GLOBAL climate models are to face the scrutiny of the US courts. A lobby group is taking legal action against the US government for publishing results from one of the world鈥檚 top climate models that predict sea levels and temperatures in the US will rise.
The spat began with the publication of Climate Action Report 2002 by the Environmental Protection Agency last year. The report warns that climate change is a clear and present threat to the US, relying on predictions from a model run by the respected Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in the UK.
But this has sparked the ire of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing lobby group based in Washington DC. It has accused the EPA of publishing 鈥渒nowingly fictional鈥� science, and is suing the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for failing to block the report.
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The CEI says national climate predictions 鈥渕ay not credibly be asserted on the basis of computer models鈥� and the Hadley model 鈥渇requently provides outcomes so divergent as to often be at polar opposite鈥� to those of other models. 鈥淔or example, North Dakota would turn into either a swamp or a desert, depending on which model one accepts,鈥� it notes in its complaint. The institute, which received $400,000 from oil company ExxonMobil last year, released details of its action late last month.
President George W. Bush disowned the EPA report after its publication. But the CEI claims he should have banned it for breaching the Federal Data Quality Act, which requires scientific data published by the government to be 鈥渙bjective鈥�.
The Hadley Centre was not available for comment. But its website concedes that 鈥渨here smaller-scale features strongly affect local climate, the global models fail to capture the regional detail necessary for assessment at the national level鈥�.
While the case is being brought against the White House, several state governments that support moves to tackle global warming claim the Bush administration is sympathetic towards the legal action, which they say is a 鈥渟weetheart suit鈥� that undermines scientific claims about global warming. The CEI denies the charge.