A Scientific Theory Is Judged By Its Predictive Power

“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” That is what global warming alarmists in Great Britain were telling us just ten years ago:

Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. …
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was, as you probably remember, home to the famous “Climategate” emails of 2009. As it turned out, the alarmists’ farewell to snow in Great Britain was premature, as England is now experiencing another severe winter, with record low temperatures and near-blizzard conditions in some areas:

Forecasters warned that parts of Britain could see record low temperatures this week of -26C (-15F). Heathrow will experience lows of about -9C (16F) tonight and further snowfall is expected in the South East during the evening rush hour.
Motorists continued to struggle. The M25 was closed in both directions for about six hours while drivers on the M40 in Oxfordshire suffered severe delays.
Commuters were warned to expect treacherous conditions with thick ice and freezing fog today. Train passengers also face delays and cancellations, particularly in the North. Eurostar services between London and Paris have also been affected.
Snow and ice grounded the vast majority of flights in and out of Britain, with Heathrow the worst-affected airport.

British children (not to mention motorists) are in no danger of forgetting what snow is all about. Yesterday, traffic ground to a halt on the A3:
r2675313118.jpg
Winter is tough on drivers; this photo was taken earlier this month in Epsom:
3913734.bin.jpeg
But snow isn’t all bad. Those British kids who were never supposed to know the joys of sledding, skating and, above all, snowball fighting are in luck:
r1546801933.jpg
It’s fun to ridicule the warmists because they are so often wrong, but their errors are in fact significant: a scientific theory that implies predictions that turn out to be wrong, is false. A principal feature of climate hysteria is its proponents’ unwillingness to be judged by the standards that govern real science.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses