[The other parts of this series on the activism of Texas A&M climatologists are here: Part I, Part II, and Part III]

“If the models are as flawed as critics say … you have to ask yourself, ‘How come they work?'”

– Gavin Schmidt [NASA], quoted in David Fahrenhold, “Scientists’ Use of Computer Models to Predict Climate Change is Under Attack,” Washington Post, April 6, 2010.

“We do not know much about modeling climate. It is as though we are modeling a human being. Models are in position at last to tell us the creature has two arms and two legs, but we are being asked to cure cancer.”

     – Gerald North (Texas A&M) to Rob Bradley (Enron), November 12, 1999

A Washington Post piece last week, “Scientists’ use of computer models to predict climate change is under attack,” has brought attention to the importance of climate modeling in the current debate over climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases (GHGs).…

[The other parts of this series on the activism of Texas A&M climatologists are here: Part I, Part III, Part IV, and Part V]

“Texas’ challenge to the EPA’s endangerment finding on carbon dioxide contains very little science….”

– Andrew Dessler, Gerald North, et al….., “On Global Warming, the Science Is Solid,” Houston Chronicle, March 7, 2010. [Also see yesterday’s Part I post on Dessler/North.]

Last month, the State of Texas filed a petition for reconsideration in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (summary here) against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Petition lays out why the EPA’s reliance on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide an assessment of climate change science was a very bad idea.…

 [Editor Note: This piece originally appeared in the Calgary Herald on December 28th. It should be noted that a new website is devoted to Climategate.]

Responses to “Climategate”–the leaked e-mails from Britain’s University of East Anglia and its Climatic Research Unit — remind me of the line “Are your feet wet? Can you see the pyramids? That’s because you’re in denial.”

Climate catastrophists like Al Gore and the UN’s Rajendra Pachauri are downplaying Climategate: it’s only a few intemperate scientists; there’s no real evidence of wrongdoing; now let’s persecute the whistleblower. In Calgary, the latest fellow trying to use the Monty Python “nothing to see here, move along” routine is David Mayne Reid, who penned a column last week denying the importance of Climategate.

Unfortunately for Professor Reid, old saws won’t work in the Internet age: Climategate has blazed across the Internet, blogosphere, and social networking sites.…

Just how much warming should we expect from rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs)? The answer largely hinges on how much extra warming might be generated by the initial warming—that is, how strong (and in what direction) are the feedbacks from water vapor and clouds.

By most estimates (including climate model outcomes), these feedbacks are positive and result in about a doubling of the warming that would result from greenhouse gas increases alone. By others, however, the total feedbacks are negative,…