Recent Articles from BRMC Newsletters

Climate Change the Sequel

There are hundreds of studies that demonstrate an overall increase in average temperatures throughout the twentieth century, especially in the last 50 years. For most of the developed world, climate change is a reality and for the undeveloped world it is just another obstacle to survive.

Europe has kept grape harvest dates that are tightly related to temperature for hundreds of years. In 2003, much of Europe experienced the warmest summer in recent memory. France, Germany, and Italy reported unusually large numbers of heat related deaths. In an attempt to determine if this extreme heat had been experienced before, a team of scientists reconstructed springsummer temperatures from 1370 to 2003 using French records of grapeharvest dates in Burgundy. Their results revealed that temperatures as high as in the 1990's had occurred several times in the past, but the summer of 2003 appeared to be higher than any other year since 1370. In the entire time period analyzed 2003 was + 5.86º C warmer than the reference period, whereas the next highest anomaly was +4.10º C in 1523. Statistically that is quite a difference between the second highest average temperature and highest average temperature in a 633 year time span (Chuine et al. 2004).

This is how I started an article titled "Climate Change" in our newsletter in the spring of 2005. Recently, I submitted a revised form of this article to a local newspaper for a weekly column that we submit throughout the year with other partner organizations of Local Environmental Education Partners (LEEP) of Prince William County. I received an email from a reader who was interested in learning more about the study. The reader went to the internet and found a link to a web site that provided a blog on the lead author Isabelle Chuine. I was asked to read the critique of the study and comment.

I looked over the link and found a critique that seems to be part of a growing trend. I have been sent many links that argue against global warming, the harm of invasive species, evolution etc. with the request to comment on the validity of the information. I try to take time to respond to these inquiries. Unfortunately, so many of these blogs are fundamentally the same. They criticize the science behind the research without any substantial evidence. They claim journals, such as Nature, will not respond to their critiques and use it as fuel to demonstrate that the authors of these studies have altered their results to prove what they believe. My standard response— the author of the critique does not offer any actual data. He/she could have their critique published in the journal that published the paper they are arguing against if their critique provides references, data, and formulates a concise argument for the authors comment. It is easy to say the math was wrong, but then one needs to provide mathematical proof. I saw no evidence in that blog.

It is clear that our science education is failing. The majority of Americans do not understand the scientific process. Science is based on seeking knowledge about aspects of the world that are accessible to its methods of inquiry. Specifically, predictions made on the basis of a hypothesis that can be tested through experimentation. A hypothesis supported by a large body of observations and experiments can become a theory, defined as a scientifically acceptable general principle offered to explain phenomena. A theory that has yielded true predictions with unvarying uniformity, and is thus universally accepted, is referred to as a scientific principle or law.

Experiments are conducted, analyzed, and eventually published after peer review. Peer review from colleagues that often have conflicting views from the authors of the paper they are reviewing. It is not a perfect system, but it is extremely effective in producing unbiased work.

The principles that science is based are generally never abided to in blogs critiquing the results of certain research papers. The critiques are not based on experimentation, analysis, or peer review. They do not often provide any data and often argue the mathematical analysis without providing any valid mathematical evidence of their own. The Internet is a wonderful research tool, but one must be careful.

References: Chuine, Isabelle et al. Grape ripening as a past climate indicator.
Nature. 432, 289 (2004).