I’m not a climatologist. I had to look up the word just to spell it. I don’t pretend to understand the science behind global warming.

But it turns out that some big-name climatologists apparently don’t understand what’s going on with global temperatures, either. And they may have hidden what they don’t know.

In the last week or so, we learned that computer hackers broke into the Climatic Research Unit at a British university and pulled out about 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents. And now, for all the world to see, are indications that some of the world’s top climatologists were manipulating data that baffled them or trying to hide evidence that didn’t support their belief in man-made climate change.

And they didn’t like anyone asking pesky questions, either. They wrote of the need to maintain a unified front against skeptics, to blacklist researchers who dared to question some of the man-made global warming science and to cut off scholarly journals that published contrary opinions. One wrote of how he’d delete stuff if he got hit with a Freedom of Information Act request.

Naïve me. I thought scientists were supposed to be open-minded. I assumed they were on a dispassionate quest to find The Truth, not on ways to get everyone to drink their Kool-Aid. Hey, since I had to look up the spelling of “climatologist,” maybe they should look up the meaning of the word “scientist.”

One development that’s embarrassing for some climatologists is the decline in temperatures since 2005. The man-caused global warming adherents seem baffled by it and don’t know exactly how to explain it. (In the aforementioned e-mails, one wrote of ways to “hide the decline.”)

The problem is that global warming models can’t account for the decline. Those models, with all their sophisticated programs, produced official looking charts showing temperatures going straight up to alarming effect. The models didn’t predict a multiyear downtrend in temperatures at all; heck, they didn’t even allow for a one-year dip. In short, the models were wrong.

Maybe those expensive global warming models aren’t even as accurate as the TV weather lady.

Now all this could be material for an academic food fight, except for one huge fact: Those global warming models are the basis of laws and regulations. Some of them very expensive. All of them fall heavily on businesses.

Take California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB 32, the law that mandates greenhouse gas emissions be rolled back. This will cause problems for many businesses, not just big emitters. One study said that when fully implemented, AB 32 will cause 1.1 million jobs to be lost in the state, and it will increase costs to the average small business by $50,000 a year.

Last week state regulators came up with a cap-and-trade proposal, and business groups quickly pointed out the potential devastation. The California Manufacturers and Technology Association, for example, said the state’s manufacturers are “gravely concerned” about the multibillions of dollars they’ll have to spend (and will pass on to consumers) for emissions credits under cap and trade. It’s “like a massive new tax on production.”

I’m no climate expert. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe the temperature downturn of recent years will reverse itself, and global temperatures will start escalating again. That’s what many climatologists say. But you know what? They don’t know either. We now know their climate-change models have been demonstrably wrong. And we have indications they’ve been monkeying with the evidence and stonewalling skeptics.

Here’s a modest proposal: Let’s have a timeout. Let’s put AB 32 on the shelf for two or three years. Let’s see if temperatures go up or down. Let’s see if we can get some real, objective science. Let some skeptics take their shot. If we need to, we can re-implement AB 32 later.

I know nothing about climatology. What I do know is that our economy is important. We need it. Before we rough it up any further, we should be assured that we’re doing it for a good reason.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].