By Thomas Sowell 2-3-15
The recent Northeastern blizzard that wasn’t should remind us of the limits of weather and climate models.
It was refreshing to see meteorologists apologize for their dire — and wrong — predictions of an unprecedented snowstorm that they had said would devastate the Northeast. It was a big storm, but the Northeast has seen lots of big snowstorms before and will probably see lots of big snowstorms again. That’s called winter.
Unfortunately, we are not likely to hear any similar apologies from those who have been promoting “global warming” hysteria for years, in defiance of data that fail to fit their climate models. What is at issue is not whether there is “climate change” — which nobody has ever denied — but whether the specific predictions of the “global warming” crowd as to the direction and magnitude of worldwide temperature changes are holding up over the years.
The ultimate test of any theoretical model is not how loudly it is proclaimed but how well it fits the facts. Climate models that have an unimpressive record of fitting the facts of the past or the present are hardly a reason for us to rely on them for the future.
Putting together a successful model — of anything — is a lot more complicated than identifying which factors affect which outcomes. When many factors are involved, which is common, the challenge is to determine precisely how those factors interact with each other. That is a lot easier said than done when it comes to climate.
Everyone can agree, for example, that the heat of the sunlight is greater in the tropics than in the temperate zones or near the poles. But, the highest temperatures ever recorded in Asia, Africa, North America, or South America were all recorded outside — repeat, OUTSIDE — the tropics. -
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