A Forecasting Expert Testifies About Climate ChangePublished: April 10, 2011

In ”The Truth, Still Inconvenient” (column, April 4), Paul Krugman begins with a “joke” about “an economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing” walking into a room, in this case to testify at a Congressional hearing on climate science.

I am the marketing professor, and I was invited to testify because I am a forecasting expert.

With Dr. Kesten C. Green and Dr. Willie Soon, I found that the global warming alarm is based on improper forecasting procedures. We developed a simple model that provides forecasts that are 12 times more accurate than warming-alarm forecasts for 90 to 100 years ahead.

We identified 26 analogous situations, such as the alarm over mercury in fish. Government actions were demanded in 25 situations and carried out in 23. None of the alarming forecasts were correct, none of the interventions were useful, and harm was caused in 20.

Mr. Krugman challenged 2 of the 26 analogies, “acid rain and the ozone hole,” which he said “have been contained precisely thanks to environmental regulation.” We are waiting for his evidence.

“What’s the punch line?” he asked. I recommended an end to government financing for climate change research and to associated programs and regulations. And that’s no joke.

J. SCOTT ARMSTRONG
Philadelphia, April 6, 2011

The writer is a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

ICECAP NOTE: See this recent post

Forecasting Expert Calls for End to Government-Funded Research on Global Warming

Heartland Press Release

In testimony yesterday before the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Committee on Science, Space and Technology, forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania called on Congress to cease funding global warming research, programs, and advocacy organizations.

Referring to an analysis he conducted with Kesten C. Green of the University of South Australia and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Armstrong told the subcommittee, “We approach the issue of alarm over dangerous manmade global warming as a problem of forecasting temperatures over the long term. The global warming alarm is not based on what has happened, but on what will happen. In other words, it is a forecasting problem. And it is a very complex problem.”

The three researchers audited the forecasting procedures used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose “procedures violated 81% of the 89 relevant forecasting principles,” Armstrong noted.

Armstrong and his colleagues recommend Congress end government funding for climate change research as well as other research, government programs, and regulations that assume the planet is warming. They also recommend Congress cease funding organizations that lobby or campaign for global warming.

“Based on our analyses, especially with respect to the violations of the principles regarding objectivity and full disclosure,” Armstrong told members of Congress, “we conclude that the manmade global warming alarm is an anti-scientific political movement.”

Armstrong can be reached for further comment at 610-622-6480 or armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu. A copy of the report he submitted to the committee is available online.