The predictions of scientists four decades ago are coming true
An OPINION by Walter Mason, graphic from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The reason that I “trust” the scientists about global warming is that they have been consistently right for forty years.
In the 1980s, and before, Climate change had not started in earnest, scientists made many predictions on the future effects of climate change. Scientists said the earth would get warmer, it has. They predicted the ice caps would melt, they are. They said mountain glaciers would disappear, they are, and that coral reefs would bleach, in rising seas. We are now on the fourth world wide bleaching event, and sunny day floods are a thing. They said droughts would get more serious, anybody looked at the price of food lately? Rain, when it falls, is supposed to fall more intense rainstorms, anybody notice that?
There are many more predictions, like more wildfires, check. Hurricanes were expected to become stronger, but not more numerous (check).
There are also some interesting details in the predictions that can be checked. Nights were supposed to warm faster than days. This has occurred, and it is one of the reasons we know that the sun is not the cause of global warming. The poles were supposed to warm faster than the tropics something which has also happened. It is a long list accurate predictions.
In contrast the denial side of the argument has been consistently wrong for about the same amount of time. Does anybody remember that global warming stopped around 2010, it didn’t. I don’t know how many times global warming was supposed to stop because of solar effects. Satellites didn’t detect warming in the upper troposphere, now they do. The denialists said that all the evidence was in computer models, well now those models have been shown to be essentially correct. They have consistently acted as if climate change was a mystery that needed to be solved. Unfortunately, it is happening as expected.
The gold standard in science is making a prediction and have it be shown by experiment. This is an experiment that should not have been run, but the predictions are coming true QED*.
*QED is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, which means “that which was to be demonstrated”. It is often used at the end of a mathematical proof or text to indicate that the argument has been proven.
