Remember when the science was settled?

Climate science: Spin, science and climate change | The Economist

Action on climate is justified, not because the science is certain, but precisely because it is not

The science of climate change: The clouds of unknowing | The Economist

No one doubts that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, good at absorbing infra-red radiation. It is also well established that human activity is putting more of it into the atmosphere than natural processes can currently remove. Measurements made since the 1950s show the level of carbon dioxide rising year on year, from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1959 to 387ppm in 2009. Less direct records show that the rise began about 1750, and that the level was stable at around 280ppm for about 10,000 years before that.

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Material World, 18/03/2010

With more and more doubts being raised about climate research. Quentin Cooper asks, 'how does science handle the issue of uncertainty?' How do different branches of research quantify what they can't be sure of? The Royal Society is to hosting a special meeting - Handling Uncertainty - to discuss these issues, and Quentin gets a foretaste.

- Bishop Hill blog - Royal Society on uncertainty

The Royal Society is holding a series of discussions on uncertainty in science in a couple of weeks' time. The programme looks pretty interesting. Among the highlights are:

* Lord May on Science as organised scepticism
* Julia Slingo on Uncertainty in Weather and Climate Prediction
* Peter Webster on Uncertainty in predicting extremes of weather and climate
* Leonard Smith on Uncertainty, ambiguity and risk in forming climate policy

Judith Curry is then running the closing panel discussion and overview.

They call this a consensus?

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

So said Al Gore ... in 1992.