Global Warming - I don't know and neither do you

Wherever I go, as soon as I mention that I work in Antarctica, people always immediately assume that I'm a researcher of some sort. Perhaps it's the 'mad scientist' look that I have adopted - or rather defaulted to out of a lack of caring. People also always assume, even after I set them straight that I'm no researcher, that I'm some sort of global warming expert. Even though the election and the economy have top billing right now in the news headlines, global warming lurks right below the surface. For all the articles that have been written and all the stories that have been broadcast, I remain rather skeptical. I'm not skeptical that the polar icecaps are shrinking - they are, there is quantifiable proof that that is happening, though there are isolated instances of advancing glaciers. I'm also a firm believer that the inhabitants of earth should strive to reduce our carbon emissions - it certainly can't hurt. What I am skeptical about (I'm sure I'll be the unpopular one now...being paid by science's dime and all)...erhem, what I am skeptical about is what science really knows. Policy in the U.S. has been steered by scientific "fact" in the past - then when a shift in policy is needed, the "facts" are either disproved or otherwise discredited. The most glaring example being eugenics which was a popular notion in the late 1800's and well into the 20th century. Scientific facts were stated to bolster the movement and eventually the Supreme Court of the U.S. even upheld laws that favored eugenics as being constitutional - all based on scientific evidence. When the time came to attack Adolf Hitler though, we had to paint him as villainous as possible - we'd seem like quite the hypocrites if we attacked him for his own eugenics program while still practicing our own.

Remember the periodic table of elements that you had to memorize in high school science class? Since 1994 six new elements have been discovered. What sort of an impact does this have on previous science? There used to be 9 planets in our solar system, then 10, now 8. Here Charlie Brown, kick this football, I swear I'll hold in place THIS time.

From the April 28th, 1975 edition of Newsweek:

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Back to the melting polar icecaps - the time that humans have lived on earth only represents a tiny fraction of the time the earth has existed. The time that we have been keeping records of temperature on earth is but a tiny fraction of the time humans have existed. We can certainly show a warming trend based on 200 years of data(regional warming & land use warming are huge contributors to this), but we have absolutely no clue on a larger time scale. That said, there is evidence that vast expanses of the earth have periodically been covered in ice. This ice melts. The smaller the ice sheets get, the faster they melt. Same thing happens when you put an ice cube in a glass of water - it melts faster as it gets smaller. Are the shrinking polar icecaps really something to be alarmed about? Species are losing habitat as a result and could likely become extinct. Tragic, sure, but over 90% of all species that have ever existed on earth are now extinct. This is the nature of things. It seems to me that evolution's main goal is to create life that adapts to and then consumes its environment. Of course then it seems that the evolutionary process will destroy itself at some point - and maybe it will.

Cynical as it may seem, my opinion is that science will prove what science is paid to prove. Currently there's a lot of funding for global warming - but the NSF's budget is being cut so severely that I may have to hitchhike home; I have to wonder if "global warming" will fall out of vogue.