With respect to the future of this field of research, Stanhill suggests two "plausible alternatives."  One scenario holds that the research embodied in the 7000 scientific publications represents "an emerging major new field of study."  The other view is that the burgeoning latter portion of this work is "a currently fashionable aspect" of an already mature subject.

Application of the first hypothesis to the empirical data suggests that by the time the field of climate change research "saturates," somewhere around the middle of the current century, "the number of publishing scientists will reach 10,000 with an annual global cost of seven trillion U.S. dollars at 1997 prices (four times the current U.S. Federal budget)."  We think everyone would agree we can only hope that this particular hypothesis will be proven wrong ... and quickly!

The second scenario (we'll call this one a theory) suggests that the current rapid growth of the climate change field is "a very temporary episode to be followed by an equally fast decline," which seems much more likely to be true than the budget-busting first alternative.  Stanhill notes, for example, that "the reasons for societies' interest in climate change are many and complex and by no means confined to scientific considerations."  This is the situation, in fact, that persists in the world today, where there is great political pressure upon the industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of CO2 in an attempt (more feigned than real) to save the planet from predicted (but far from proven) catastrophic global warming.

This "temporary episode" theory of the "currently fashionable aspect" of climate change research - which is definitely of non-scientific origin - has all the signs of being correct; for it should be obvious to everyone that it is not pure and unadulterated science that is driving the growth of the field, but something vastly different.  The continued expansion of climate change studies thus requires, in the words of Stanhill, that "public interest and government support continues to grow," because (1) its not going to happen on its own, lacking any substantive basis, and (2) the non-scientific purpose for which the grandiose funding has been provided has not yet been achieved.  Therefore, because the money spent in pursuit of the elusive goal has grown so large (and it comes from the tax payers), continued support at an even higher level of funding will soon require, as he puts it, "unambiguous and palpable evidence of widespread and economically damaging climate change, preferably in accordance with current scientific predictions."

Perhaps this precarious perch on which the forces behind the global warming movement find themselves teetering is the explanation for why nearly every drought, flood and hurricane is trumpeted by climate alarmists and sensation-seeking journalists to be evidence of the predicted climate catastrophe, irrespective of what the scientific data show, i.e., that there have been no significant increases in any of these phenomena, even over the acknowledged period of significant global warming that accompanied the demise of the Little Ice Age (see Extreme Weather in our Subject Index).  The climate alarmists and their political allies desperately need to make the public believe that the dramatic weather events they periodically experience on a regular basis are truly unprecedented and caused by global warming produced by the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content; for that is the only way they can build a base of political power sufficient to coerce the governments of the nations of the world to act upon their proposed "solution" to the manufactured "problem."

Holding back the floodgates of both scientific and political irrationalism in this regard is what Stanhill calls "the most reliable, objective basis for evaluating the likelihood that the current warming will continue in an intensified form," namely, "the global surface temperature record of the last 140 years."  This record, he says, can be broken down into four parts, beginning with "a long and very irregular but generally cool first period between 1860 and 1910, followed by a very rapid, regular and prolonged period of global warming between 1910 and 1943, succeeded by an equally long period of small and irregular cooling from 1943 to 1975 and, since then, the current warming period."

And why is this record so important?  Because, in the words of Stanhill, during the prolonged period of global warming in the early part of the past century, "the rate of anthropogenic releases of radiatively active gasses, the presumed cause of the current global warming, was approximately one tenth of that in the present warming period," the temperature increase of which "has been shorter, more irregular and less rapid than the earlier warming."  And when one considers the fact that the order-of-magnitude-greater release of greenhouse gases since 1975 has not produced a warming as dramatic as the one that occurred in the early part of the century that was coeval with the release of but a tenth as much CO2 and other greenhouse gases, there is little reason to put much credence in the politically-correct version of future climate change, i.e., catastrophic CO2-induced global warming.  In fact, there is no real-world science-based evidence for this prediction at all.

In light of this situation, in the words of Stanhill, "there is little doubt" that "non-scientific factors will continue to influence the support given to climate change science."  We agree.  Governments and the forces that pull their purse strings will continue to purchase research that will promulgate the view of the world they want its inhabitants to have; for they have well learned the sad-but-true fact that you can buy nearly anything in this world for money.

Except, of course, the truth.  And that is why, in the parlance of those who study such matters, the "very temporary" ascendancy of the CO2-induced global warming hypothesis will shortly experience "an equally fast decline."

Believe us.  It will happen.  "Nature, and Nature's Laws," to borrow a phrase from the poet, will not be mocked.

References
Stanhill, G.  2001.  The growth of climate change science: A scientometric study.  Climatic Change 48: 515-524.