Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Christy lays down an (unclear, skewed) marker

From a good and unsettling news article on accelerated glacier flow and melting in Greenland:

John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is often critical of mainstream climate science, said he suspected that the changes in Greenland were linked to this natural variability, and added that he doubted that the pace would accelerate as much as his colleagues feared.

For high predictions of sea-level rise to be correct, “some big chunks of the Greenland ice sheet are going to have to melt, and they’re just not melting that way right now,” Dr. Christy said.


It's not clear exactly what Christy is saying is wrong - no numbers are attached. However, Christy generally thinks the IPCC overstates climate change. If the currently-observed rates cited in the article continue (no need for the pace to accelerate) then the IPCC has understated an impact from climate change. So Christy's bet should be that the current melting will decrease. Wonder if he'd put money on that.

1 comment:

  1. Steve Bloom5:19 PM

    I somehow missed this when you posted it, but what the hell does John Christy know about glaciology? N-o-t-h-i-n-g. Resorting to him for a (reliably) contrarian quote was bad, lazy journalism. If no qualified person can be found who holds such a view, then that's a significant fact that ought to be reported to the readership.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.