Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

It would seem to be a risky idea to have a global warming denier conduct a study as to whether global warming is occurring, but it would be a great idea if the skeptic could be trusted to be honest in reporting the results. A team at Berkley attempted to debunk the scientific consensus on climate change but even their review of the data so far finds the same results as other scientists studying the question. The Los Angeles Times reports:

A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view.

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched by physics professor Richard Muller, a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, to address what he called “the legitimate concerns” of skeptics who believe that global warming is exaggerated.

But Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is “excellent…. We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.”

The hearing was called by GOP leaders of the House Science & Technology committee, who have expressed doubts about the integrity of climate science. It was one of several inquiries in recent weeks as the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb planet-heating emissions from industrial plants and motor vehicles have come under strenuous attack in Congress.

The study was financed by the the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation after the claims by global warming deniers that the hacked emails in the Climategate non-scandal cast doubt upon temperature data. This study is consistent with the reviews of Climategate which found there was nothing there to discredit climate change.