For a little balance, we called up Fred Singer, an expert on global climate change and a pioneer in the development of rocket and satellite technology. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton and happens to be the guy who devised the basic instrument for measuring stratospheric ozone. Now president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project research group (sepp.org), his dozen books include "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate." I talked to him by telephone from his offices in Arlington, VA.:
Q: Climate is extremely complicated -- is that a true statement?
A: Immensely complicated. Which is a reason why the models will never be able to adequately simulate the atmosphere.
Q: Give me a sample of how complicated just one little thing can be.
A: The most complicated thing
about the atmosphere that the models cannot capture is clouds. First of
all, clouds are small. The resolution of the models is about 200 miles;
clouds are much smaller than that. Secondly, they don't know when
clouds form. They have to guess what humidity is necessary for a cloud
to form. And of course, humidity is not the only factor. You have to
have nuclei -- little particles -- on which the water vapor can
condense to form cloud droplets. They don't know that either. And they
don't know at what point the cloud begins to rain out. And they don't
know at what point -- it goes on like this.