Laboratory Earth

Most science is done in a lab, where controlled experiments can be rigorously designed and hypotheses carefully put to the test. Not so, earth science. The only way to study Earth's atmosphere, for example, is to model it in all its complexity and nuance -- no small project and one that requires constant refinement.

If there can be any silver lining in Hurricane Katrina, perhaps it's that storm contributed to our knowledge base by providing the "perfect proving ground" for GEOS-5, the latest global atmospheric model developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In running a computer simulation of the 2005 hurricane season, the NASA Earth Observatory reports, the model was not perfect but was able to "predict Hurricane Katrina very well."

It's fair to say that computer models are generally viewed with suspicion (if not outright contempt) by the global warming naysayers, and certainly some degree of skepticism is both warranted and healthy. But when the models stand up to the test and perform better with each new refinement, the contempt for models begins to seem less like well-founded doubt than a dogged determination to reject the truth.