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| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.The Science Isn't Settled: The Limitations of Global Climate Models
Computerized models of the earth's climate are at the heart of the debate over how policy should respond to climate change. Global climate models (GCMs)--also called general circulation models -- attempt to predict future climatic conditions starting with a set of assumptions about how the climate works and guesses about what a future world might look like in terms of population, energy use, technological development, and so on.
Analysts have pointed out, however, that many of the assumptions used in modeling the climate are of dubious merit, with biases that tend to project catastrophic warming, and have argued that climate models have many limitations that make them unsuitable as the basis for developing public policy. This paper examines two major limitations that hinder the usefullness of climate models to those forming public policy.
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Kenneth P. Green
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
Kenneth P. Green is a Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of over 800 essays and articles on public policy,published by think tanks, major newspapers, and technical and trade journals in North America. Mr. Green holds a doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from UCLA, a master’s degree in molecular genetics from San Diego State University, and a bachelors degree in general biology from UCLA.Mr. Green’s policy analysis has centered on evaluating the pros and cons of government management of environmental, health, and safety risk. More often than not, his research has shown that governments are poor managers of risk, promulgating policies that often do more harm than good both socially and individually, are wasteful of limited regulatory resources, often benefit special interests (in government and industry) at the expense of the general public, and are almost universally violative of individual rights and personal autonomy. Mr. Green has also focused on government’s misuse of probabilistic risk models in the defining and regulating of EHS risks, ranging from air pollution to chemical exposure, to climate change, and most recently, to biological threats such as COVID-19.Mr. Green's longer publications include two supplementary text books on environmental science issues, numerous studies of environment, health, and safety policies and regulations across North America, as well as a broad range of derivative articles and opinion columns. Mr. Green has appeared frequently in major media and has testified before legislative bodies in both the United States and Canada.… Read more Read Less… -
Tim Ball
Dr. Tim Ball, one of the first Canadians to hold a Ph.D. in climatology, wrote his doctoral thesis at theUniversity of London (England) using the remarkable records of the Hudson's Bay Company to reconstruct climate change from 1714 - 1952. He has published numerous articles on climate change and its impact on the human condition. Dr. Ball has served on numerous committees at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels on climate, water resources, and environmental issues. He was a professor in the geography department at the University of Winnipeg before retiring. He has written a regular column on weather in the agricultural magazine. Country Guide , for 14 years. He is currently working as an environmental consultant and public speaker based in Victoria and has written, with Dr. Stuart Houston, 18th Century Naturalists on Hudson Bay , a book on the science and climate of the fur trade (McGill-Queens University Press, 2003).… Read more Read Less… -
Steven Schroeder
Dr. Steven Schroeder is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University in College Station,Texas. He is currently researching global climatic changes in the upper air over the last few decades, focusing on identifying and correcting for changes in instrument types to determine correct trends of water vapour in the atmosphere. Dr. Schroeder has a doctoral degree in meteorology from Texas A&M University and a master's degree in operations research from the United States Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio.… Read more Read Less…
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