This kind of tags along the discussion on the other thread that rapidly devolved. Anyway, this is a good article trying to get both extremists in GW claims to stop touting short term events as evidence one way or another. Ice sheet melting speeding up or polar ice cap melting quickly is not necessarily evidence. Neither is a one decade slowing of the growth curve of global warming.
Rather, we need to look at the whole picture.
So, when you hear someone comment on a record hot day and claim it is evidence of global warming, you have my permission to bitch slap them. Additionally, when somebody comments on it being colder than normal as evidence that GW is bunk, you have my permission to bitch slap them as well. Maybe together we can get all the extremists to shut up and allow the serious people to have adult conversations. Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath for that.
I hope you do realize that all those here working in a somewhat related field (computational science, enviromental sciences, biology etc.) have never made claims that a hot day was proof of GW, that an increase of hurricanes also…Because, in general, most do realize that there is a difference between A implies B and B implies A…
Well said. It seems that many don’t know the difference between weather and climate. I heard someone recently say something to the tune of “62F in Minnesota in February? No global warming, my ass.” Okay.
but frenchy, the thing that bothers me some is that we now have an entire area of study devoted to global warming. When a career scientist who gets his salary paid by grant money to study “how bad the problem is” is it any shock that they come back affirming the problem exists. The science has lost some credibility because it is politically motivated and financially compromised.
Do you suggest we do it for free? Usually, people do come back with the expected results indeed. But if you had ever written a grant for a federal agency you’d know why. The reason is that, you have virtually no chance to get funded, unless you have preliminary results (and at the start of your career, that typically entails doing it off your startup package, be it in a research center or university). Therefore, it’s very common to formulate the problem as ‘how bad the problem is’, because there is already some evidence that it is the case.
It doesn’t mean science isn’t somewhat politically and financially motivated of course.
So how would you suggest we get scientists to study this problem? Because most scientists I know aren’t independently wealthy and don’t have the luxury of spending their careers working for free.
And this is my complaint with the media. They do indeed report crap like “Severe hurricane season could be the cause of global warming”. You don’t have to be “in the field” or even all that bright to realize that a severe weather pattern or season has nothing to do with a long term climate change. However the media reports things this way and this does nothing but give rise to those that are bright enough to say “What a bunch of BS”.
In short many don’t respond well to that type of thing and can easily see thru it. I know several bright individuals that are calling GW’ing, as it’s being presented by the media, BS. Yet if one discusses the actual “Science” and numbers and rationally discuss the POTENTIAL issues they mostly agree. However they see the media and politcal involvement as nothing more than another scare tactic and push to arrest more of their personal freedom from them.
Pictures of polar bears swimming in the artic, floods and hurricanes do nothing more than cause many of these people to move farther away from the solutions rather than “scare” them towards the solutions. The ones that are “Scared” by these reports and tactics are likely not bright enough to be much help anyway.
I usually try to stay out of the “blame the media” cries, but you may have something here. Realistically, I don’t expect some reporter to have the time or technical knowledge to know this stuff. Add in that they need something to make ratings, and you’ve got a problem.
A good example is the furor we had in 2007 with arctic sea ice getting to the lowest levels we knew of (all the way back to 1979!). People used this to justify GW claims. Then, last year wasn’t so bad. Then, I had a bunch of people throw at me an article about how the arctic sea ice was back to the same level as 1979 and “so much for global warming.” A couple of weeks later, I checked out the science page on the topic, and they actually experienced 2 weeks in January where the arctic sea ice did not grow at all. That’s amazing. On the science page, there is no mention of global warming in relation to that unusual event. Rather, they describe the cause as an unusual wind pattern.
Does 30 or 40 years of most of the worlds glaciers melting count as short term panic? How about Greenland, and the polar caps melting away, are they just a blip on the weather too? I understand that small weather events do not a theory make, but can any rational person deny that global warming is happening any more? What is it, 8 or 9 of the hottest years on record have happened in the last dozen or so years? I would’nt call any of these events weather, and I do’nt think anyone disputes them anymore, so is there still a jury out on GW?? If there is, it must be the OJ jury…
No. The jury came back a few years ago. Even (especially) the scientists who caution people about short term trends believe in AGW at about a 90-95% rate.
But some folks comfort themselves in conspiracy theories about the dishonesty of climate scientists.