The New York Times ran an interesting article this week about a blogger who challenged NASA’s statistics on global warming and found an error. And then he started calling the head of the project names, like Jor-El?
Never underestimate the power of the blogosphere and a quarter of a degree to inflame the fight over global warming.
A quarter-degree Fahrenheit is roughly the downward adjustment NASA scientists made earlier this month in their annual estimates of the average temperature in the contiguous 48 states since 2000. They corrected the numbers after an error in meshing two sets of temperature data was discovered by Stephen McIntyre, a blogger and retired business executive in Toronto. Smaller adjustments were made to some readings for some preceding years.
All of this would most likely have passed unremarkably if Mr. McIntyre had not blogged that the adjustments changed the rankings of warmest years for the contiguous states since 1895, when record-keeping began.
Suddenly, 1934 appeared to vault ahead of 1998 as the warmest year on record (by a statistically meaningless 0.036 degrees Fahrenheit). In NASA’s most recent data set, 1934 had followed 1998 by a statistically meaningless 0.018 degrees. Conservative bloggers, columnists and radio hosts pounced. “We have proof of man-made global warming,” Rush Limbaughtold his radio audience. “The man-made global warming is inside NASA.”
Mr. McIntyre, who has spent years seeking flaws in studies pointing to human-driven climate change, traded broadsides on the Web with James E. Hansen, the NASA team’s leader. Dr. Hansen said he would not “joust with court jesters” and Mr. McIntyre posited that Dr. Hansen might have a “Jor-El complex” — a reference to Superman’s father, who foresaw the destruction of his planet and sent his son packing.
Blogs are still reverberating, but Mr. McIntyre, Dr. Hansen and others familiar with the initial data revisions are clarifying what is, and is not, at issue.
One thing not in question, Mr. McIntyre and Dr. Hansen agree, is the merit of shifting away from energy choices that contribute heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Mr. McIntyre said he feels “climate change is a serious issue.” His personal preference is to shift increasingly to nuclear power and away from coal and oil, the main source of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
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Noelle dEstries
Noelle d'Estries, an early GO employee who took on the varied roles of Community Manager, green celebrity blogger, and more. She currently runs worstcookever.com GO entered Noelle's life in February 2007 while she was burning tires in her backyard. A phone call from the green gods at GO, burnt out the fires. Now, Noelle happily wears her GO sweatshirt while eating organic veggies and asking for paper, not plastic. A regular at the local farmer's market, Noelle shuns raking leaves and lawn maintenance, while making gourmet foods constantly. When not staring at her computer screen, she spends time with her equally attractive dog, Tessa, cat, Tim and lover Paul. She currently holds all three point records at RIT and could eat avocados and drink wine for the rest of her life.
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