If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess - Ronald Coase.Climatology is the study of average weather over time or in a region. It is very different than Climate Science, which is the study by specialists of individual components of the complex system that is weather. Each part is usually studied independent of the entire system and even how it interacts or influences the larger system. A supposed link between the parts is the use of statistics. Climatology has suffered from a pronounced form of the average versus the discrete problem from the early 1980s when computer modelers began to dominate the science. Climatology was doomed to failure from then on, only accelerated by its hijacking for a political agenda. I witnessed a good example early at a conference in Edmonton on Prairie Climate predictions and the implications for agriculture.
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. - Anonymous.
It was dominated by the keynote speaker, a climate modeler, Michael Schlesinger. His presentation compared five major global models and their results. He claimed that because they all showed warming they were valid. Of course they did because they were programmed to that general result. The problem is they varied enormously over vast regions. For example, one showed North America cooling another showed it warming. The audience was looking for information adequate for planning and became agitated, especially in the question period. It peaked when someone asked about the accuracy of his warmer and drier prediction for Alberta. The answer was 50%. The person replied that is useless, my Minister needs 95%. The shouting intensified.