Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: A converted climate sceptic

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-results-turn-sceptic-let-the-evidence-change-our-minds-20120730-23769.html#ixzz222AgPWCe
 
 
THE Earth's land has warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the past 250 years 
and ''humans are almost entirely the cause'', according to a scientific 
study set up to address climate sceptic concerns about whether 
human-induced global warming is occurring.
Richard Muller, a climate sceptic physicist who founded the Berkeley 
Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, said he was ''surprised'' by 
the findings. ''We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our 
duty to let the evidence change our minds.''
He said he considered himself a ''converted sceptic'' and his views had 
received a ''total turnaround'' in a short space of time.
''Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth's land has 
risen by 2½ degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an 
increase of 1½ degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it 
appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the 
human emission of greenhouse gases,'' Professor Muller wrote in an 
opinion piece for The New York Times.
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The team of scientists based at the University of California, Berkeley, 
gathered and merged 14.4 million land temperature observations from 
44,455 sites across the world dating back to 1753. Previous datasets 
created by NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
Britain's Meteorological Office and the University of East Anglia's 
Climate Research Unit had gone back only to the mid-1800s and used five 
times fewer weather station records.
The funding for the project included $US150,000 from the Charles G. Koch 
Charitable Foundation, set up by the billionaire US coal magnate who is 
a key backer of the climate sceptic Heartland Institute think tank. The 
research also received $US100,000 from the Fund for Innovative climate 
and Energy Research, created by Bill Gates.
Unlike previous efforts, the temperature data from various sources was 
not ''homogenised'' by hand - a key criticism by climate sceptics - but, 
instead was ''completely automated to reduce human bias''. The BEST 
team's findings, despite their deeper analysis, closely matched the 
previous temperature reconstructions, ''but with reduced uncertainty''.
Last October, the BEST team published results that showed the average 
global land temperature has risen by about one degree Celsius since the 
mid-1950s. But the team did not look for possible ''fingerprints'' to 
explain this warming. The latest data analysis reached much further back 
in time but, crucially, also searched for the most likely cause for this 
rise in land temperature by plotting the upward temperature curve 
against suspected ''forcings''. It analysed the warming impact of solar 
activity - a popular theory among climate sceptics - but found that, 
over the past 250 years, the contribution of the sun is ''consistent 
with zero''.
Volcanic eruptions were found to have caused ''short dips'' in the 
temperature rise in the period from 1750 to 1850, but ''only weak 
analogs'' in the 20th century.
''Much to my surprise, by far the best match came to the record of 
atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air 
trapped in polar ice,'' Professor Muller said. ''While this doesn't 
prove that global warming is caused by human greenhouse gases, it is 
currently the best explanation we have found, and sets the bar for 
alternative explanations.'' Professor Muller said his team's findings 
went further and were ''stronger'' than the latest report published by 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In an unconventional move aimed at appeasing climate sceptics by 
allowing ''full transparency'', the results have been released before 
being peer-reviewed by the Journal of Geophysical Research. All the data 
and analysis may be freely scrutinised at the BEST website. This follows 
the pattern of previous BEST results.
-- 
Namib
 
Necessaria sunt immutabilia (A. G. Baumgarten)

 certo che se usano titoli da bizzocca come quello (e tu li riporti)
 
No, il titolo era "Climate results turn sceptic: 'let the evidence 
change our minds'". Le parole 'converted sceptic' sono state usate da 
Muller, e io le ho riportate come titolo.
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 giusto, � tutto "merito" tuo. Vantatene pure! :D
 
E' molto pi� carino.
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