An article (registration required) in the New Scientist from this past summer highlights how politicized the practice of climate modeling has become (thanks to John Fleck for the link). The article focuses on how understandings of climate models have become more complex as models become more sophisticated. Here are the story’s last two paragraphs:

“Some climate scientists find these new figures disturbing not just for what they suggest about the atmosphere’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases, but also because they undermine existing predictions. Uncertainty about those predictions is stopping politicians from acting to halt global warming. So, they argue, even suggesting that the model results are less certain could be politically dangerous.

But other climate scientists fear creating a spurious certainty about climate change. Since we don’t know what the future holds, they say, we shouldn’t claim to know. These people see the predictions of climate models as less like a weather forecast and more like a bookmaker setting odds for a high-stakes horse race. There are no “dead certainties”. They say that humanity has to act prudently and hedge its bets about future climate change in the absence of certainty. We will, they argue, never be able to see through the clouds, and politicians will just have to accept that.”

An opinion in today’s Tech Central Station by Anthony Lupo shows how climate models are used to political effect:

“Indeed, most of the reporting about catastrophic consequences of climate change are said to have been produced by the latest and most advanced computer modeling technique, so called Climate Circulation Models, or GCMs … Some are optimistic that the support for the global warming theory among the faithful scientists and activists may be about to collapse on itself and it is possible that the increase in frightening rhetoric coming from this crowd through the media is a sign that they are growing more desperate. If this is true, that is a good sign, but it must be cautioned that it took years to build up support for the theory among the general population through these scary scenarios. Since these activists tend to have a political agenda that accompanies their support for policies intended to fight global warming, they will not stop trying to implement this agenda, at least until “The Day After November 2nd”.”

Of course, characteristics and output of climate models are used also by proponents of action on climate change. From the WWW site of the Union of Concerned Scientists is this blurb, “California Must Act. A new UCS study shows the Golden State’s economy, environment, and public health could suffer severe consequences if it fails to reduce the heat-trapping emissions that cause climate change.”

An irony of this situation is that those who criticize models as inadequate to guide policy are made possible by those who invoke models as windows to the future. This circle of conflict is reinforced by the scientific community as it presses ahead with model development leading to new models, new projections, and new uncertainties that sustains the rhetorical needs of both sides. Missed in this debate, at least by the proponents of action, is that if you are arguing about climate models, you have lost your focus on climate policy, because victory in the scientific debate over models will not lead automatically to a political or policy consensus on climate. For the opponents of action on climate change, mobilizing debate on climate models means control over the scope of discussion on climate policy (and crucially, whether or not the modeling debate is won or lost). And for proponents of action, arguing about models has thus far been an irresistible trap.

But perhaps in the future we’ll be hearing more from those largely silent scientists who espouse the following, unattributed perspective in the New Scientist article (registration required), “There are no “dead certainties”. They say that humanity has to act prudently and hedge its bets about future climate change in the absence of certainty. We will, they argue, never be able to see through the clouds, and politicians will just have to accept that.”