Robert A. Brown
Our senate just demonstrated again that it is scientifically illiterate, when it, just about alone in the world, denied concern about Global Warming by defeating the clean air bill.
OK. Let me repeat once more: Scientists by definition have no assumed goal in analyzing data. It is interesting that over many years (in the '70s) I taught that from looking at the known data and weather cycles derived from them that it appears we are nearing the end of an interglacial period and heading for a glacial cooling period. This was widely acknowledged in climate science and students accepted it as simply the best estimate of future climate based on available data.
The Big Oil cartel said not a word and there was no hue and cry from the public.
Then in the '80s we saw a new data set of CO2 plotted versus time (the Keeling curve) and were amazed at its sudden rise in recent decades. Everyone knew CO2 was a greenhouse gas so the conclusion that the globe would be warming from this effect was a no-brainer. I added this possibility to my future climate options with the comment that "Hey, maybe this will ward off glacial cooling."
There was little interest in the media or the "silent majority".
In the '90s, the computer models were getting good, observations via satellite and other remote sensing were appearing and the mathematics of matrix algebra was brought to bear on paleoclimate temperature proxy data (tree ring data, ice core data, bentnic core data, etc). A few models suggested that greenhouse gas warming might more than match Milankovich cycle cooling. Scientists thought this was interesting and started really looking for pertinent data.
There was a stir from the Big Oil community.
Over the past 15-years, observations have been accumulating relating to global temperature increases. The best analyses of temperature data show a warming globe, small numbers but the effects were unknown, so optomistically it was predicted for the distant future. But in the past ten years, these effects have been seen, on land in glacial retreat and general ice decrease, fauna & flora northward march, and in the ocean in slight warming, sea level rise and acidification, often with locally disastrous results (to corals, fish and plankton). This, together with many other corraborating data in diverse disciplines have led atmospheric scientists to predict, with 90% certainty, that anthropomorphic caused air pollution was producing global change and warming at an alarming rate. Now if you're betting your own money, or risking your career, would you put it on the 10% number or the 90% number?
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http://blog.seattlepi.com/robertbrown/archives/215668.asp
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