Climate study backfires: How to talk to a climate change skeptic

No doubt you've heard about the BEST study by now.

Cal Berkley professor, and former climate change skeptic, Richard Mueller's study on the validity of global temperature rises in multiple data sets confirmed what climate scientists already knew. The temperature data and science behind climate change is rock solid.

Mueller and his co-authors looked at several factors.

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Specifically, the results of the exhaustive paper found that climate change skeptics argument about Urban Heat Island (UHI) creating a warm bias was bogus. In fact, the data showed the opposite.

Study data no surprise to the climate change community.

After years of unsuccessful attacks on climate change science and scientists funded by big oil interests who have financial and political interest in the demise of climate change science, the science remians solid and unscathed.

Three separate data sets have reached remarkably similar conclusions on the unparalleled rise in earth's temperatures int he 20th century. The BEST study's 1.6 billion data points confirm NOAA, NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and UK's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research data sets.

The great irony of BEST is that it set out to prove once and for all that climate change science is faulty, and ended up proving just the opposite.

Much to the chagrin of the flat earth climate change deniers, peer reviewed climate change science and the scientists who dedicate their lives to studying our planet remain credible and convincing.

As a meteorologist I consider myself ot be a skeptic on certain things. As a weather forecaster, you have to look at many forecast models with a skeptical eye. They often present solutions that will be in error one way or another. A good forecaster knows model biases, has a good BS detector and can filter out the bad data, and sometimes see that certain maps "just don't look right."

Skepticism is a valid and welcome part of scientific inquiry. Well meaning climate change skeptics should take Dr. Mueller's recent words to heart; "The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago," Muller said in a telephone interview. "And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

But for those who continue "ignore" credible science that has withstood challenge from former skeptics within their own ranks there is just one word for those who continue to ignore climate science. Ignorance. At least Dr. Mueller has looked at the facts, and admitted his skepticism was misplaced.

You may never be able to convince those who choose to ignore climate and other science about what's happening in front of their own eyes. But here's a great website for those who are open minded enough to listen to fact and reason.

"How to talk to a climate skeptic" deals with virtually every objection to climate change in a rational, no nonsense way.

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