What do you do if you are a global warming alarmist and real-world temperatures do not warm as much as your climate model predicted? Here’s one answer: you claim that your model’s propensity to predict more warming than has actually occurred shouldn’t prejudice your faith in the same model’s future predictions. Thus, anyone who points out the truth that your climate model has failed its real-world test remains a “science denier.”
Climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr. reports on his webpage (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/amazing-disconnect-from-the-scientific-process/) that he recently reviewed a paper that had the following assertion, “A global climate model that does not simulate current climate accurately does not necessarily imply that it cannot produce accurate projections.”
I discuss this new alarmist tactic in my weekly Forbes.com column, available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/04/11/a-new-global-warming-alarmist-tactic-real-temperature-measurements-dont-matter/.
