BY RYAN MULLEN
It is a shame that Alex Pherson chose to report the state of global warming the way he did in his Feb. 18 column. It is a shame because he missed a great opportunity to educate his fellow Bruins on the realities of climate change. It is also a shame because he, like many other climate change skeptics, is the unfortunate victim of information about “leaked e-mails” and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change errors that is not quite accurate.
Fortunately, the truth is out there, but it takes some searching to find.
For instance, Pherson argued that because of the record snowstorms back east, the case for climate change has ““ no pun intended ““ cooled off. It is certainly a logical conclusion. The majority of Americans would agree with him: how can the Earth possibly be warming when Washington, D.C., lies under two feet of snow?
There are two reasons, in fact. The first reason is that as the Earth’s climate warms, we should expect more extreme weather. Not more warm weather, more extreme weather. That means more hurricanes, more heat waves in Los Angeles, and ““ yes, it’s true ““ more extreme blizzards like the one slamming the East Coast.
It is a shame Pherson did not follow up when he said that the storms have made the case stronger for “warmers.” If he did, he would have been “snowed in” by all the data backing the warmers’ view.
Its conclusion? We get the majority of our snowstorms in warmer-than-average years.
The second reason is that “the 2000s” has been the warmest decade on record. And NASA just reported its latest global surface temperature analysis: 2009 is tied for second-hottest year on record.
Climatologist Ken Caldeira said it best: “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous.”
Snowstorms aside, the real point of Pherson’s piece is that we ought to be skeptical of the scientific community’s conclusions about global warming because they misrepresent their facts. This is a much more troublesome point, because the inaccuracies and misinformation around the leaked e-mails issue ““ called “Climategate” by the media ““ are enormous.
Here’s the truth about what happened: hackers attacked the computers of a number of scientists at a British climate research facility. They stole thousands of e-mails, and published them on a Russian Web site just before the Copenhagen conference kicked off. It seems they were trying to influence how Copenhagen turned out, by casting doubt on global warming before the ceremonies started.
And here’s what the skeptics say about the e-mails: one, that scientists manipulated data on tree rings (which are used to track global temperatures before the thermometer was invented) to disguise evidence of global cooling; two, that scientists suppressed contradictory data from publication; and three, that scientists slandered individuals in the skeptical crowd.
Let’s run through these three quickly.
One: I will not try to judge how these scientists presented their tree ring data. Some say it was legitimate, others do not. But it does not matter either way. The evidence for climate change is so clear and incontrovertible that deviations in one sample using one method of evidence gathering are barely a blip on the radar. To be clear: There are dozens of other studies using other methods that do support the global warming thesis. This one study is inconsequential.
Two: In fact, scientists did not suppress contradictory data from publication. The evidence climate change skeptics are quick to show is a few e-mails by two scientists (Jones and Mann). In one set, they discuss how to keep skeptic articles out of the journal Climate Research and in the other they discuss deleting e-mails before the government gets legal access to them.
In the first case, they are responding to a study published in Climate Research in 2003 funded by ““ flashing red lights here ““ the American Petroleum Institute. It turned out to have so many errors that half the journal’s editorial board resigned when the study was published.
You can see why Jones and Mann would not want studies like that published in a journal called Climate Research.
On the deleting e-mails issue, both Jones and Mann have come forward saying they did no such thing. And an independent investigation is being launched into the matter. No one can accuse the scientific community of taking these allegations lightly.
Three: It is true that some of the scientists slandered several skeptics of climate change. It was disreputable and entirely unprofessional. But it in no way detracts from the quality of their work. A few angry comments do not overturn decades of painstaking research.
So where do we find ourselves?
It appears that the snowstorms on the East Coast are not evidence of global cooling ““ nice as that would be. And it also appears that the international firestorm over the hacked e-mails is, as our Nobel Prize-winning energy secretary recently said, “a little wart on the overall amount of information.”
It is my guess that the charges levied against the IPCC will similarly fail to detract from its main message. But the effects of this controversy will reverberate for some time to come, even with the “total support of Congress and the administration” Pherson erroneously claims the warmers have.
Despite what many warmers believe, I think the skeptics have their own important role to play. They can challenge climate scientists to make sure their research is as rigorous as possible ““ to keep the science honest. It is a vital and necessary job.
But they too have a responsibility to confront hard evidence and not be led astray by tangential arguments or groupthink. Here’s to a future where both sides can work better together.
Mullen is a third-year UCLA student and Action Research Team co-director for the Education for Sustainable Living Program.