Why climate models are failing - Climate Change: The Facts - page 17

It is noteworthy that Kuhn first wrote his manuscript in the late 1940s, which was prior
to the completion of the large-scale transition of science to essentially a publicly-funded
enterprise. Consequently, he does not explore how the need to keep public funds flowing
through academia probably made paradigms more 'sticky' than they already are.
Additionally, Kuhn was encouraged in his work by his mentor, James Conant,
Harvard's president and a major figure in the Manhattan Project, the largest public science
venture (at that time) in history. The Manhattan Project and the Office of Scientific
Research and Development were the prototypes cited by President Roosevelt when he
requested the federalisation of science in a 1944 letter to its director, Vannevar Bush.
Itistherefore hardtoimagine that Kuhnhadmuchofanincentive tonotehowmassive
publicfundingmighthavealess-than-salutaryinfluenceuponscientificprogress.Thatwas
certainly not in the interests of his mentor or his employer.
A problem that deserves much further investigation is how climate science could
continue in its remarkable denial that the aggressive global warming paradigm has been
shattered, with now 37 consecutive years of documented, systematic model failure.
Is an alternative paradigm developing?
Beginning in 2011, an increasing number of papers and modelling experiments began to
appear in the literature indicating, either from models or from historical observations, that
the sensitivity of the paradigmatic family of GCMs is too high. 'Sensitivity' is the ultimate
amount of surface warming that is realised for a doubling of the ambient CO 2 content from
itspreindustrialbackground.Thisisnominallyconstruedasachangefrom300to600parts
per million (by volume).
Lindzen and Choi used discrete warming and cooling periods of the tropical ocean
along with outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere as measured by two satellites
andconcludedthattheresultanttemperaturefeedbackstothermalchangesintheoceanand
outgoing radiation implied a lower sensitivity of temperature to longwave ('greenhouse')
radiative forcing, perhaps because of negative feedbacks within the earth-atmosphere
system. 11 According to Lindzen and Choi, observational data 'imply that the models are
exaggerating climate sensitivity.' 12
Schmittneretal.combinedlarge-scaletemperaturereconstructionsfromthelastglacial
maximum with various model simulations (which include changing CO 2 ) and calculated
a mean sensitivity of 2.3°C compared to the IPCC Fifth Assessment average of 3.2°C . 13
More importantly, the probabilities of very large warmings are dramatically reduced. They
conclude that '[a]ssuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our
model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than
previously thought.' 14