Lucarini’s paper: “Towards a definition of climate science”

Here: Introduction

Question, Info, Comment etc are from ‘whatisclimate’,

WIC

The climate is defined as the mean physical state of the climatic system,

WIC-Comment: It is a definition out of the blue; and makes no sense.

which is constituted by atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere, which are intimately interconnected.

WIC-Comment: climatic system is as general and vague as saying: ‘natural system’, and explains, as the UNFCCC on ‘climate system’[4] nothing.

Therefore, the climate is determined by a set of time-averages of quantities that describe the structure and the behaviour of the various parts of the climatic system, as well as by the correlations among them.

WIC-Comment: If Lucarini speaks of ‘a time-averages of quantities’ he actually has in mind: weather-statistics. The sentence sounds less pompous if climate is replaced by ‘ weather averages’, see: Footnote[5].

In the very definition of climate there is an ambiguity and an element of subjectivity because the extension of the time interval over which the statistics are made is not determined a priori, but is operationally chosen depending on the goal of the research.

WIC-Comment: The claimed ambiguity of climate is due to the fact that it is a mere statistical tool, which neither sets precise conditions which data comprise weather, and over which time periods[6]

The presence of such a weak foundation strongly determines all the features of climate science.

WIC-Comment: The weak foundation is the scientific weakness of meteorology, respectively of atmospheric science.

This weakness does not imply that this is a bad science, as stated by various politicians and opinion makers around the world, but it is a natural consequence of the fact that the system, subject to the studies of the climate scientists, is extremely complex.

WIC-Comment: ‘climate science’ cannot be more than a ‘science on average weather’. If meteorology does not understand, and measure all and every relevant aspect of atmospheric behaviour, climate science can practically not exist.

This complexity of the climatic system is such that the feedback between the various parts play an essential role. It makes little sense to define single elements and processes, when it is more sensible to consider it as a non separable ‘body’, a ‘living organism’ which cannot be solved, i.e. explained in simple terms, as the origin of the word ‘complex’ explains.

WIC-Comment: The atmospheric system, together with meteorology is complex, but instead to acknowledge this fact, they speak about ‘climate system’ that explains nothing, respectively not more as: the average weather system over “a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years”, see Footnote 5.

Therefore, it is conceptually incorrect to expect that climate science could provide answers having comparable precision and similar structure to those provided by sciences that investigate less complex systems.

WIC-Comment: Lucarini is silent about which type of science is concerned with less complex systems., not realizing that climate is only the statistical off-shot of meteorology.

The complete understanding of the climate system is an open problem that may never be solved: this makes the study of the climate a scientific enterprise of exceptional interest.

WIC-Comment: The climate system will never be solved; as such system does not exist.

The urgency and the pressure for providing the policymakers with information that is necessary for the implementation of long-sighted policies gives climate science an extremely relevant sociopolitical role which, in turn, contributes to shaping the structure, goals and priorities of climate science.

WIC-Comment: ‘Climate science’ would do a great service to the politics and the general public to acknowledge that climate is a layman’s term and is of little help in the scientific field.

The latest report (Houghton et al., 2001) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; see, http://www.ipcc.ch) has recently been criticized for lacking quantitative estimations of the uncertainties of the projections of climate change (Reilly et al., 2001).

WIC-Comment: As long as IPCC puts much too little attention to the climatic relevance of the oceans, any projection in ‘average weather changing pattern over a longer period of time’ will remain gross speculation.

An assessment of such uncertainties is needed in order to provide the governments with clear baselines to be able to initiate a process of rational decision making.

WIC-Question: Would it not be better and more prudent to define the meaning of climate reasonably, clearly avoiding the conventional definition about the average weather over a longer period of time.