Editorial

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Global warming: Undeniable evidence

The Guardian, Monday 1 February 2010

The unwillingness of scientists at the University of East Anglia to release climate data to people who choose not to believe in climate change was a mistake. Science advances through openness, through the ability of others to replicate the same findings or demonstrate error in discovery and interpretation. Reluctance to disclose – revealed last week in the wake of the release of private email exchanges between climate researchers – invites suspicion. The hacked email exchanges were an embarrassment, and the refusal to disclose data was a bad call, but neither episode casts much doubt upon the science of global warming. The ­evidence for climate change driven by man-made discharges of greenhouse gases is now decades old, has been independently confirmed by researchers all over the world, and is – as the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said yesterday – overwhelming.

There is plenty of room for argument about the rate at which the world is warming, the degree to which humans are culpable, the likely outcomes and the most effective steps to be taken.

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Some events may be considered as consequences of natural variation in a climate cycle, but the intensity and frequency of such extreme events is expected to grow as the world warms. The lesson to be drawn from the latest round of questions about climate science is not that scientists make mistakes, and could get the future wrong. It is that we still don't know enough about our own planet, and should be spending more on research, instead of cutting science budgets. Knowledge is expensive, but wilful ignorance could cost immeasurably more.

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Full Article.