Another one gone emeritus......

RP Sr. continues his golden oldie parade pointing to a piece in USA Today in which Craig Bohren shows that he has been dozing off in retirement.

However, dear reader, much as the dark and stormy night on the west coast of Scotland, concerns us not, as our story is set in sunny England*, that is not what concerns us here. Our Craig, is a worthy contestent in Tim Lambert's Global Climate Skeptic Bingo.

Bring out the cards.........

In the 70s scientists were predicting an ice age #	There is no such thing as global average temperature. #	Scientists only say that global warming exists so they can get grants #	The IPCC summary for policy makers does not reflect the body of the report #
Belief in global warming is a religion	Fred Singer cited #	Ice cores show that warming precedes increases in C02 #	Science doesn’t work by consensus #
17,000 scientists signed a petition saying global warming isn’t happening #	Satellites show no warming #	Michael Crichton cited #	Climate modeling isn’t scientific #
Urban Heat Islands contaminate the surface record #	We can’t predict the weather a week in advance. How can we do it 100 years in advance? #	Water vapour is 98% of the greenhouse effect. #	The “Hockey Stick” is broken. #

Put a check in that top box Jimbo, as all good denialists are wont, Craig pulls out the Stephen Scheider predicted an ice age card.

Maybe, but I can't help noting that some of the prominent global warmers of today were global coolers of not so long ago. In particular, Steven Schneider, now at Stanford, previously at NCAR, about 30 years ago was sounding the alarm about an imminent ice age.

And he nails the second box in the top row, just like RP Sr. would tell him

I consider the concept of a global mean temperature [upon which global warming statistics are based] to be somewhat dubious....

Our Craig is on a role, and sure enough, there he goes, three for three.....

In the atmospheric sciences it is difficult to get grants unless you can somehow tie your work to global warming, that is to say, to scare science. Because of my reputation, I immodestly believe that I could have jumped onto the global warming bandwagon. But I refused to do so because I would have found this repugnant.

But sadly, not even a mention of the IPCC.....

Put a fork in itboys, that's the end of the story...

So, why, you ask, do you think that Craig Bohren is missing on a few cylinders. Well his starting point, and the one that RP Sr gloms onto is that

The pronouncements of climate modelers, who don't do experiments, don't make observations, don't even confect theories, but rather [in my opinion] play computer games using huge programs containing dozens of separate components the details of which they may be largely ignorant, don't move me. I am much more impressed by direct evidence: retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons, the migration of species, rising sea level, etc.

Except a) we do have direct evidence of retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons, the migration of species, rising sea level, etc. b) the models provide physically realistic pre and postdictions of all of these tied to measured changes in solar/volcanic/anthropic forcings c) the models are continually evaluated by the modelers against the observed data, and modelers work closely with observational scientists on this process.

Not to beat a dead horse, but, Jim Hansen not only models climate, but he and his colleagues at GISS maintain one of the two authoritative surface temperature data sets. Hans von Storch is another modeler who works with data sets. In other words, dear Prof. Bohren is throwing a hissy fit.

UPDATE: Andrew Dessler has some comments on the golden oldie skeptics, and I had some general thoughts;

* apologies to Stephen Leacock. If you don't know who he was, go find a book of his short stories. Leacock was possibly the only economist and the certainly the only Canadian with a sense of humor.