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Slow News Day: Climategate on Front Page of WaPo
Stolen files of 'Climate-gate' suggest some viewpoints on change are disregardedIt began with an anonymous Internet posting, and a link to a wonky set of e-mails and files. Stolen, apparently, Now it has mushroomed into what is being called "Climate-gate," a scandal that has done what many slide shows and public-service ads could not: focus public attention on the science of a warming planet. But not to worry, the science is so strong, it can take the hit. Except now, much of that attention is focused on the science's flaws. Leaked just before international climate talks begin in Copenhagen - the culmination of years of work by scientists to raise alarms about greenhouse-gas emissions - the e-mails have cast those scientists in a political light and given new energy to others who think the issue of climate change is all overblown. Not all of the work is flawed, just the basis for much of it that came from CRU. The e-mails don't say that: They don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle. But they do raise hard questions. In an effort to control what the public hears, did prominent scientists who link climate change to human behavior try to squelch a back-and-forth that is central to the scientific method? Is the science of global warming messier than they have admitted? These are the facts: After an increase in 1998, the world has been historically warm, but its average temperatures have not climbed steadily. Does that mean climate change has stopped? The "facts" include a chart that don't show any warm years in the 1930's. "To me, it's unambiguous . . . humans are altering the climate system," said Roger Pielke Sr., a research scientist at the University of Colorado. "It's just that, it's much more than CO2." I don't doubt we are having an effect. I only doubt we can measure it or predict how much. Pielke said his research shows that, in addition to carbon dioxide and other factors, Earth's warming is affected by how people alter the land. When a forest becomes a farm, or a farm becomes a suburb, that changes the amount of heat and moisture coming off the ground, he said. But Pielke said he has seen some papers rejected and has felt so marginalized that he quit a U.S. panel summing up climate change a few years ago. One of the stolen e-mails seems to confirm the idea that he was being excluded: In 2005, Jones wrote to colleagues about some of Pielke's complaints, "Maybe you'll be able to ignore them?" "These individuals, who are very sincere in their beliefs, have presumed that that gives them permission to exclude viewpoints that are different from their own," Pielke said. Wow. Where have we heard that before? Many mainstream scientists say no: This is just a tic of nature, as cycles of currents in the Pacific Ocean and a decrease in heat coming off the sun have temporarily dampened warming. Some researchers, though, have said the models - and, by extension, the human researchers that built them - could be missing something about how the climate works. That point was made in one stolen e-mail, in which climate researcher Kevin Trenberth wrote it was a "travesty" that models could not explain why the Earth hadn't warmed more. "We're simply not tracking where the heat is going," said Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. The diversity of opinion on this topic, however, wasn't evident late last month, when a group of 26 climate researchers issued a report called "The Copenhagen Diagnosis," summarizing scientific advances since the last major U.N. climate report in 2007. "Has global warming recently slowed down or paused?" the report said. "No." Nothing to see here. Move along. Posted by: Bobby 2009-12-05 |
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