“Results
confirming climate change are welcome, even when released before peer
review.”(1) A recent Nature article deceivingly titled, “Scientific Climate,” talks
about four papers released by the BEST the University of California, Berkeley
team, “confirm” that global warming should be reported now and not after
tedious peer review. I am going to discuss three main issues found in this
article. First, the author does not seem to recognize peer review’s importance,
though peer review remains a crucial aspect in the scientific community that
enforces quality control and allows the scientific community to self-correct.
Then, the author discusses climate change as a fact that is to be accepted as
he disregards any other viewpoints and research. Lastly, the author assumes
that journalists would anticipate reporting this news. However, the papers
merely repeat what people already know regarding climate change. A more
accurate thesis would read “any significant news regarding climate change is
welcome after peer review, because otherwise both arguments contain validity.
Though global warming fears tend to be mainstream, the argument for why climate
change is not an issue is as if not more plausible.”
Any acceptable
paper in the scientific community undergoes peer review so that it avoids
fallacies and corrections can be made. Though not without flaws, the history of
peer review is a pretty good history. Invented in the late 1600s, peer review
became standard practice in the twentieth century. It helps regulate research
and keep the scientific community’s quality. By undergoing scrutiny by top
authorities in the same field, a researcher’s work establishes credibility. If
the BEST papers have not undergone peer review, their accuracy is not ensured. Peer
review’s main problems arise when it aids in “suppressing valid or innovative
concepts.”(2) However, the BEST papers have no innovative concepts on which
scientists are ready to pounce. The papers present nothing original; they only
“confirm” what has already been found. Whether or not the concept of global
warming is valid, it is nothing ground-breaking that needs to be announced to
the scientific community or to the public.
No one
loves the public more than the media, and when it comes to public opinion,
journalists want to present accurate, trustworthy facts, but they also want to
keep it fresh and new. When it comes to journalism, we use the adage, “old news
is not news!” Apparently, the Nature author thinks otherwise. The findings at Berkley – findings that show
the same things that other research has already shown overly excite the author.
He or she seems to think that journalists will be chomping at the bit to report
this news. But, journalists only want new, exciting pertinent information. The
author says the papers are “sexy,” but frankly, no journalist would want to
touch this – it arouse some scientist’s interest if he or she needs it to do a
report or research doing some sort of research or report, but the “news”
carries no relevance for journalists.
If I were
a journalist, I certainly would not want to report unverifiable research. The
facts show that global warming is still not a proven fact like the author
claims. Several points can be argued against global warming or against it being
an alarming, panic-worthy issue. A third of the data reports cooling. The
monitoring stations cover relatively little land area and are not well spread
out. The US’s monitoring stations, which make up the majority of stations, do
not even meet government standards, so the rest of the world probably isn’t
better. Problems with climate change go on and on. The atmosphere is not what
is showing a warming trend, only the land surface. However, climate models
require that atmosphere must warm faster. Therefore, the measurements cannot be
fully trusted.
Fred
Singer, a Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and
the founder and president of The Science and Environmental Policy Protection,
writes about the issue, or lack of issue, in his testimony before the Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Climate Change. In it, he
states that there is no appreciable warming. To prevent misinterpretation and
confusion his reasons are stated here:
a)
Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.
In fact, if one ignores the unusual El Nino year of 1998, one sees a cooling
trend.
b)
Radiosonde data from balloons released regularly around the world confirm the
satellite data in every respect. This fact has been confirmed in a recent
report of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences.
c) The
well-controlled and reliable thermometer record of surface temperatures for the
continental United States shows no appreciable warming since about 1940. The
same is true for Western Europe. These results are in sharp contrast to the
GLOBAL instrumental surface record, which shows substantial warming, mainly in
NW Siberia and subpolar Alaska and Canada.
d) But tree-ring records for Siberia and Alaska and
published ice-core records that I have examined show NO warming since 1940. In
fact, many show a cooling trend.
The
author should check the facts before promoting a viewpoint so biased. There are
arguments for both sides of every point, but this point is still largely debated
and the BEST papers added little, if anything, to that debate. My points again
– peer review is important, journalism requires news, and global warming is not
a fact.
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