Climate is weather over a long period of time. Thirty years, fifty years are typical windows of observation. It's not entirely illogical to question global long-term models, when local short-term models are so often wrong.

Saying meteorology and climatology aren't the same field strikes me as short-sighted, since they're related. Climate study encompasses many fields, but weather patterns and potential feedback mechanisms are pretty important.

As an example: Clouds, because of both upwards radiation and downward cooling, are extremely important to the global temperature, but we don't yet know enough to quantify their impact. Some argue the total radiative forcing from clouds is a net positive, some argue net negative. Some argue for or against certain positive/negative feedback mechanisms. It's not settled.

After being disabused of some of my more popular beliefs about this subject, and listening to people who actually do the science, the only thing I know for certain is that the people making grand declarations of doomsday are jumping the gun. Human CO2 has definitely been a minor contributor to global mean temperature, but no solid evidence of current or impending catastrophe exists.

Climate is weather over a long period of time. Thirty years, fifty years are typical windows of observation. It's not entirely illogical to question global long-term models, when local short-term models are so often wrong.

Saying meteorology and climatology aren't the same field strikes me as short-sighted, since they're related. Climate study encompasses many fields, but weather patterns and potential feedback mechanisms are pretty important.

As an example: Clouds, because of both upwards radiation and downward cooling, are extremely important to the global temperature, but we don't yet know enough to quantify their impact. Some argue the total radiative forcing from clouds is a net positive, some argue net negative. Some argue for or against certain positive/negative feedback mechanisms. It's not settled.

After being disabused of some of my more popular beliefs about this subject, and listening to people who actually do the science, the only thing I know for certain is that the people making grand declarations of doomsday are jumping the gun. Human CO2 has been a minor contributor to global mean temperature, but no solid evidence of current or impending catastrophe exists.

Climate is global weather over a long period of time. Thirty years, fifty years are typical windows of observation. It's not entirely illogical to question global long-term models, when local short-term models are so often wrong.

Saying meteorology and climatology aren't the same field strikes me as short-sighted, since they're related. Climate study encompasses many fields, but weather patterns and potential feedback mechanisms are pretty important.

As an example: Clouds, because of both upwards radiation and downward cooling, are extremely important to the global temperature, but we don't yet know enough to quantify their impact. Some argue the total radiative forcing from clouds is a net positive, some argue net negative. Some argue for or against certain positive/negative feedback mechanisms. It's not settled.

After being disabused of some of my more popular beliefs about this subject, and listening to people who actually do the science, the only thing I know for certain is that the people making grand declarations of doomsday are jumping the gun. Human CO2 has been a minor contributor to global mean temperature, but no solid evidence of current or impending catastrophe exists.