"Wayne C. Gramlich" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:

[much snippage]

I have some knowledge of statistics and modeling, but climate models are
so far over my head that I wouldn't hazard a guess. We know that models
are widely misused. Which ones are misused is a matter of opinion --
among people who really understand climate models. I don't, and I don't
know anyone who does.

[much snippage]

Firstly, I doubt if either of us would know what claims of climatologists
are founded or not. You're certainly not going to find out by reading the
pretenders and dabblers you've listed above. Secondly, a healthy
skepticism is a good thing. But it can easily become unhealthy. One can
be skeptical without throwing his hat in with the anti-warming fringe.

[much snippage]

I lurk on rec.crafts.metalworking and rarely post, mostly because
I do not have anything constructive to add to the various metalworking
and non-metalworking threads.

With regards to the topic of global warming, I came to the conclusion
that I knew very little about it. Trying to educate myself on the
topic is difficult because most of the papers are only available in
journals that require expensive subscriptions. Access to a university
grade library is pretty much required to obtain access to most of the
climate science papers. Even if I have access to the papers, they
are difficult to read and understand without a fairly extensive
knowledge of what is going on.

What to do?

Eventually I ran across a couple of web sites that actively discuss
the various climatology papers. The web site:

http://www.realclimate.org/

is very much in the pro AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) and contains
posts by main stream climatology scientists.

Another site is:

http://www.climateaudit.org

which tends to perform in depth analysis of climatology papers. This
site does not have a specific opinion on AGW either pro or con, but it
does have strongly negative opinions about some of the climatology
papers it reviews.

Of the two sites, I find myself reading the 2nd site more regularly,
even though much of the discussion takes place over my head. From
reading the second site, it has become quite clear to me that some
of the scientists in the field of climate science are doing extremely
careful work and that others are sloppy. What is bothersome to me
is that the peer review process seems not to be identify and reject
papers with sloppy analysis in them.

If you have the time, you might want to give the two sites above
some time.

-Wayne

Those are pretty impressive sites, Wayne. Hats off to you for making such an
effort -- and it's clear that a serious effort is required, even with the
aid of that kind of information.

I'll try to absorb some of it but my feeling is that I won't be able to
devote the time required. I have some other research projects going on that
are consuming me. Fortunately for the world, it doesn't matter much what I
think about it. g

Anyone who wants to get serious about understanding it, though, ought to
take a look at those sites you point to.

--
Ed Huntress