Global warming worse than feared

So proclaims New Scientist this week. Essentially, the argument put forward at a climate workshop in Berlin this week is that the particles in the atmosphere that block the sun's radiation have been much more effective that previously thought. As a result, the "real" global warming due to carbon dioxide and other gases has been much greater than we thought before. As levels of aerosols decline but greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, temperatures will soar.

Which is great news for armageddon watchers, who have probably become a bit disappointed at the declining reaction to their threats of mass extinction if we fail to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, there are an awful lot of assumptions made to get to the conclusion that temperature change is going to be this severe. Which makes this science a case of seeing what you want to see.

Global warming's sooty smokescreen revealed, New Scientist, 4 June 2003