Slashdot Mirror
Global Warming 'Confirmed' By Independent Study
chrb writes "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project — an independent study of Earth's historical temperature record partly funded by climate skeptics, including the Koch brothers — has released preliminary results that show the same warming trend as previous research. Project leader and physics professor Richard Muller, of the University of California, has stated that he was 'surprised' at the close agreement, and it 'confirms that these studies were done carefully.' The study also found that warming in the temperature record was not caused by poor quality weather monitoring stations — thus rejecting a frequent claim of skeptics. Climate skeptic Stephen McIntyre has previously said 'anything that [Muller] does will be well done.'"
[Did it "confirm" it was caused by man?] Because that's the real issue that most skeptics have been questioning of late.
If the question of whether or not the warming is anthropogenic, then why the Climategate stink? The researchers involved in those studies (as referenced here) had no skin in the anthropogeny game, they were merely reporting on collected warming/cooling data. If self-proclaimed "skeptics" were not contentious about warming and instead only worried about the cause, there would not have been a scandal at all...
But there was.
Actually that's one of the key issues addressed by the study. Climate scientists have been accounting for that effect pretty much forever, but the authors of the new study were dubious about the way it was handled, so they did their own treatment. They found it was insignificant.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Finally, I think it's important to note that if this study had come to the opposite conclusion, it would have been derided as quack science and laughed off of Slashdot.
Because for it to come to the opposite conclusion, it would probably have had to have been quack science. And before you accuse me of not wanting to challenge my "religion" of AGW, a couple of months ago when a report came out that claimed that warming was basically not happening, the first thing I thought was "wow, that's fantastic news. I hope they're right and not just partisan quacks." In case you missed that one, I'll leave it to you to guess if they were right or not.
Furthermore, the fact that the Koch brothers funded an apparently legitimate scientific study is unlikely to challenge the conception of most on this forum that they are a bunch of purely evil monsters, but it should.
Good on them. Now let's see if they're willing to act responsibly based on the results of the study they paid for.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal