Saturday's Steamboat Today had a long article about global warming based on the melting of permafrost in the north. It attributed to "scientists" the conclusion that the Earth is warming because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In the interest of scientific integrity and, in fact, intellectual integrity broadly speaking, the article should have said "some scientists." The skeptics in science are growing and becoming more vocal every day, and finally they are getting some press coverage. The global average temperature has not increased since 1998, and cooling has occurred since 2001 based on two independent sets of data from the most respected sources in the U.S. and Great Britain.
The cooling from January 2007 to January 2008 was sufficient to cancel almost all warming of the 20th century. The models referred to in the article do not predict the last 10 years in either the amount of change or the direction of change. It would be nice to see some coverage of the science in a balanced way in the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Even the American Physics Society is beginning to call for more careful examination of the IPCC conclusions and methodologies. The saga continues and the public is best served if all competent voices from the science community are heard.
Dr. Henry R. Savage