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Global warming-5: The emergence of a paradigm

Mane Ginghams Web Journal: Global warming-5: The emergence of a paradigm

Gingham writes about the emergence of consensus and a new paradigm of global warming:

The need to take global warming seriously is not slam-dunk obvious to most people. In my own case, over time I have slowly became convinced that there was an emerging consensus among scientists studying the issue that planetary warming was a serious matter. Like most people, I do not have the time or the expertise to have studied the question in detail, but I have enough respect for the scientific process and the way that scientists make collective judgments as a community that when I see a scientific consensus emerging on anything, I tend to take it seriously. In fact the global warming issue is a great example of seeing, before our very eyes, a transition in science from a pre-paradigmatic state to a paradigmatic state.

It should emphasized that adoption of a paradigm does not mean that scientists think that everything has been solved and that there are no more open questions. What it does mean, among other things, is that the methods used to investigate those questions are usually settled.

As to this last part, I don't think the methods to investigate global warming are settled. There are few tests and historical data is hard to come by. We cannot design an experiment to prove or disprove global warming. I know that many people are building climate models in an attempt to do just that (prove/disprove), but I have yet to see one that accurately predicts the present given the available data of the past. Those models are probably out there, but I would like to see them become available for scrutiny by the public at large - by people like me who have an interest in comprehending the science behind the paradigm.

Anyway, interesting reading on Ginghams blog. Take a look around as he has good stuff on global warming.

posted by Jim VAT @ 7:15 AM