Thanks for coming! I plan to post a lot of interesting articles and comment on a wide range of things-- from political to religious, from private to public, from formal writing on public policy to snippets on random observations.
I've blogged on this two other times: here and here.
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 2:26 PM
4 Comments
First and foremost, I am saved by God's grace as manifested most clearly through the atoning death of Jesus Christ-- and thus, adopted into His family. As a result, I increasingly seek to extend His grace to others in my daily life. On the home front, I am a husband and father to four young men (two by adoption and two the more conventional way). Professionally, I am an economist who loves to teach and is active in public policy circles. Vocationally, I am an active writer and the author of three books (one on the book of Joshua; two on public policy-- one secular, one Christian). Finally, I am the co-author of a 21-month discipleship curriculum, Thoroughly Equipped (and a lighter 36-week version), for developing competent lay-leaders in the Church. Related to that work, Kurt and I have two books, Enough Horses in the Barn and Roll Up Your Sleeves.
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Curious that you would post this during a week with record high temperatures in Louisville, and with a record number of 90°+ days for a year set this week.
But the message from the Anthony Watts and his collaborators appears to be that temperatures haven't risen, or at least, we cannot rely upon the data sets that show temperatures have risen. I think it's fair to say that this is simply not correct—temperatures have risen in the last several decades. There is abundant evidence from nature, such as glacier melting, that corroborates the multiple weather station and satellite data sets that show warming.
Where there might be room for debate is whether the warming is due to human activity. But here I am persuaded that the increase in levels of CO2 is primarily to blame, or perhaps I should say, I find the skeptical arguments to be less than convincing. For example, skeptics point to the sun as the primary driver in the climate. But the sun's output hasn't changed by very much, so skeptics argue that the sensitivity of the climate to the sun is higher than climate scientists have determined it to be. But the problem with this argument is that the climate should be even more sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels. And temperatures are currently near record levels (set in 1998 and 2005) in spite of a deep and protracted solar minimum.
On the timing, I'm confident that my readers will understand the difference between local and global warming!
On Watts, it's important to note that there could easily be bias in the temperature measurements along with warming (whatever its cause and prospective cures). In any case, it seems sloppy to have data collected in an inconsistent manner.
Of course, the current hot spell is weather, not climate. But you should be aware that for the last two or three decades, the number of record highs has been running at about twice the number of record lows.
It's hard to argue about biases. Perhaps the data, or the scientists, are biased; it's easy to look for data that support your position and easy to ignore data that do not (especially when things are kind of messy). But bias cuts both ways: the fossil fuel industry is spending a lot of money to convince us that global warming is not a real danger.
We're definitely in hotter times. Whether that's part of a long-term trend or a part of some cycle, I'm not nearly as sure.
On bias, I didn't mean to imply that this was done out of malice. To the contrary, this strikes me as the sort of thing that would arise to confound to well-intentioned efforts.
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