By John R. Christy, PhD, associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dr. Christy received NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1991 and the American Meteorology Society's Special Award in 1996 as co-developer of the microwave sounding unit datasets. He served as a key contributor to the 1996 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1987, and once served as a missionary in Africa and pastor in South Dakota.
Scientists study many aspects of the climate system for clues of human-induced changes.
But none seem to garner more attention than global temperature. Each year now, various groups circulate special news releases to draw attention to what happened during the past calendar year, hoping to promote their version of global conditions. Knowing the media's appetite for news on global warming and related controversies, each group tries earlier and earlier in the final quarter to utter that first delicious sound bit. In 1997 one group told us as early as Thanksgiving what the global temperature for 1997 would be even though only 10 moths of data were available at the time. Other groups announced their findings in the weeks that followed.