New Climate Change Data

A recent article in The Economist discusses findings released October 20th by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group, which includes this month's Nobel prize-winning physicist Saul Perlmutter and is led by astrophysicist Richard Muller. The group started a new climate change measurement project 18 months ago in order to "address the concerns of what Dr Muller terms 'legitimate skeptics'" of climate change who have qualms with inconsistencies in available temperature data that may exaggerate temperature changes. One way the group attempted to minimize possible exaggerating effects of inconsistencies was by developing an algorithm that weights data points in such a way that "awkward" data and "outlandish readings" are still included in the data but also don't distort the ultimate trends (as opposed to simply omitting so-called awkward data). The group also developed a "more nuanced heat map" that utilizes "basic spatial correlations in weather to estimate the temperature at points between weather stations." However, even after these innovations and addressing other possible biasing factors, the group found climate change trends similar to those published by other climate research institutions, including NASA, suggesting that existing temperature data is more or less accurate. Whether or not this will actually mitigate climate change skepticism is yet to be determined, as the newly published findings are currently being peer reviewed. The graph from the article (below) compares the land-surface average temperature anomaly measures found by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group, NASA, NOAA and Hadley CRU. As the graph shows, all sources exhibit the same general upward trend between 1800 and 2006. Furthermore, most climate research institutions, including Berkeley Earth, estimate about a 0.9 degree Celsius increase in land temperatures over the past 50 years.

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Beliefs Regarding Global Warming by Political Affiliation

The Economist’s "Daily Chart" blog today discusses the results of a recent study conducted by Yale on Americans’ opinions regarding climate change. The study was based on a national survey of 1,010 American adults that was conducted from April 23 to May 12, 2011. Respondents were first asked whether they considered themselves “a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Other, or No Party/Not interested in politics.” In a separate question, they were asked if they considered themselves “a member of the Tea Party movement or not.” The respondents were then asked if they “believed in global warming,” how informed they felt about global warming, and how much more information they would need to form an opinion about global warming. The set of bar graphs below from the Daily Chart blog shows the responses to the three questions regarding global warming by political affiliation. While a majority of Democrats (78%), Independents (71%) and Republicans (53%) responded “Yes” when asked if they believed in global warming, only 34% of Tea Party members reported that they believed global warming was happening. In response to “How informed do you feel about global warming?” 30% of Tea Party members responded that they were “very well informed.” By contrast, only 8% of Democrats, 9% of Independents and 10% of Republicans felt that they were “very well informed.” Members of the Tea Party were also the most likely to respond “I do not need any more information” when asked how much more they would need in order to form a more firm opinion, with 52% of Tea Party members, 22% of Republicans, 20% of Independents and 17% of Democrats responding this way.

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