Pulling Hairs

I am much too tired to write a complete typical Pew rant about the following, but I rather suspect this topic will be picked up by more blogs over the next few days. I hope they manage to word the frustrations better than I can at this very moment.

Climateprediction.net quite cleverly teamed up with the BBC to carry out what has been labelled the largest and most important Climate Change Experiment. I am all in favor of the idea of involving the general public by making use of their computers to distribute experimental/theoretical computations that would otherwise take years to complete in a single lab. NASA started a similar project a few years back as part of the SETI-project. I think it's brilliant.

However. There's as always a downside to such "popularisations" of science.

I dare assume that most of us are aware of the chaotic principles underlying the Earth's weather system. Most of us also know that when it comes down to the current forecasting models, the probabilities of the forecast being accurate drops off sharply after day 5 into the forecast. That is why most MetOffices generally dont give out weather bulletins more than 5 days ahead of time.

Whilst I am aware that slightly different probabilities are involved with larger scale, whole system predictions, it is safe to assume that due to the non-linear nature of climate, any prediction in the long term needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The actual methods of calculation and the reasoning behind the conclusion-forming is explained on the BBC site, and I would suggest you all have a look at it. I am fairly confident most amongst you will raise a few eyebrows when they then check the actual result page as displayed on the BBC site.

To state that Britain SHOULD expect a 4 degree rise in temperature by 2080 is simply absurd. It is the type of uncautious generalisation seen all too often in the media and makes me feel embarassed to be a scientist. Because we let the media get away with it. I am all the more annoyed because I generally regard the BBC as one of the last remaining flagships of genuine journalism out there.

I believe a little nuancing is desperately needed in the whole climate change debate. There are most certainly problems that urgently need to be dealt with, but before we all jump on the "end-of-time-catastrophe" bandwagon, let's just point out a few other bits of science that seem to tell a somewhat more balanced story alltogether...

In terms of glacier melting, I have two very fine examples right here:

A New Alpine Melt Theory

Too Cold to Snow?

Helen Margerison, who wrote the latter, was a 2005 New Scientist Essay Competition finalist and as such, I actually saw her present her findings at an award event in London. It stunned me at the time, because this sort of information generally doesn't get spread out over the newspages. It is far too nuanced. Far too "unexciting". Just pay attention to her statement that "... the odd thing about glaciers in the Dry Valleys is that they don’t melt when the climate gets warmer, they actually begin to grow..."

It's a sad time when people only care about environmental issues if there's a doomsday scenario attached to it. I'd like to believe that even if we nuance the situations correctly, people will still realise that we are doing some serious damage and that action is always justified, whether we are causing these natural events or not.