Award-winning conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly Washington Post column that also appears in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Because I enjoy reading intelligent material with which I disagree, I usually read his articles. He’s interestingly unpredictable and often embraces good science. For example, he dismisses creationism as pseudoscience, opposes the death penalty, supports legalized abortion, and advocates radically higher energy taxes to induce conservation.
I was surprised, then, by his July 8 antiscientifi c blast titled “Global warming folly.” Off ering absolutely no evidence, it castigates climatology as “naive” and “faith, not science.”
The article begins by dismissing global warming as unimportant. Scientists almost uniformly disagree with this. For one recent example, an article in the June 21 issue of Science presents detailed evidence that, during the Pliocene era 3.5 million years ago when there were about 400 carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules in the atmosphere for every million air molecules (400 parts per million, or 400 ppm), summer temperatures were about 15 Fahrenheit degrees warmer than today. Although CO2 levels have stayed below 300 ppm throughout the ice ages (the past 2.4 million years), industrial emissions and forest clearing have now raised that level to 400 ppm. High CO2 levels have generally coincided with high temperatures throughout Earth’s history. So current levels could put us back into Pliocenelike conditions, when temperatures were too high to support large polar ice sheets. If Greenland and West Antarctica melt, sea levels will rise by 50 feet. If the giant East Antarctic ice sheet also melts, sea levels will rise by an additional 213 feet. So global warming will probably bring an entirely different geological era. Unimportant?
Krauthammer’s most egregious, indeed dishonest, mistake is his misleading use of data. He states “global temperatures have been flat for 16 years.” If you consult the graph my editors kindly provided, you’ll note 1998 — 15 years ago — was at that time by far the warmest year since global temperatures were fi rst recorded in 1880. Furthermore, 1997 — 16 years ago — was also a warmest year. Thus, if you look at only the past 16 years, you might convince yourself “temperatures have been flat.” Choosing one’s “starting point” (1997) in this manner is a classic misuse of data. It’s really ironic Krauthammer derives his “fl at temperature” conclusion from this misuse of an enormously warm year, 1998. As you can see from the graph, 1998 is still one of the hottest years.
He’s cherry-picking the data in order to “prove” a preconceived opinion. He’s not seeking the truth. Such cherrypicking is characteristic of all pseudoscience.
For an unbiased view, the 10 hottest years on record, listed from hottest to coolest, are: 2010, 2005, 2009, 1998, 2007, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2012, 2011. Note that only one of these, 1998, occurs before 2000. Flat temperatures? Hardly.
Here are a few other unbiased statistics: 2001-2010 was the hottest decade on record, and 1.6 degrees warmer than the 1961-1990 average. In fact, each of the four preceding decades was the hottest decade on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracks daily high and low temperatures at about 5,500 sites. They report the ratio of daily record highs to daily record lows was about 5 to 1 during 2012. If temperatures were “flat,” as Krauthammer claims, this ratio would be about 1 to 1.
Krauthammer slams climate science as unable to explain his fi ctional “flat temperatures” and as “unsettled.” He slams President Barack Obama, who accepts climate science, as “naive” and a “fl at-earther.” Such statements reveal the author as an antiscience extremist, akin to the creationists he has so wisely decried in previous columns. I’ve studied science for more decades than I care to count, and I’ve widely read climate science literature for the past 20 years. An enormous and increasing amount of effort is going into the study of climate change today, and its quality is as high as any science I’ve ever seen. The four previous reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are among the most impressive scientifi c documents I’ve ever seen.
It seems to me it is the essence of morality to seek the objective truth, draw rational conclusions from it and act on those conclusions. In other words, trust the universe. By trusting his conservative ideology rather than his brains and his senses, Krauthammer, along with many others who try to mislead us about climate science, are doing us and our descendants a great and immoral disservice.
ART HOBSON IS A PROFESSOR
EMERITUS OF PHYSICS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS.