AtmosNews takes a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system. Statistics and extreme behavior are involved, whether we’re talking about baseball or Earth’s atmosphere.
NCAR scientist Gerald “Jerry” Meehl explains why.
Most of the people I see on a daily basis – many with degrees and advances degrees- (not in science) still have no ideas what the science of climate change is about. At my job I try and ‘educate’ many- but I am looked at with a fair degree of subtle derision. The American public remains horribly uniformed- and remain unaware of the massive problems ahead. Its an indication of the poor job climate scientists have done in explaining what is happening- along with a Media that by in large is very unsympathetic. When our problems become worse at the end of this decade and into the 2020’s I hope to encounter these people who now look at me as Joke.
I don’t blame the scientists, I put the blame squarely on the media, which has failed our democracy so dramatically and completely it is astounding.
I am fortunate that many of my coworkers are engineers, though partisan politics affect some. The USA could benefit from less religion and less partisan politics that people treat like a religion.
Have you all seen Hansen’s study,,sorry off topic ,except that the media will not report this:Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”
By Joe Romm on Jan 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm
“Climate dice,” describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively “loaded” in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming. That’s the finding of a detailed climatological analysis by NASA’s James Hansen along with Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy in which they attribute some of the uber-extreme heat waves to global warming.
from “Perceptions of Climate Change: The New Climate Dice“: