Saturday, October 22, 2011

BEST climate study finds yes, earth is warming

Wed Oct 26 (belatedly) - Real Climate covers it from the science side; there are some oddities.
Oct Mon Oct 24 update: Planet3.0 best
sums this story up (and articulates my discomfort):
"...if we were doing science and not politics, [this result] would be of no real consequence. Which means that when we pay attention to it, we are paying attention mostly to politics masquerading as science."
This (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) is a partially-Koch-funded project, initially embraced by global warming delayers, which - now that its results indicate the measured warming is not just an "urban heat island" (UHI) artifact - has [not been well received in some skeptical quarters.]

I haven't been paying much attention, but it's getting a surprising amount of coverage from climate blogs - e.g. here (Class M), here, here, here, Mother Jones here.
From Class M:
"Because the [submitted BEST] papers haven't been peer-reviewed, there's no telling whether their failure to falsify the no-UHI effect will even be added to the literature. The general practice in scientific journals is to not pay too much attention to papers that confirm what we already know. "

3 comments:

gzaller said...

I think a more productive discussion would be on how to build a bridge between the climate denier's mind and reputable research. At this point the certainty of the research has no effect except to drive them deeper into delusion.

Anna Haynes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anna Haynes said...

(Greg's interesting in engaging in discussion with a local fellow of different political views, about climate science & policy. My efforts along these lines haven't borne fruit, so I'll be watching Greg's engagement with interest.)