EPA Director Scott Pruitt suggested the use of two scientist teams in a competition on presenting alternative views of climate change.
I assume the blue team would be current government bureaucrat climate modelers, and the competing red team would be skeptical climate scientists, hopefully not federal government employees.
in my opinion,
Red Team + Blue Team = a total waste of Green money.
Many people don't realize the words “Climate Change” were carefully selected as an inoffensive propaganda term.
Our planet's climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years so the term ordinarily wouldn't mean much.
Those two propaganda words obscure the real leftist fantasy: Runaway global warming that will end life on Earth, caused by humans burning fossil fuels.
There is no science to back up that near-religious belief.
It's non-science (nonsense).
Climate proxy studies show run away warming has never happened, even with past CO2 levels up to 10 or 20 times higher than today.
Real time temperature measurements with thermometers since 1850 show a mild warming period before 1940, and another mild warming period after 1940, that were very similar .
Mild warming before 1940 is called "natural warming".
Similar warming after 1940 is called "man made warming".
But no one really knows that.
There is a bizarre belief that natural climate change ended in 1940, and then man made CO2 suddenly became the "climate controller".
That belief is wild, unproven speculation -- an insane belief, in my opinion.
There are many theories about what causes global warming and cooling — none remotely close to being proven true, and there's no way to know if a suspected cause has no effect, a minor effect, or a major effect.
That means it's impossible to have a correct physics model showing exactly what causes climate change, from which to build a useful global climate model.
Repeating for emphasis:
Without a correct physics model, it's impossible to have a correct global climate model.
A correct global climate model would be used for "what if" simulations.
If you changed one of the input variables that causes climate change (I assume more than one), you'd get a reasonably accurate answer on what would happen to the climate (the model's output variables).
A real model requires a thorough understanding of the process being modeled (such as climate change).
That's why today's Global Climate Models (GCMs) are not real models.
They are nothing more than a very complex way to present the personal opinions of government bureaucrat scientists.
I say "complex" because personal opinions have been converted into what appears to be a very complex climate model with lots of high level mathematics.
The government bureaucrat scientists who created the "models" made sure the "model's" predictions matched what they believed before the "models" were built.
The GCM climate "models" have made wrong predictions for the past 30 years -- that's proof they are not real models -- real models would make right predictions!
The same wrong predictions could have been made on the back of an envelope for far less money!
The truth about modern climate "science" is that the personal opinions of climate modelers have not changed since the 1970s.
The modelers still think each doubling of CO2 will cause +3.0 degrees C. warming, +/- 1.5 degrees C., of the average temperature.
Government clerks in the 1970s could have assumed CO2 levels will rise 2 ppm per year, and then calculated the resulting future average temperature on the back of an envelope -- computer "models" were not needed!
The back of the envelope prediction would have been similar to the predictions from the so-called "models" -- of course both would have been wrong for the past 30 years -- but using envelopes would have been much cheaper than using super computers!
The fact that there have been 30 years of WRONG predictions makes the popular 'runaway global warming from CO2 theory' look like nonsense.
What purpose would a Blue Team versus Red Team competition serve when neither team knows exactly what causes climate change, and neither team can predict the future climate?
Assuming the current government bureaucrat “scientists” would make up the Blue Team:
— They own the historical temperature data, have already repeatedly “adjusted” raw data, and infilled missing data with wild guesses.
-- There were so many "adjustments" in the years from 2000 to 2017, that the adjustments in those 17 years alone account for about half the currently reported global warming!
-- Raw unadjusted data has a tendency to become "lost".
— Government bureaucrats are very experienced with bull-shitting about the coming climate change catastrophe, without laughing. Some have experience being questioned by Congress. Some have experience speaking on TV.
Even a scientifically literate Red Team could have trouble 'beating' a Blue Team that's likely to have superior communications skills, and whose 'CO2 is evil' beliefs are backed up by 30 years of public school, college and government propaganda?
We have had continuous natural climate change for 4.5 billion years.
(1) The Blue Team wants us to believe natural climate change suddenly stopped in 1940, and man made CO2 took over as the climate controller, with no explanation of why that happened, how it could happen, and no evidence in the temperature record that anything unusual happened.
(2) In the “era of manmade CO2” since 1940, we had:
(a) negative correlation of CO2 and temperature from 1940 to 1975,
(b) positive correlation of CO2 and temperature from 1975 to 2000, and
(c) no correlation of CO2 and temperature from 2000 to 2015.
The Blue Team would be based on a bizarre theory,
... with no scientific proof,
... that adding CO2 to the air will lead to a future climate catastrophe,
... that is always coming in the future,
... and we have been waiting 30 years so far
… yet the climate just keeps getting better and better.
There is no science or logic behind 30 years of claiming runaway warming is coming.
That means no amount of science and logic can change beliefs that were never based on science and logic in the first place.
We need a leader such as President Trump, or EPA Director Scott Pruitt, willing to stand up and say there is no scientific proof that CO2 controls the climate, and there never was!
And then say the unusually flat temperature trend in the past 15 years is just a small portion of the evidence that CO2 does not control the climate.
A "secular religion", such as the “CO2 Obsession Climate Change Cult”, has beliefs that can not be refuted when people in authority agree ... or if people in authority disagree, but remain silent.
It appears that Trump and Priutt will remain silent.
Liberals in authority invented the CO2 is evil fantasy, so you know they believe in it.
They are also experts at silencing dissent and avoiding debate.
Republican President Trump is not brave enough, and far from smart enough, to advocate that CO2 does not control the climate.
The man is a very successful salesman -- not an avid reader interested in learning details about other subjects.
Republican EPA Director Pruitt may be smart enough, but is also not brave enough to speak up.
Modern climate "science" has computer models that don't match reality,
... because the physics of climate change is not yet known,
... so it's no surprise the climate models make wrong predictions,
... and "adjustments" are made to historical temperature data in a dishonest attempt to make the models look better.
This can happen outside of climate science,
and here's a real life example:
The Global Climate Models that have made wrong predictions for 30 years remind me of when I worked in product development for a corporation.
In the late 1980s I was on a team that re-engineered the product development process (PDP) to reduce the time to create a new product by 25%.
I recall creating huge PDP charts on our new Apple MacIntosh computers for the "dog and pony shows" needed for executive approvals.
Our "model" (PDP charts) included task start dates, finish dates and time required for each task.
We used the model to train about 1,000 engineers on two pilot programs.
On the fifth and last day, 500 engineers showed up.
That day I explained the product planning portion of the model.
Afterwards, the first question was:
"After senior management approves the product plan, we start designing our parts, and then they keep changing the plan. Are you going to train senior management too?"
There was a loud rumble from the crowd because that cynical engineer touched a well known engineering 'hot button'.
I knew senior management were given an overview of the model -- they had too approve it -- but I didn't recall that anyone lectured them on how their behaviors had to change.
My quick answer was: "If that behavior continues, the new product will take more than three years".
My answer got applause ... as I realized our model had a problem -- our wishful thinking about new executive behaviors.
After the training ended, I monitored one of the two engineering teams piloting the new three-year model.
My team developed a one billion dollar capital investment product in the 1990s, with expected sales of one million per year.
Our model "predicted" a new product in three years!
But both pilot programs took closer to the usual four years -- a full four years if you excluded fudging on when the work actually started and ended:
-- In the beginning, there was a small engineering management team working with product planners on the plan, product specifications, and 'recruiting' the team's engineers.
Some dishonest person decided that work didn't "officially start" until the team reached 50 people!
Never mind that the team didn't need over 50 people until the product specifications were nearly complete.
-- At the end, some dishonest person decided that work "officially ended" after the first product was manufactured that could be sold to a customer.
Never mind that the model said the program ended when at least one assembly plant had ramped up to full mass production speed.
Our model was roughly based on a big competitor in Japan, where Program Managers were almost never overruled by other executives, and new products were developed in three years.
Back in the US, there were too many executives with the authority to second guess a Program Manager.
Each executive would think he only made a small change to the original product specifications ... but there were a lot of executives ... and that added up to a lot of changes!
Our "autopsy" showed none of the product changes made by executives were among the reasons our customers liked the product.
That's my long story about a model that didn't represent reality.
And rather than changing the model, the actual months required to develop new products were "adjusted" (fudged) by dishonest people to make the model (and engineering teams using it) look better.
The model was slightly modified in the 1990s and managed to survive until the early 2000's when frustrated executives ordered us to dump it.
They told us to just copy the three-year product development process used by our Japanese affiliate.
We had no idea how to do that. I quit and retired at age 51.
This true story reminds me of global climate models that have made bad climate forecasts for 30 years,
... grossly overestimating global warming,
... and rather than changing the models,
... historical temperature data have been repeatedly "adjusted" to show more warming,
... in a dishonest attempt to make bad climate models look better!