| Posted on Dec 21, 2009 09:32:46 AM | NASA Earth Science News Team | 9 Comments | |
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Rigor. Not rigor mortis.Those are two basic tenets of talking to the public about global warming, offered by Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. He spoke at a Thursday morning session on “communicating climate” at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco.
The climate debate as carried out on cable news, over dinner tables and at the office these days is anything but dead. Serreze and a handful of other presenters at the session encouraged scientists to inject their scientific knowledge into this debate, especially at this critical moment for policy development to address climate change impacts. But, Serreze gently prodded, be sure to bring the scientific rigor, while leaving the calcified sciencese in the lab.
In past years a session like this might not have even appeared on the AGU schedule. No data-dense graphs were shown, no recent breakthroughs discussed. But its presence on the agenda – and a strong attendance – say something about the pitch and significance of the public climate debate right now.
Michael Mann, a Penn State climate scientist respected worldwide who, with colleagues, produced the now-famous “hockey stick” graph depicting recent drastic temperature changes, led off the session. Mann (pictured) has become a target of climate change deniers. Some of his personal emails were among those aired after hackers stole them off a computer server at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit in England recently.
Mann said scientists for too long have been content to focus on their science and let any public debate of it play out on its own. He contends this strategy isn’t enough anymore, as a “well-funded disinformation effort” is still hard at work to discredit climate science and confuse the public.
“We’ve got to be out there, making the case,” Mann said. “These allegations are a distraction and are specious. We have to say that and at the same time use the opportunity to make the positive case.”
“The media alone cannot be expected to adequately defend the science and the scientists. It’s not their job. Our job is to make sure scientific truth is represented,” Mann said.
-- Patrick Lynch, NASA's Earth Science News Team
Image Credit: Penn State University
Tags : General
I must express my admiration with your scientific team I want tosay that your team know before others that the earth on which we live is the onley planet available for life because ALLAH CREAT ONE EARTH FOR HUMAN BEING THIS CLEAR IN OUR HOLY BOOK QURAAN YOU WASTE TIME AND MONEY TO DISCOVER ANOTHER PLANET AVAILABLE FOR LIFE THIS EFFORT WILL BE IN VAIN SO AND BECAUSE WE RESPECT YOUR WAY OF SEARCH YOU WILL BE MORE USEFULL IN EXPLORING OUR EARTH OTHER MISSIONS TO KNOW IS OK WITH MY RESPECT TO ALL TEAM IN NASA
gravity, sun or earth move..?
somehow we meet the same, everyday, a new day?
good, better than, the best.., just get well.
Amazing. These comments show an astounding lack of understanding of scientific method. Dr. Mann and his colleagues are to be commended for their work, and for their patience with such ignorance. Please keep up the good work - the quiet majority are grateful, and the value of your work will eventually be recognized not only by the National scientific academies of the G8 5, the major scientific organizations of the US and Europe, and other countries, as it is now, but by the general public as the temperatures continue to rise. The detractors will have an increasingly difficult time arguing with melting ice and rising sea levels...
Thank you for your work and perseverance.
I'm just a mathematician, so I know the basics of logic:
No data, no tweaks and no computer code imply no science => Dr. Mann is not a scientist.
Does anyone else remember the days when evidence was evaluated rather than evangelized?
reply to bullmastiffs:
I guess you are not a scientist. I am. Arriving at consensus is a normal part of the scientific process. There is no proof in science on any issue, including global warming, only explanations supported by more or less evidence.
The propagandists promoting the anthropogenic global warming religious mythology are getting increasingly shrill the more that the extent of thier fraud is revealed.
And, why is my tax money being used to support this hard-left political propaganda?
Patrick Lynch is presumably paid by NASA, and hence by the taxpayers. Is his publishing of this blatently propagandistic broadsheet even legal?
Credibility is a key to the public's acceptance of the role of scientists in our culture. When one betrays the scientific principals by concealing negative data or refusing to promptly release data and models for independent analysis or attempting to suppress the work of others with differing views we all loose creditability. It is similar to the case of a dirty cop dragging down the reputations of all the other honest people working in law enforcement. The only solution to the problem is for the community to investigate the actions of its members and take appropriate actions based on the findings--either step up and defend them against thier accusers or permanently exclude them from the scientific community.
This is a whitewash. The idea that there is an incontrovertible increase in temperature in the past few years is incompatible with the complex calculations and selective data quality assessment involved in Mann's work. It cannot credibly be beyond doubt. Since we therefor feel the need to discredit the doubters with something other than truth, even if that is for a noble purpose of saving the world, we need to consider carefully to what purpose we are saving it.