A surprising change in the 'eye roller' public slogan of NOAA

The word that comes to mind is hubris: “extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one’s own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris
If we had discovered that Earth’s average temperature can be regulated by simply adjusting the trace amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it would be one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments. But the facts do not support this hypothesis and our understanding of Earth’s climate system is much too rudimentary to be assigning primary driver status to anything. We don’t understand how the sun works, we don’t understand how the clouds work, we barely understand how the oceans work and volcanic activity is a complete wild card. Our understanding of Earth’s climate system is rudimentary at best.
We have 130 years of highly suspect surface temperature data and 31 years of reasonably accurate satellite data, on an approximately 4,500,000,000 year old planet. Our understanding of the history of Earth’s climate system and its average temperature is rudimentary at best.
Based on our limited understanding of Earth’s climate system, any predictions about Earth’s climate system and the long term trajectory of its average temperature are, at best, educated guesses. We are still learning how to accurately measure Earth’s temperature, much less accurately predict it 50 – 100 years into the future. Those who claim to be able to accurately predict the long term trajectory and likely future state of Earth’s average temperature, are either deluding themselves, or lying.

jlinzel says:
May 18, 2010 at 7:39 pm
“@just the facts. Long diatribe and overstated. Humanity does not need to understand 4.5B years worth of climatology to understand the present. We know climate has changed greatly over those 4.5B years. Do we understand how and why those changes came about – nope. You were correct in that. However, we don’t need to understand those changes to understand the present state. Do we understand the present state completely – nope. I’d wager few climatologists would state the degree of understanding we currently have. They might overestimate. You would underestimate. As usual, the correct is most likely in the centre. The difficulty is planning for the worst while hoping for the best. Twiddling our thumbs about it gets us no where.
I also find it interesting that we know a great deal about, and most accept, that volcanoes have a large effect on climate. Yet, when comparisons are made between volcanic emissions and human emissions, human emissions greatly exceed the volcanic estimates. Humanity pumps, day in, day out, enough to overwhelm even the largest volcanic events, yet we concede volcanoes have an effect and we do not. Maybe I overestimate and underestimate. I’ll concede that, but I won’t accept doing nothing about it.”
I’ll address in pieces:
“@just the facts. Long diatribe and overstated. ”
How can one overstate the facts?
“You would underestimate.”
I don’t estimate, I realize that it’s currently an exercise in futility…
“Twiddling our thumbs about it gets us no where.”
When you are completely lost, often the best thing you can do is sit tight, conserve energy/resources and contemplate what’s next.
“I also find it interesting that we know a great deal about, and most accept, that volcanoes have a large effect on climate. Yet, when comparisons are made between volcanic emissions and human emissions, human emissions greatly exceed the volcanic estimates.”
“What? The primary concern about volcanoes are sulfate aerosols that caused the year without summer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
“Maybe I overestimate and underestimate. I’ll concede that, but I won’t accept doing nothing about it.”
Ok, that’s fine. Do whatever you want, just use your own money. I’d like to save up mine, because I think that human’s have limited predictive capacity and I’d like to prepare for whatever may occur…

jlinzel says: May 25, 2010 at 9:55 am
“When I received the update from your reply to my comment I thought ‘excellent! links that I might learn something from.’ but then you disappointed me. 🙁 ”
I am not one to disappoint, I just didn’t want to pour too much info on at once. Let us explore what we do know about Earth’s climate system and its average temperature. There seems to be reasonable evidence of a significant ocean component based on the cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation;
http://icecap.us/docs/change/ocean_cycle_forecasts.pdf
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PDO_AMO.htm
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_egec.htm
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_cs.htm
And there also seems to be a significant volcanic component based historical observation:
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/climate_effects.html
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991vci..nasa…..R
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011222.shtml
Would you agree that these are both significant variables in Earth’s climate system and have a significant impact on its average temperature?
“Is that what you consider ‘astoundingly complex’? to the point of believing we are unable to understand, quantify and model? I’m surprised.”
I absolutely consider Earth’s climate system astoundingly complex. There are a plethora of variables, many interdependencies, an array of feedbacks, both positive and negative, and its all continuously evolving. What other systems share similar complexity, the global economy, highly complex organisms, galaxies, etc.? I am not saying that “we are unable understand, quantify and model” Earth’s climate system, I am saying that at present we are in the early stages of this process. It will likely take generations of research to fully explore and understand Earth’s climate system, and even then models will struggle to effectively predict its future behavior. The biggest challenge for the models is the continuously evolving nature of Earth’s climate system, i.e. each future event can fundamentally alter the equation, such that long term predictions must rely on assumption upon assumption, any of which could be incorrect.
“Lets agree to disagree?”
The best way to resolve these type of disagreements is to debate them. Just letting them sit out there, by agreeing to disagree, doesn’t help to move forward our understandings. Furthermore, if you just wanted to spend your own money trying to limit anthropogenic CO2 emissions, I’d wish good luck. But you want spend my money, and thus you and your peers are going to have to present some very well reasoned arguments before I’m going to allow that to happen…
“Clearly you think your thoughts and I think my thoughts and perhaps never the twain shall meet – or perhaps they might.”
I am completely open-minded, and other than shouldering the potential costs of limiting anthropogenic CO2 emissions, I have no horse in this race. I am receptive to arguments supporting the need to limit anthropogenic CO2 emissions and will give them reasoned consideration. I am a pretty good barometer of logic and reason and if you and your peers cannot convince me of the merits of your viewpoints, chances are that you and your peers are going to lose this argument on a global scale.