WARMING: In science we trust

Cliff Harris's latest foray into the wilds of climate research leads inevitably to support human caused global warming (agw). He makes reference to the imaginary "Climategate" scandal. Then he admits that global warming is true but that it isn't human caused.

First, we don't know who hacked the files at the University of East Anglia. Thus it was not an "unnamed climate scientist" who leaked the files, it was some hacker. That hacker could have been in the pocket of Exxon for all we know. Harris should know that data from an unnamed source can be exploited.

The leak was also tainted by cherry picking juicy bits. After review by three academic panels and both the House of Commons and the U.S. House this was the verdict: "We saw no evidence of deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climate Research Unit and had it been there, we believe we would have detected it." Both the head of the CRU and Michael Mann were cleared by intrauniversity inquiries. Basically Climategate was a scam designed to draw attention away from the Copenhagen Conference, and in this succeeded admirably. The hackers became "climate scientists" and McKitrick and McIntyre became "climate scientists" rather than an economist and a mining engineer.

I believe that the cases shown prove that Harris is incapable of logically understanding causality. The first experiments done that CO2 cause a warmer atmosphere date back to Arrhenius in 1896.

Harris describes the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period as warm as the present. This is not true. Danish researchers showed that the MWP was at least 2 degrees lower than the present.

Harris claims that climate warming stopped in 1998. Again, not true. David Easterling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, "There has been some notion that the climate stopped warming in 2005. This just lacks credibility." According to NOAA, 2010 was the 34th year in a row above average.

Let's face it: The climate is getting hotter. It isn't a plot by a sinister cabal. It's the direct result of our use of fossil fuels. The House panel on Global Warming said it irrefutably proves that a preponderance of scientific evidence showing that pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is to blame for global warming.

JEFF BOURGET

Coeur d'Alene