1.2 The Nature of Earth Science

Science may be stimulated by argument and debate, but it generally advances through formulating hypotheses clearly and testing them objectively. This testing is the key to science. In fact, one philosopher of science insisted that to be genuinely scientific, a statement must be susceptible to testing that could potentially show it to be false (Popper, 1934). In practice, contemporary scientists usually submit their research findings to the scrutiny of their peers, which includes disclosing the methods that they use, so their results can be checked through replication by other scientists. The insights and research results of individual scientists, even scientists of unquestioned genius, are thus confirmed or rejected in the peer-reviewed literature by the combined efforts of many other scientists. It is not the belief or opinion of the scientists that is important, but rather the results of this testing. Indeed, when Albert Einstein was informed of the publication of a book entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, he is said to have remarked, ‘If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!’ (Hawking, 1988); however, that one opposing scientist would have needed proof in the form of testable results.

Thus science is inherently self-correcting; incorrect or incomplete scientific concepts ultimately do not survive repeated testing against observations of nature. Scientific theories are ways of explaining phenomena and providing insights that can be evaluated by comparison with physical reality. Each successful prediction adds to the weight of evidence supporting the theory, and any unsuccessful prediction demonstrates that the underlying theory is imperfect and requires improvement or abandonment. Sometimes, only certain kinds of questions tend to be asked about a scientific phenomenon until contradictions build to a point where a sudden change of paradigm takes place (Kuhn, 1996). At that point, an entire field can be rapidly reconstructed under the new paradigm.

Despite occasional major paradigm shifts, the majority of scientific insights, even unexpected insights, tend to emerge incrementally as a result of repeated attempts to test hypotheses as thoroughly as possible. Therefore, because almost every new advance is based on the research and understanding that has gone before, science is cumulative, with useful features retained and non-useful features abandoned. Active research scientists, throughout their careers, typically spend large fractions of their working time studying in depth what other scientists have done. Superficial or amateurish acquaintance with the current state of a scientific research topic is an obstacle to a scientist’s progress. Working scientists know that a day in the library can save a year in the laboratory. Even Sir Isaac Newton (1675) wrote that if he had ‘seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. Intellectual honesty and professional ethics call for scientists to acknowledge the work of predecessors and colleagues.

The attributes of science briefly described here can be used in assessing competing assertions about climate change. Can the statement under consideration, in principle, be proven false? Has it been rigorously tested? Did it appear in the peer-reviewed literature? Did it build on the existing research record where appropriate? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then less credence should be given to the assertion until it is tested and independently verified. The IPCC assesses the scientific literature to create a report based on the best available science (Section 1.6). It must be acknowledged, however, that the IPCC also contributes to science by identifying the key uncertainties and by stimulating and coordinating targeted research to answer important climate change questions.

A characteristic of Earth sciences is that Earth scientists are unable to perform controlled experiments on the planet as a whole and then observe the results. In this sense, Earth science is similar to the disciplines of astronomy and cosmology that cannot conduct experiments on galaxies or the cosmos. This is an important consideration, because it is precisely such whole-Earth, system-scale experiments, incorporating the full complexity of interacting processes and feedbacks, that might ideally be required to fully verify or falsify climate change hypotheses (Schellnhuber et al., 2004). Nevertheless, countless empirical tests of numerous different hypotheses have built up a massive body of Earth science knowledge. This repeated testing has refined the understanding of numerous aspects of the climate system, from deep oceanic circulation to stratospheric chemistry. Sometimes a combination of observations and models can be used to test planetary-scale hypotheses. For example, the global cooling and drying of the atmosphere observed after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo (Section 8.6) provided key tests of particular aspects of global climate models (Hansen et al., 1992).

Another example is provided by past IPCC projections of future climate change compared to current observations. Figure 1.1 reveals that the model projections of global average temperature from the First Assessment Report (FAR; IPCC, 1990) were higher than those from the Second Assessment Report (SAR; IPCC, 1996). Subsequent observations (Section 3.2) showed that the evolution of the actual climate system fell midway between the FAR and the SAR ‘best estimate’ projections and were within or near the upper range of projections from the TAR (IPCC, 2001a).

Figure 1.1. Yearly global average surface temperature (Brohan et al., 2006), relative to the mean 1961 to 1990 values, and as projected in the FAR (IPCC, 1990), SAR (IPCC, 1996) and TAR (IPCC, 2001a). The ‘best estimate’ model projections from the FAR and SAR are in solid lines with their range of estimated projections shown by the shaded areas. The TAR did not have ‘best estimate’ model projections but rather a range of projections. Annual mean observations (Section 3.2) are depicted by black circles and the thick black line shows decadal variations obtained by smoothing the time series using a 13-point filter.

Not all theories or early results are verified by later analysis. In the mid-1970s, several articles about possible global cooling appeared in the popular press, primarily motivated by analyses indicating that Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperatures had decreased during the previous three decades (e.g., Gwynne, 1975). In the peer-reviewed literature, a paper by Bryson and Dittberner (1976) reported that increases in carbon dioxide (CO₂) should be associated with a decrease in global temperatures. When challenged by Woronko (1977), Bryson and Dittberner (1977) explained that the cooling projected by their model was due to aerosols (small particles in the atmosphere) produced by the same combustion that caused the increase in CO₂. However, because aerosols remain in the atmosphere only a short time compared to CO₂, the results were not applicable for long-term climate change projections. This example of a prediction of global cooling is a classic illustration of the self-correcting nature of Earth science. The scientists involved were reputable researchers who followed the accepted paradigm of publishing in scientific journals, submitting their methods and results to the scrutiny of their peers (although the peer-review did not catch this problem), and responding to legitimate criticism.

A recurring theme throughout this chapter is that climate science in recent decades has been characterised by the increasing rate of advancement of research in the field and by the notable evolution of scientific methodology and tools, including the models and observations that support and enable the research. During the last four decades, the rate at which scientists have added to the body of knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic processes has accelerated dramatically. As scientists incrementally increase the totality of knowledge, they publish their results in peer-reviewed journals. Between 1965 and 1995, the number of articles published per year in atmospheric science journals tripled (Geerts, 1999). Focusing more narrowly, Stanhill (2001) found that the climate change science literature grew approximately exponentially with a doubling time of 11 years for the period 1951 to 1997. Furthermore, 95% of all the climate change science literature since 1834 was published after 1951. Because science is cumulative, this represents considerable growth in the knowledge of climate processes and in the complexity of climate research. An important example of this is the additional physics incorporated in climate models over the last several decades, as illustrated in Figure 1.2. As a result of the cumulative nature of science, climate science today is an interdisciplinary synthesis of countless tested and proven physical processes and principles painstakingly compiled and verified over several centuries of detailed laboratory measurements, observational experiments and theoretical analyses; and is now far more wide-ranging and physically comprehensive than was the case only a few decades ago.

Figure 1.2. The complexity of climate models has increased over the last few decades. The additional physics incorporated in the models are shown pictorially by the different features of the modelled world.