Articles by Andrew Dessler

Journalists need to evaluate strength of scientific consensus

One of the biggest problems in the climate change debate is the fact that many people out there fail to understand the finer points of “scientific consensus.” For an example […]

Physicists reaffirm that human-induced GHGs affect the atmosphere

It goes something like this:

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming.

Of course that's not true. Today a statement appeared on the APS website saying:

APS Position Remains Unchanged

The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that "Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum." This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.

For a list of societies that have endorsed the mainstream position on climate change, see this post.

Climate change and the null hypothesis

An excellent post by my colleague John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State climatologist, can be found here. An excerpt:

Did I say darndest? I meant stupidest

From Deltoid, Tim Lambert provides this exchange between Tim Flannery (climate realist) and Adam Shand (climate skeptic) from an Australian TV show:

Tim Flannery: No one can predict the weather three months ahead, that's absolutely true. But if I asked you if January next year was likely to be warmer than June this year, what would you say?

Adam Shand: I'd have no idea!

TF: You'd say yes because that's what we always see. Summers are warmer than winter. And in terms of predicting general global trends, that exactly the sort of science that we're doing. It's not like predicting the weather on a certain day three months out, it's like predicting whether January is likely to be warmer than June.

AS: But that's just an assumption, we sort of assume that summer is hotter than winter.