Science or Politics? Humility (or Lack Thereof) Is the Test!

The rationale for the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero transition plan is based on model assessments that project an existential threat.  Ron Clutz writing at Science Matters does an excellent job explaining why it is difficult to predict the effects of greenhouse gases on the climate system.  A recent National Review article draws the implications: “The range of predicted future warming is so enormous – apocalyptism is unwarranted”

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric gride with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040.

The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.  I submitted comments on Scoping Plan Section 2.1 Scientific Evidence of Our Changing Climate that refuted many of the apocalyptic claims made in Section 2.1 of the Draft Scoping Plan.

Chaotic Systems

The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stated: “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.”  But what does that mean?

Edward Lorenz discovered the underlying mechanism of deterministic chaos.  In brief: “Chaos theory is the study of how systems that follow simple, straightforward, deterministic laws can exhibit very complicated and seemingly random long-term behavior.”  This is the so-called butterfly effect in which a butterfly’s wings can disturb the atmosphere in Brazil such that a tornado eventually results in Texas.

The reason for this post is Ron Clutz’s clear example of how this works in a short article.  I recommend that you read his post to see the animation examples.  He gives examples of simple systems and how the addition of one new variable creates a much more complex system.  In particular, adding a pendulum to the ball of another pendulum creates a complex trajectory that with significant effort “complex equations have been developed that can and do predict the positions of the two balls over time”.  The kicker to this:

If you arrive to observe the double pendulum at an arbitrary time after the motion has started from an unknown condition (unknown height, initial force, etc) you will be very taxed mathematically to predict where in space the pendulum will move to next, on a second to second basis. Indeed it would take considerable time and many iterative calculations (preferably on a super-computer) to be able to perform this feat. And all this on a very basic system of known elementary mechanics

Climate System

Clutz goes on to point out:

This is a simple example of chaotic motion and its unpredictability. How predictable is our climate with so many variables and feedbacks, some known some unknown? Consider that this planet’s weather/climate system is chaotic in nature with many thousands (millions?) of loosely coupled variables and dependencies, and many of these variables have very complex feedback features within them.

The central question underpinning the Climate Act net-zero transition is the effect of GHG emissions on the radiation budget of the world.  He sums up by quoting climate scientist Richard Lindzen’s summary from a presentation:

I haven’t spent much time on the details of the science, but there is one thing that should spark skepticism in any intelligent reader. The system we are looking at consists in two turbulent fluids interacting with each other. They are on a rotating planet that is differentially heated by the sun. A vital constituent of the atmospheric component is water in the liquid, solid and vapor phases, and the changes in phase have vast energetic ramifications.

The energy budget of this system involves the absorption and reemission of about 200 watts per square meter. Doubling CO2 involves a 2% perturbation to this budget. So do minor changes in clouds and other features, and such changes are common.

In this complex multifactor system, what is the likelihood of the climate (which, itself, consists in many variables and not just globally averaged temperature anomaly) is controlled by this 2% perturbation in a single variable?

Believing this is pretty close to believing in magic. Instead, you are told that it is believing in ‘science.’ Such a claim should be a tip-off that something is amiss. After all, science is a mode of inquiry rather than a belief structure.

Conclusion

I cannot improve on Clutz’s summation:

For now, though, navigating the climate debate will require translating the phrase “climate denier” to mean “anyone unsympathetic to the most aggressive activists’ claims.” This apparently includes anyone who acknowledges meaningful uncertainty in climate models, adopts a less-than-catastrophic outlook about the consequences of future warming, or opposes any facet of the activist policy agenda. The activists will be identifiable as the small group continuing to shout “Denier!” The “deniers” will be identifiable as everyone else.