Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Some Humility About Climate Change

Somehow I doubt this story will lead the CBS Evening News, because it's not congruent with the "global warming flow," but I suggest you read "Forget Global Warming: Welcome to the New Ice Age." (It's just 2 pages.)

Salient information:
* Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966
* Record cold and snow in several continents
* The "melted" Arctic ice is back
* The sun is in an inactive phase

Does one cold winter make an ice age? Nope. A few hot summers mean global warming? Not necessarily.

Let's be humble about the quality of our measurement systems, the coverage and range of our data, and our ability to accurately understand trends in complex systems.

As for the impact of mankind, we should also be humble. Sometimes human actions have clearly had a disproportionate effect on global systems, and sometimes we have not. One the basic principles of system dynamics is that cause and effect are not close together in time or space. Therefore it is systematically difficult to understand the relationships between factors in climate, and the magnitude of their effects.

Being good stewards of the Earth we have been given, after all, begins in humility.

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