Climate Prediction Fallacies
Fallacy:
Climate change can't be predicted.
This generally relies upon the view that the climate is nothing more than the weather, and as the weather is unpredictable, so is the climate. Oftentimes the arguer will bring up how the weatherman made one forcast and something completely different occured, that weathermen can't predict things much beyond the next three weeks, so how can climatologists predict what will happen a hundred years from now? Oftentimes the individual will argue that the weather is chaotic and bring up the butterfly effect.
Basic Response:
While it is true that the weather is fairly unpredictable given its chaotic behavior, the climate is not the same thing as the weather. The climate is essentially the average behavior of the weather over an extended period of time, typically thirty years, and it will include the variability of the weather over time.
Different Responses:
- The coin-toss analogy In this analogy, one argues that while the behavior of a coin on any given toss is unpredictable, the average behavior of a fair coin is quite predictable, namely, that the more times you toss the coin, the more likely the ratio of heads to tails will be closer to one, and that if one tosses the coin indefinitely, the ratio of heads to tails will get arbitrarily close to one.
- The rigged dice analogy One argues that if after tossing the dice a good number of times, they keep on turning up snake-eyes, you pretty well know the dice are loaded, and the longer they keep on turning of snake-eyes, the more likely they are loaded. Increased levels of greenhouse gases make it more probable that we will have warmer days, droughts, and torrential rains - when rain actually does come.
- The seasons analogy The average weather for a given season is far more predictable than the weather is on a given day. For example, while the coolest summer day may be colder than the warmest winter day, typically summer is warmer than winter. In the same way, the average behavior of the weather for a climate is quite predictable.
- The local climate analogy The average weather for a given location is fairly predictable. For example, while there may be days in Seattle that are warmer than days in Atlanta, typically the weather in Seattle will be cooler than the weather in Atlanta.
Fallacy:
Flooding in places which have experience drought proves that we are just facing normal weather variability.
Look at Australia. It was experiencing drought, but now they are getting too much water. What we are seeing is simply the normal cycles and variability.
Basic Response:
Climatology models are not predicting that places like Australia will experience drought rather than flooding.
Different Responses:
- While one cannot say whether a given period of extreme drought or flooding is the result of climate change, the severity and duration is suggestive.
- Climate models predict that droughts and flooding will often be more severe and often have greater length than in the past, even where they tend to be cyclical in nature.
