Global Warming and Hurricanes
The integrity of America's far right isn't worth much these days. Show them a fact they don't like and they'll hunt out every shyster, qualified statement, 'paid' consultant and bumpy piece of data they can find. It's called cherry picking, the same method that was used to justify the war in Iraq.
Real science is a bumpy road. If science were easy, we wouldn't need scientists to prove that the earth revolves around the sun. I've followed from the beginning the story about the dinosaurs possibly being wiped out by an asteroid sixty million years ago. Originally, the theory, or hypothesis, was very controversial and even now the extinction part of the story is still somewhat a theory but it's now well understood that an asteroid hit the earth in that period and that, at very least, it had an effect on life on earth. The theory is still being investigated as new data comes in and our understand increases. But the road for the theory has been bumpy simply because that's the nature of science.
I don't know exactly when the global warming theory first appear though it was well under way in the 1970s. At the time, global warming was competing with another theory about global cooling which argued that because of all the particles being put in the air through pollution, less sunlight was reaching the surface. The cooling theory wasn't wrong; volcanic eruptions sometimes put enough dust in the air to cool the earth. An asteroid hitting the earth would throw so much dust in the air as to cool the earth for a year or two. But global warming took off when scientists discovered some pollutants, like excessive carbon dioxide, have a multiplier effect that can't be ignored. The evidence since then has been piling up.
Think Progress has a story on the latest nonsense from the right and their comeuppance once again on global warming:
The main data is water temperature; water temperatures are increasing. There's often a direct link between water temperature and the size of a hurricane. And increased water temperatures can be directly linked to global warming. The science of global warming will still have bumps in the road and there will still be record cold temperatures at isolated times and places but the evidence for global warming is becoming overwhelming.
Real science is a bumpy road. If science were easy, we wouldn't need scientists to prove that the earth revolves around the sun. I've followed from the beginning the story about the dinosaurs possibly being wiped out by an asteroid sixty million years ago. Originally, the theory, or hypothesis, was very controversial and even now the extinction part of the story is still somewhat a theory but it's now well understood that an asteroid hit the earth in that period and that, at very least, it had an effect on life on earth. The theory is still being investigated as new data comes in and our understand increases. But the road for the theory has been bumpy simply because that's the nature of science.
I don't know exactly when the global warming theory first appear though it was well under way in the 1970s. At the time, global warming was competing with another theory about global cooling which argued that because of all the particles being put in the air through pollution, less sunlight was reaching the surface. The cooling theory wasn't wrong; volcanic eruptions sometimes put enough dust in the air to cool the earth. An asteroid hitting the earth would throw so much dust in the air as to cool the earth for a year or two. But global warming took off when scientists discovered some pollutants, like excessive carbon dioxide, have a multiplier effect that can't be ignored. The evidence since then has been piling up.
Think Progress has a story on the latest nonsense from the right and their comeuppance once again on global warming:
A study published in the journal Science questioning the link between increased hurricane strength and global warming was quickly seized upon by Matt Drudge and the right-wing blogosphere as evidence the dangers of global warming are over-hyped.
Time for a reality check. The author of the study, Christopher Landsea, does “not dispute global warming was occurring or that it could influence hurricanes.” Rather, Landsea argues that pre-1990 data on hurricane strength is unreliable, so it can’t be used to construct multi-decade trends in hurricane strength. These findings are preliminary and the author of the major study Landsea criticizes, M.I.T. scientist Kerry Emanuel, disputes them.
But ultimately, it doesn’t matter much whether Landsea is right or not about hurricane intensity data. Other major studies have established the link between global warming and hurricane strength by relying on different data.
The main data is water temperature; water temperatures are increasing. There's often a direct link between water temperature and the size of a hurricane. And increased water temperatures can be directly linked to global warming. The science of global warming will still have bumps in the road and there will still be record cold temperatures at isolated times and places but the evidence for global warming is becoming overwhelming.
posted by Poechewe at 1:44 PM
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