Is Climatology a Science?

Robert Tracinski asks that question in an article on Real Clear Politics:

Is climatology a science?

I don't mean to ask whether the climate is being studied using scientific methods and theories. Here's what I mean: is climatology a complete, developed, mature science? Is it the kind of science that is capable of making accurate, reliable predictions? Is the field of climatology, in its current state, capable of producing "settled science" on any broad conclusion?

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when the New York Times reported that some scientists were balking at Gore's exaggerations of the scientific certainty of climatology, with one of them commenting that "Hardly a week goes by without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory." If the basics of climatology are still up for debate, how can we rely on the kind of complex predictions -- not only about continued global warming, but about its effect on the weather of specific regions -- that are still being pumped out by the United Nations?

Writing in Newsweek recently, MIT Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen detailed the uncertainties and the enormous gaps in the evidence for claims about human-caused global warming and concluded, "Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence."

Those who claim the authority of science for speculations about human-caused, catastrophic global warming are abusing the reputation earned by established, mature sciences. They are attempting to steal that reputation on behalf of a premature hypothesis put forward by practitioners of a science still in its infancy.

There's a lot more - read it here. Meanwhile, activists promise not to let snow and cold weather interrupt their global warming rallies later today.