Dr. Andrew Dessler – Climate Science Meets the Gold Standard – Accurate Predictions January 16, 2014

Dr. Andrew Dessler has been one of the most valuable players on the climate research team for some time. On thursday he testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Barbara Boxer’s domain.

I pulled this screen recording off the Senate EPW website, a little herky jerky but the sound is there. Written pdf here.

Key points:

The mainstream science of climate change has met the gold standard of science in that it allows scientists to make predictions that are accurate, example, stratospheric cooling/tropospheric warming, polar amplification mainly in the arctic, water vapor feedbacks,

These points fit into a more general context about how science works. Making successful predictions is the gold standard of science. If a theory successfully predicts phenomena that are later observed, one can be confident that the theory captures something essential about the real world system. The standard model has done that. For example, climate scientists predicted in 1967 that the stratosphere would cool while the troposphere warmed as a result of increasing greenhouse gases. This was observed 20 years later. Climate models predicted in the 1970s that the Arctic would warm faster the Antarctic. This has also been subsequently confirmed.

and a host of others that went unmentioned.

I’ll be downloading the whole thing and give that a listen when Cspan makes it available, will advise.