Issue date: 11/20/09 Section: Opinion

Jake Brereton's Nov. 17 article on the elusive nature of global warming provides a troubling example of the elusive nature of the public understanding of not only climate change, but science in general. Whether 57 percent, 77 percent, or even if 99 percent of the public believed climate change due to human influences is or isn't happening isn't relevant; what is relevant is the scientific evidence. The claim that anthropogenic climate change "has yet to be supported by any scientific evidence" is preposterous. Thousands of scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals over the past decades provide that evidence, as do the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Although it is true that there is disagreement among scientists regarding the details, this is not problematic. In fact, this is how good science is done. Ideas, hypotheses, and theories are routinely tested as part of the scientific process. What is not accepted are scientific claims that are not tested or that have failed experimental tests repeatedly. Unfortunately, this is precisely the type of "evidence" that is cited in Mr. Brereton's article.

The notorious Oregon petition cited by Mr. Brereton was signed by 31,000 people in response to mass mailings of an article published in a discredited, politicized medical journal that, among other things, also publishes papers questioning the hazards of second-hand smoke (see: http://www.jpands.org/). Most of the people who signed the petition have no credentials in climate science, or even earth science, making them very poor judges of the credibility of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. The Senate Minority Report is a political document containing the names of ~700 scientists, and suffers from the same problem. Only 10 percent of the signees in the original report are identified as climate scientists (not surprisingly, the perpetrators of the Oregon Petition are among them). Eighty percent of them have never published research remotely related to climate science.

The assertion that "since [1998], temperatures have been … dropping as part of the Earth's natural cycle of heating and cooling" is commonly used to refute the notion of global warming. Historical and pre-historical records of climate show numerous short-term trends of both cooling and warming (see http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/upsDownsGlobalWarming.html), and these natural cycles are necessarily superimposed upon any long-term trends. A long-term trend of warming that continues today is obvious to anyone who has looked at the data (visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/). Are anthropogenic carbon emissions to blame for this long-term warming trend? Contrary to Mr. Brereton's unsupported statement that "the evidence is piling up against the theory of man-made global warming…" the IPCC, NASA and the vast majority of climate scientists worldwide agree that the geologically unprecedented rate at which warming has occurred over the past 60 years can only be explained by the addition of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mr. Brereton assumes that political motives underlie the scientific consensus on climate change, causing things like "re-branding" of scientific theory for public consumption. However, scientists generally have nothing to gain by advancing fraudulent claims or running with the herd. Quite the opposite. In fact, the peer review process required for publication in any reputable scientific journal makes it nearly impossible to "spin" scientific work to fit a political point of view or to perpetuate unsupported claims. However, when political goals conflict with scientific evidence, it can be very difficult to distinguish unchecked political spin from scientific fact. We hope that we have clarified the difference in this case.



- This column was submitted by geosciences professor Tim Cope; Jim Mills, the chair of the geosciences department; physics and astronomy professor John Caraher; Dana Dudle, the chair of the biology department; geosciences professor Jeanette Pope; and biology professor Jim Benedix. It appears in response to Jake Brereton's column, "Global warming elusive, economically problematic for American taxpayers," which appeared in the Nov. 17 issue.

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