The global temperature-monitoring network consists of 517 weather stations. But each reading is only a tiny dot on the big world map, and it has to be extrapolated to the entire region with the help of supercomputers. Besides, there are still many blind spots, the largest being the Arctic, where there are only about 20 measuring stations to cover a vast area. Climatologists refer to the problem as the “Arctic hole.”
The scientists at the Hadley Center simply used the global average value for the hole, ignoring the fact that it has become significantly warmer in the Arctic, says Rahmstorf. But a NASA team from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which does make the kinds of adjustments for the Arctic data that Rahmstorf believes are necessary, arrives at a flat temperature curve for the last five years that is similar to that of their British colleagues.
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Sawickipedia: I’ve been a global warming questioner based on my experience as a econ major having developed and reviewed a number of complex and large computational models. The reality, in my view, is almost all models of such dynamic and complex systems are wrong - the detail is too complex for today’s computing and human levels of capabilities. And reading that scientific community is basing their models on just 517 data points for temperature is astounding when as a globe we likely need tens of thousands to have any “accurate” model just reinforces my view that any cries of scientific certainty are hyperbolistic overstatement. Yes, the globe could be in trouble but the reality is we don’t really know for sure and even if we did no way in hell do we understand what’s really driving it. At this point it’s more religion then science. |
