Published Report on Climate Change Questioned
Study draws widely varying opinions.
Compiled by staff
Published: Sep 8, 2009
A study published in the online version of the journal Science says human-generated greenhouse gas emissions have helped reverse a 2,000 year trend of cooling in the Arctic, prompting warmer average temperatures in the past decade that now rank higher than at any time since 1 B.C. One of the report's co-authors, David Schneider, a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says it's basically saying greenhouse gas emissions are overwhelming the system.
Fred Singer, a prominent climate-change skeptic who heads the Science and Environmental Policy Project, questioned the Science study, saying it does not properly reflect other researchers' findings about the Medieval Warm Period. He says, that period, between A.D. 800 and 1300, had higher temperatures than even the past 30 years. And there was a brief period in the early 5th century in which temperatures in the Arctic came close to being as high as those in the most recent summers.
Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said the study is significant because it helps confirm scientists' understanding of how Earth's climate has changed over millennia.
Meanwhile, Martin Sommerkorn, the lead author of a report released by the World Wildlife Fund, says recent arctic warming has triggered effects that will come back and affect the rest of the world, in terms of climate change. Sommerkorn warns that unless countries make a concerted effort to cut their emissions in the next few decades, higher Arctic temperatures could cause the release of massive amounts of greenhouse gases from permafrost as well as further reductions in the sea ice that reflects warming sunlight.
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