Climatology is Physics - with no easy answers

Some people here seem to be under the illusion that climatology is not Physics, but like many branches of science and engineering, it's applied Physics, albeit with a fair amount of Chemistry thrown in. Hal Lewis has a strong enough background that I'd expect him to be able to make useful comment that should be taken seriously by all sides, but doesn't mean that we can dismiss climate change in the way The Register would like.

People working in diverse fields such as fluid dynamics, astrophysics etc., may have relevant things to say because they often have experience in the complexity of the same underlying physics in different circumstances, as well as unravelling competing physical effects and statistical biases. All of this requires a lot of hard-won understanding, which may be one of the reasons why climate physicists tend to be dismissive of the anti-crowd when the latter try to topple the whole edifice of anthropogenic climate change based on a relatively small number of errors.

The scientific community were quite sceptical of the whole climate change argument in the beginning, but now most take the view that the balance of evidence is in its favour. Claims that they are driven by money are unfair; I suspect that most supporters could make more money by denying climate change or applying their skills elsewhere, like the city.

Over the last 15 years or so the evidence has been reviewed by scientists beyond the core working directly in the field; much scepticism has been overcome and a fair assessment would be that there is little doubt about the existence of rapid climate change, and on balance the evidence indicates it's more likely than not that humans burning carbon are the dominant cause. That might sound mealy-mouthed but there are no clear and easy answers. Given the consequences, I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Over the last thirty years I've paid tens of thousands of pounds in car and house insurance for very little return because the events insured are low-risk but with medium-to-high consequences. I'm not 100% certain about climate change, but it presents a risk of significant danger - albeit to our descendants - at higher probability than anything else we pay to insure.