Climate change cover-up? You better believe it

Sadly for the potential fate of human civilization, rumors of the demise of climate change have been much exaggerated. The past decade recorded nine of the warmest years in recent history as well as the rapid dwindling of Arctic sea ice, surely the result of imminent global cooling if climate change contrarians are to be believed. After all, one of the most "damaging" emails in question from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., is actually mourning the paucity of Earth observation systems and data in the past decade, such as satellites (gutted by a lack of funding and launch miscues in recent years) to monitor climate change in the midst of natural variability.

The "Copenhagen Diagnosis" released today reveals that by any objective measure—melting ice sheets, greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise—the climate is warming faster than anticipated. And when the natural variability induced by massive climate systems such as oscillations over decades in ocean temperatures, currents and even sunspots reverts to the mean, the roughly three warming watts per square meter added by greenhouse gases will still be there to drive climate change.

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Posted 8 months ago

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