Sunday, September 6, 2009

Arizonans Arctic warming study gains global attention



A study in Science published yesterday by NAU researcher Darrell Kaufman, UA researchers Nicholas McKay and Jonathan ("Peck") Overpeck, and their colleagues, showing that recent warming has reversed a long-term Arctic cooling trend, has attracted massive worldwide news media attention.

The Knight Science Journalism Tracker website picked this story up and commented on how well the various news media outlets treated it and who got it right and who didn't.

KSJT makes an interesting comment on the claims by climate change skeptics that scientists had flip-flopped on earlier claims that the Earth was cooling and perhaps heading towards another Ice Age. This new study indicates that there was indeed a cooling trend and it's only a sudden warming that has reversed it.


Ref: Recent Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling
Darrell S. Kaufman,1,* David P. Schneider,2 Nicholas P. McKay,3 Caspar M. Ammann,2 Raymond S. Bradley,4 Keith R. Briffa,5 Gifford H. Miller,6 Bette L. Otto-Bliesner,2 Jonathan T. Overpeck,3 Bo M. Vinther,7 Arctic Lakes 2k Project Members; Science, 4 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5945, pp. 1236 - 1239,DOI: 10.1126/science.1173983

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5945/1236