Re: Scientific facts can change, (Lilia Sevillano, Times, February 1).
Lilia Sevillano directs me to a museum at the “University of Berkeley” for a lesson in science. In return I direct her to a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley – which I assume is the university she means.
Prof Richard Muller expressed scepticism about climate science so oil billionaires and other deniers funded him to set up a completely new organisation: Berkeley Earth. I suggest readers Google, “Richard Muller: I was wrong on climate change”.
No, I would not have called Galileo a denier for supporting Copernicus. Aristarchus of Samos had proposed Earth revolved around the Sun 2000 years earlier.
I never said science is always settled. In response to the statement “science is never settled,” I gave an example of where it is.
Here’s another. The huge amount of rain we’ve just had in Auckland is explained by “settled” science.
1. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere has caused the level where energy is radiated to space to rise, where the air is cooler, so the loss is slower (Stefan-Boltzmann law). Less cooling means the surface and oceans are warmer.
2. Warm water evaporates faster; warm air holds more water – 7 per cent for 1 degree Celcius (Clausius-Clapeyron equation). So when it rains there’s more water.
Lila Sevillano recommends a site naming “500 scientists and professionals” who state there is no climate emergency. Eh? Barely a handful were verified climate scientists and many were not scientists either. In any case, there are 3 or 4 million research scientists in the world.
Finally, the climate system is very complex and climate models are very helpful in understanding how it works. So far the projections have been reasonably accurate, and anyone who thinks uncertainty is our friend does not understand the nature of risk – especially when the consequences could be catastrophic.
Do you really want the future of our children and grandchildren to be decided by people who don’t even know they don’t know?
Dennis Horne, Howick
