Friday, August 10, 2007

Changes to Global Warming Calcs

Readers of this Blog know I am not a fan of the Global Warming Movement. It is not that I do not think activists sometimes raise good points - I think Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was well-done and thought-provoking - but they all-too-often are willing to latch onto any hyperbolic notion in order to try and sway opinion. It is hard enough to believe humans could have actually changed the global climate without bringing foolishness like "The Day After Tomorrow" into it. (Great special effects, though! Loved the instra-freeze of New York City.)

An example of a Global Warming scientist doing things right has emerged. In this article, a Y2K bug was found in the calculations of one of the more influential scientists in the movement, and instead of either (1) claiming that an error was impossible or (2) blaming it on a conspiracy, the scientist (and his critic) simply corrected the data and republished it. The result? Scientifically, the data is changed little - the overall deviation changes 1% or so. But rhetorically it changes radically. 5 of the hottest days in history have moved from the 90s, to prior to World War 2.

No comments: