Industry-funded Republicans have been saying for a generation now that scientists’ warning about global warming are exaggerated. At first, I could understand their skepticism. Back in the 1980s, when predictions about global warming first hit the mainstream media, they sounded preposterous to me, and I made fun of them. I didn’t actually read about any of the studies, though. I simply rejected the idea on its face.
Eventually, I grew up a bit, and I paid more attention to the details of what scientists have been saying. My skepticism was satisfied. Of course, no one really knows for certain what the future will be like, but we can say the probability for serious global warming caused by human activity is 100% – because it’s already here.
Of course, people are now wondering what will happen in the future. After all this time, industry-funded Republicans are still saying that scientists’ predictions about global warming are exaggerated.
That’s not what the data says, though. This week, John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research published the results of a peer-reviewed study in the journal Science. The study examined the predictive worth of climate models, based on data that already exists where the models have already been used, predicting humidity levels. They found that the models that predict more extreme global warming are those that have the greatest degree of accuracy.
Thanks for the update Green Man. We’ve seen that the IPCC put out watered down information to appease politicians (specifically from countries like ours who don’t want to impose any restrictions on polluters), and that in fact these papers were way too modest in their projections since each one has proved to be a lower limit to what’s actually taking place. Now that we have Arctic ice melt data, sea level rise data, ice core data, tree ring data, geological data and weather models being updated with the latest figures from the stratosphere down, and include solar activity, we’re beginning to piece it together. Still, there are no feedback loop data in the models (and some other meaningful but hard to quantify information, regarding cloud formation and another effecting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, for example).
The point i’m getting at is that our modelling is improving but doing nothing about the actual problem which is based on our “way of life” – powering our civilization through the overuse of fossil fuels. So we may end up with a perfect model of what’s going to cause our own extinction, within one human generation, according to some.
Swell.