Future prospects - Ice Ages and Interglacials: Measurements, Interpretation, and Models - page 363

their viewpoints. We note a significant rise in the number of news releases and
papers by scientists with phrases such as ''there might be

... '' or ''it is possible

...

that .'' What science cannot seem to do these days is accept that:

''Sometimes there is no alternative to uncertainty except to await the arrival
of more and better data'' (Wunsch, 1999).

It seems likely that scientific (or economic) progress in climatology will be
impeded by the fact that data and models are routinely biased to adhere to a
belief system. The IPCC has led the way with a plethora of conclusions and pre-
dictions regarding the role of CO 2 emissions on the Earth's climate and the
potential impact on humanity. These represent mainly political conclusions—not
scientific ones. The majority of recognized climatologists have aligned like weather
vanes to the prevailing wind, making it all but impossible to get contrary views
published in journals. As a result, there has arisen a blogopolis in which contrary
views are available on websites but not in the literature. While many of these blogs
are populated by moronic entries, a few are full of detailed analysis and data. One
example of an excellent study in the blogs is the 830-page detailed rebuttal of the
IPCC position written by Idso (2008). The most important thing to do now is to
depoliticize climatology, in general, and paleoclimatology, in particular. However,
with the entrenched power structure in these fields, it is not clear how to accom-
plish this. We may be in the position of the proverbial mice desiring to put a bell
around the cat's neck.
As we have seen, repeated climate variations in the past have been severe and,
in some cases, rapid. Wild gyrations of the Earth's climate occurred long before
large-scale activity by humans. There is some reason to believe that over the past
million years the natural state of the Earth has been the repeated buildup of ice
ages interspersed by relatively brief interglacial periods. While CO 2 concentrations
varied from glacial to interglacial periods, the variability of CO 2 was not the cause
of climate change in these cycles, although it undoubtedly contributed a secondary
amplification. Superimposed on this long-term variability, there have been many
sudden and intense short-term fluctuations (''flickering'') of the Earth's climate.
These could not possibly be tied to variability of the Earth's orbit which varies
much too slowly. Lacking an adequate understanding of what phenomena pro-
duced past climate changes, we are in a weak position to predict future climate
change.

11.2.2 Technical progress

Additional ice cores and sediment cores Except for the WAIS Divide project (see
next paragraph) there does not appear to be a great deal to be gained from boring
additional ice and sediment cores at this point, although more data may be helpful to
some degree.
North-south synchrony One important issue that requires further study is the
relationship between climate change in Greenland and climate change in Antarctica,