We Meteorologists Appreciate the Inherent Complexity of the Climate System; We View the Climate System As Being Self-Regulating

It is natural for scientists to put undue trust in their own research. After all, their livelihoods and reputations are at stake. And in the case of climate modeling, a large group of individuals from different specialties and having different talents have invested many years in building and improving each climate model. It is understandable, then, that as the model gradually becomes better at imitating the average behavior of the climate system, the modelers tend to believe the global warming that the model produces.

Over the years, I have noticed a distinct difference in the way climate modelers and meteorologists perceive the climate system. Climate modelers are usually physicists who are typically better at computer modeling than meteorologists. Physicists are more accustomed to reducing the behavior of a physical system to a minimum number of mathematical equations in order to study it.

But physicists tend to have a simpler view of how the weather works than do meteorologists. They usually have little or no formal education in meteorology. In contrast, we meteorologists appreciate the inherent—almost biological—complexity of the climate system. Based upon our experiences with weather forecasting and watching the weather, we view the climate system as being self-regulating.

As a result of the difference in backgrounds between climate modelers and meteorologists, I find much more skepticism about global warming among meteorologists than among the physicists/ modelers. I believe this is just one more reason why modelers are often unduly confident in their model predictions.

--Roy W. Spencer, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), e-book.