To the editor:

The rationales people will use to try to discredit climate scientists amazes me. In response to Roger Huetig’s letter to the editor in the Oct. 1 Messenger, Mr. Huetig shows little knowledge of science. Pharmaceutical research is no more unchanging than any other kind of scientific research, and, yes, the evaluation of data does change over time with more information and knowledge in both the pharmaceutical field and the climate science field. Climate scientists base temperature anomaly data on data from ships, data from buoys, data from satellites, and data from land based stations. The data from satellites first became available in 1985. The changes that were made to the temperature anomaly time series came mainly from adjustments to sea temperature estimated from ship data that were possible due to having the satellite data. See www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Improvements-NOAAs-Historical-Merged-land-Ocean-Temp-Analysis-1880-2006 -0.pdf.

The so-called hiatus in global warming seen in most of the last decade puzzled climate scientists. Since scientists try to model reality, if there is a difference between what is expected and what is observed, scientists look to figure out why. Scientists looked at several differing possible explanations for the pause until adjusting for bias in the ship data provided a solution. And, the pause, itself, if it really existed, would have been just a small blip in the decades long trend of increasing world temperatures. Mr. Heutig also uses the example of hurricane occurrence to discredit climate scientists. In the Atlantic, the average number of hurricanes and major hurricanes does not change much looking at 1951 to 1960 and 2006 to 2015, so he may be correct there. Some of the predictions that are coming true are an increase in global temperature, more moisture in the air, more downpours and droughts – both from hotter surface temperatures, melting glaciers and sea ice, floods, sea level rise, the expansion of tropical diseases, the bleaching of coral reefs, species moving. One last thing. The idea that climate scientists are colluding to distort data and obstruct those that disagree with them, I would think, applies far more to climate deniers, not those who know what a problem we have. From my own look at the available data, there is a strong correlation between temperature anomaly and carbon dioxide levels, a much weaker one between temperature anomaly and sunspot numbers.

Margot Tollefson/Conard, Ph.D.

Stratford