In this post, Dr. Curry discusses the uncertainty that attaches to scenarios for future climate that are generated by computer models. I have no criticisms of Dr. Curry’s work on uncertainty. However, any discussion of the uncertainty that is found in the intellectual tools that we apply to climate runs the risk of fostering circular arguments. The risk exists because the uncertainty associated with intellectual tools exists within the context of our larger expectations about climate and the uncertainty that attaches to them.
Surely it is obvious that we do not want to argue that our expectations about climate are uncertain on the grounds that our intellectual tools for addressing climate have uncertainty associated with them. Doing so is truly an Alice in Wonderland proposition: having clear expectations about climate we invent an intellectual tool for addressing climate, find that there is uncertainty associated with it, and then conclude that our expectations about climate are uncertain.
Unfortunately, some climate scientists and many activist groups have embraced exactly this Alice in Wonderland proposition.
In discussions of climate, uncertainty about future climate or what we should do about it has never arisen from the general population. No politician has found himself/herself struggling to meet demands for CO2 mitigation from the general population of truck drivers, farmers, fishermen, manufacturers, or any similar demographic whose life experience gives them privileged access to organized data about climate.
All of our uncertainty about the climate, as opposed to uncertainty about intellectual tools, has its origin in theoretical claims. The exemplar of this source is Al Gore. He did more than any other person to popularize the CAGW mantra that dangerous climate change is upon us or maybe our grandchildren. But all that Gore offers in his movie is his take on theory. The activist groups such as GreenPeace employ the same tactics as Gore. They too offer nothing but theory.
What are the lessons to be learned from all this? There are two. The first is that we must not allow someone to lead us down the primrose path of believing that the uncertainty that attaches to our computer models should lead us to conclude that our very own expectations about the climate should become uncertain. The second lesson is that the uncertainty about climate that is espoused by Al Gore and friends does not arise from hard won practical knowledge of the masses of people who have privileged knowledge about our climate. Rather, the uncertainty that comes from Gore and similar sources is theoretical uncertainty and is the proper topic of Dr. Curry’s work on the uncertainty associated with our intellectual tools for understanding climate.