Motl on Gavin Schmidt's "science"

The Reference Frame: Phytoplankton surprisingly destroys a lot of ozone

Wow! [Gavin Schmidt] seems to be so proud that their models neglect virtually everything. So if a mechanism happens to destroy another greenhouse gas that is as important as CO₂, partially as a result of the presence of CO₂ itself, the sensitivity will not be affected "at all"! Who could have thought? Has Mr Schmidt ever heard of feedbacks? Or does he think that there is no interaction (or causal relationship) between the concentration of different chemical compounds (and between temperature, too)? Has he ever heard of the so-called chemical reactions?

What he says is so flagrant denial of basics of science that I believe that most people who have heard some science at the elementary school will know what's wrong with his opinions.

Political activists like him love to talk about positive feedbacks all the time - especially the production of water vapor indirectly caused by CO₂-induced warming - but when it comes to negative feedbacks such as the destruction of other greenhouse gases such as O₃ and CH₄, they shouldn't be looked at "at all"! Is it what you call science and how you want to obtain correct (...) answers, Mr Schmidt? I am stunned.

The climate models that try to emulate the greenhouse effect but that don't reproduce the correct chemistry are simply wrong models because the chemistry that involves the greenhouse gases on either side of the formulae is completely crucial for the greenhouse effect. Because O₃ and CH₄ are also greenhouse gases, it is damn important to know whether they exist in the atmosphere and whether they are being destroyed and whether they will be destroyed in the future (and how much).
...
Well, this approach of Mr Schmidt might be one of the reasons why his personal opinions about the climate and the opinions of his comrades at RealClimate.ORG are scientifically worthless piles of crap. The more science will know about Nature, the more crappy the opinions of similar zealots who are not ready to adjust their opinions will be. If you try to quantify how much this particular paper changes the numbers relevant for the climate sensitivity, it is fair to say that 5-10 papers like that are able to change the numbers by something of order 100%. In a year or two, our understanding may be very different if we're doing things right. It's therefore damn important for climate science to (critically) read and (rationally) process such papers!

People like Schmidt are neither willing nor able to correct mistakes in their models and theories. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for the society, they are being paid for something completely different - for a blind promotion of wrong theories and politically convenient conclusions that are irrationally extracted from these wrong, never-updated, obsolete theories.