Another climate-skeptic argument bites the dust
Another argument treasured by climate-change skeptics may be headed the way of the dinosaurs. For years, doubters have made much of the fact that the troposphere (the lower part of the earth’s atmosphere) didn’t seem to be warming as fast as the earth’s surface, as climate models had predicted it would. But three new studies in the journal Science — on weather-satellite data, weather-balloon data, and climate models — together call into question the calculations by which past temperature measurements of the troposphere were produced, and show that accurate calculations reveal a warming trend. Of particular chagrin to the naysayer community is the new study debunking work on satellite data done by John Christy and Roy Spencer, which has a venerable place in the dwindling skeptical arsenal; Christy and Spencer now acknowledge their errors. Perhaps it’s time for skeptics to start advocating for “Intelligent Warming Theory” to be taught side-by-side with global warming in science classrooms.
