Something I should say more often

[OngBonga]

The geophysics is solid and the temperatures measurements are maybe solid. It's the forecasting where everything falls apart. Nobody knows what the effect of burning carbon will have on the Earth and on society down the road.

The temperature measurements aren't that solid. Our ability to accurately measure the average global temperature has gotten progressively better over time. Truly reliable data is probably only 30-odd years old. It can be really easy to manipulate old data by cherry picking what you consider reliable.

But yeah this is an ongoing experiment. We can't do small scale experiments to test our hypotheses, so this isn't what we normally consider science... confirming theories as best we can by rigorous testing.

[wufwugy]

The temperature measurements aren't that solid. Our ability to accurately measure the average global temperature has gotten progressively better over time. Truly reliable data is probably only 30-odd years old. It can be really easy to manipulate old data by cherry picking what you consider reliable.

I'm sympathetic to this point. The probability that the temperature data is not accurate is a bit higher than people think. If you held a gun to my head, I'd probably say its mostly accurate, but it's not like I'm super confident in that opinion.