No political motives here...

Storm Hits Weather Community Over Climate Expert's Global Warming Claims (per FoxNews)

The Weather Channel is standing by a climatologist who is taking some heat after blogging that TV weather forecasters skeptical about man-made global warming theories should lose their professional certification.

Evidently, Dr. Heidi Cullen believes that science is validated by dictate in that she quotes a statement by the American Meteorological Society regarding global warming (of the doomsday variety). The statement reads,

There is convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other trace constituents in the atmosphere, have become a major agent of climate change.

Cullen trips up when she wonders whether the AMS should give its seal of approval to meteorologists who don't accept global warming theory since the AMS doesn't agree that global warming is due to cyclical weather patterns. She states,

It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

Okay, so let's compare the task of demonstrating which direction hurricanes rotate with the convincing evidence regarding a major agent of climate change. Which phenomenon has causation factors that are demonstrably falsifiable?

You see, there probably isn't an AMS statement indicating there is convincing evidence for the direction of hurricane rotation for the simple fact that the data precludes the need for such a statement. The reason a statement is needed for global warming is that the data for it is weak.

Climate scientists feeling the heat

In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.

You gotta love it - "...projections of the future climate carry uncertainties..."

No kidding. Let me add this corollary: The wilder the projection; the greater the uncertainty. Oh, and add to it this footnote: The further into the future the projection; the greater the uncertainty.

Just how far into the future do we have to go before we run into these uncertainties? What does your local weather forecaster give you on the 10 o'clock news? A five day forecast? And how solid is that five day forecast?

Greg, over at Areopagitica, posts on some statistics from the U.S. back in 1906, just 100 years ago. A couple of interesting ones: Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone and, the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph. Now can you imagine, given the context of life in 1906, what a projection 100 years into the future would have resulted in?

Uncertainties...