Dr. Grant Petty is a known expert on satellite remote sensing of the atmosphere and atmospheric radiative transfer. His letter was apparently directed specifically at the “slayers”, who questioned his specific field of expertise.
However, by extension, it really applies for all those who are rationally skeptical of the “mainstream consensus” paradigm on AGW, which Judith has summarized in bullet form:
<blockquote> the Earth is warming, anthropogenic CO2 is to blame, there’s a significant risk that the warming will be dangerous</blockquote>
Petty admonishes the “slayers” for being uninformed and close-minded.
He asserts that climate science is not <em>”some old-boys’ club, everyone covering each other’s rear”</em>, although Climategate has provided some evidence that this is at least partially true.
In my personal opinion, he goes off the rails when he suggests that climate change skeptics:
<blockquote> just might even feel a little shame at your roles in aggressively promoting misinformation and distrust of experts among those who aren’t equipped to tell science from pseuodoscience</blockquote>
Petty describes how science should work in a perfect world, where it has not been corrupted by politics and large sums of money.
<blockquote>The nature of real modern science is that fraudulent claims don’t go undetected long, because too many people are working on pieces of the same giant jigsaw puzzle, and when pieces don’t fit, they look around for the reason.</blockquote>
This was certainly true in the case of the Mann et al. “hockey stick”, but it took two outsiders and a fairly long time until the errors were found and this could be corroborated. Unfortunately, the “fraudulent claims” (i.e. that <em>”the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years”</em>) live on in IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM (p.9).
A further point raised by Grant Petty:
<blockquote>only a fraction of submitted proposals get funded, and that academic scientists’ promotion and tenure depend on their getting funded</blockquote>
There is the popular perception that funding often depends on conforming to the “consensus” paradigm. The perception is that those who support this paradigm get funding, those who oppose it do not.
Is this true in actual fact (i.e. is “perception = reality” in this case?)
The line that <em>”any moderately successful doctor or lawyer makes way more money than most climate scientists”</em> may be true, but is silly and beside the point.
All in all, I found Petty’s letter too defensive (“circle the wagons?”) with a bit of the elitist approach of admonishing the unwashed idiots for daring to question the “mainstream paradigm”.
If I think it was directed at me (and others who might think, as I do, that the current hysteria on AGW is exaggerated and not based on sound science), rather than just the “slayers”, then I think it over the top.
But that’s just my personal opinion.
Max
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