A recent letter argued that "on virtually every claim, the scientific case for man-made climate fears has collapsed," citing as evidence a controversial presentation by British politician Christopher Monckton. The overarching idea is that the UN-established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has spread the anthropogenic global climate change "myth" for its own political gain, while altering its data to better fit this "myth."
It is unfortunate that the writer and millions of others present such arguments as they are rooted firmly in ignorance and faulty logic. The fact of the matter is, evidence from thousands of experts in climatology, atmospheric sciences, ocean sciences, physical geography, geology, chemistry, and many other fields has converged on the theory of anthropogenic climate change.
Have there been scientific criticisms of these studies? Of course. But few of these criticisms have gone deep enough to shake the very foundations of the climate change theory; if they had, we can rest assured that the world's climate experts would back away from that theory in place of a new one.
And the more important thing is that these criticisms are scientific, rather than the kind of political, journalistic nitpicking provided by Monckton.
Alexey Shiklomanov, Newark