So, when I was looking at some stuff on global warming I ran across the NOAA site on paleoclimatology and climate change. I felt that it was not accurate and up-to-date, so I emailed them.
Hello,
I would like to know when your website was most recently updated. Particularly, my understanding is that the case that the present warming trend is anthropogenic has been considerably strengthened in recent years, particularly with corrections to faulty sattelite data that confirm the exceptional character of the warming we are experiencing. I have followed this debate very closely and frequently visitted this page:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/...
In particular, the site mentions volcanic activity and solar variation as potential natural sources of forcing for the present warming. My understanding is that the net forcing for volcanos is in fact negative due to the impact of aerosols. Further, my unerstanding is that solar variation cannot explain the magnitude of recent warming. A leading researcher on solar variation, Sami Solanki who is director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, has stated:
"Just how large this role [of solar variation] is, must still be investigated, since, according to our latest knowledge on the variations of the solar magnetic field, the significant increase in the Earth's temperature since 1980 is indeed to be ascribed to the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide."
http://www.mpg.de/...
There is no date on the page and it seems to me that over the years I have not seen this page updated. Sites such as yours are crucial to the public debate, especially online, in providing credible scientific information. Please let me know if that page is an up-to-date view of the NOAA.
Thank you for your attention to this very important matter.
Best,
Jeremy
They already responded:
Dear Jeremy,
Our Paleo Perspective on Global Warming has not been updated (it was published in 2000), but we have an updated version currently in review, which hopefully will go online (at the same address) in a few months. Everything you state below is correct; the magnitude of natural variability resulting primarily from volcanic aerosols and solar variability is now better understood, and the range of estimates of the maximum natural variability over the past 2000 years is from about 0.75C to 1.0C. Measured warming in the past 150 years is about 1.0C, and particularly over the last 25 years temperatures have risen beyond most paleo estimates of natural variability. The satellite temperature estimates have evolved to nearly match the surface thermometer estimates, and climate modeling studies which include best estimates for natural and man made forcing do a remarkably good job of reproducing reconstructed temperature change.
There is a new IPCC report scheduled for 2007, which will reflect the increasing certainty that human influence on climate is now larger than natural variability, and that human influence is likely to increase rapidly in the future. The IPCC 2007 will also include a paleoclimate chapter. Hopefully this and other publications will give the public and policymakers a level of understanding of climate change equal to your own!
Cheers, Bruce
snap
If-Then Knots
Daily Kos Environmentalists