CLIMATEGATE CLIMATOLOGIST SPEAKS OUT & MY 2 CENTS

Written by: Brian Neudorff

I wanted to follow up Scott's post from yesterday ("CLIMATEGATE" FRESHENS GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE) with an interview I saw yesterday posted on AccuWeather.com. AccuWeather.com got an interview with Penn State Climatologist Michael Mann who happens to be one of the scientists corresponding in some of the leaked emails. You can see some of the interview here in a story posted 12/3/2009 by AccuWeather.com. You can also read a lot more on Climategate as well as how it started and responses by other scientist on this issue on the AccuWeather.com Global Warming Blog.

My own professional views seem to align very closely to those of Scott's. I don't consider myself a "Global Warming Denier" we've seen global temperatures continue to rise for the last 100 years or more. I don't deny that glacial ice and snow caps are melting. Where I tend to disagree or at least question, is how much blame should be put on us as humans? I think we as humans do play a role in climate change. It would be foolish and very narrow minded to think that we don't have some impact on the environment around us. To say we are the sole cause of global warming is where I disagree.

The one thing I hope these leaked emails do is open up debate. There are many meteorologist and climatologist that don't necessarily agree with Al Gore and the IPCC that man is the sole cause of all the warming. Debate in the scientific community is important. Through debate we can easily see who is credible and who is not.

We had some great comments in Scott's post and feel free to share your thoughts here as well. You can look back at some of the comments from yesterday here.