In his essay "Wintertime reflections on global warming," (Chemical and Engineering News, Jan. 25), managing editor Rudy Baum writes: "Science can project what global temperatures might be in 100 or 200 years if the current trends in fossil fuel consumption continue..."
Wrong again, dude.
It's "mathematical modeling" -- not science -- that attempts to project future temperatures. And so far that modeling has not been terribly reassuring.
As pointed out by the George C. Marshall Institute:
"Indeed, global warming predictions by the IPCC for the next century have decreased by nearly 40% in the last seven years. In 1990, the first IPCC report predicted that without CO2 emission controls the average global temperature would increase 3.3 degrees C between 1990 and the year 2100 as a result of human activities such as the burning of coal and oil. Two years later and on the basis of better computer models of the global climate system, the IPCC reduced the predicted warming to 2.8 degrees C by 2100. The latest IPCC report, Climate Change 1995, reduced the predicted warming to 2 degrees C by 2100. With the cooling effect of aerosols included, the predicted warming drops to 1 degree C.So the more the models improve, the less warming they predict. At the current pace, the models will soon be predicting an imminent ice age.
Rudy writes "I am always startled by the vehemance of the correspondence from readers convinced that global warming is a figment of the overheated, collective imagination of liberal scientists, politicians and journalists."
Perhaps readers wouldn't be so vehement if Rudy wrote more accurate articles.
E-mail comments with "vehemance" to Rudy Baum.
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