7 January 2014

No, Just Because It’s Really Cold In The Eastern U.S., All That Science Is Not Wrong

Posted by Dan Satterfield

From NOAA/NCDC

From NOAA/ NCDC

What does claiming this blast of Arctic air disproves climate change show? The same thing that claiming researchers who got trapped in an ice flow in Antarctica does: that your critical thinking skills are in need of serious improvement! My normal response to questions about it is that we do not measure the temperature of the planet in (insert your town here). One can also point out that this past November was the warmest one globally on record.

Actually, it’s very telling that these kind of claims are the best that those who are skeptical of the science can come up with. Perhaps (it’s) why newspapers and magazines are increasingly banning letters from them. What we do about climate change is a fair political question, but if you want to prove the science wrong, submit your scientific evidence to a peer-reviewed journal. As my fave quote from Neil De Grasse Tyson goes: “The laws of physics are real, everything else is just politics”.

A couple of good reads about the subject. One HERE in the Washington Post. My friend Bob Henson at the National Center for Atmospheric Research has a very good perspective on this cold, and how it relates to the past and climate change as well. Jason Samenow from the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post also explained why it got so cold on NPR’s All Thing’s Considered. It seems that a common meteorological term “Polar Vortex” has been discovered by the public this week!

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