Hemisphere warming is well-understood

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Scientists claim that global warming from greenhouse gases is being countered somewhat by global dimming from aerosol pollution. They even claim that aerosol pollution caused the cooling in the mid-century. But GHGs are evenly mixed around the globe, while aerosols are disproportionately concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. It follows that warming should be greater in the Southern Hemisphere -- but that's the opposite of what is happening. Clearly climate scientists do not know what is really going on.