Climate scientists struggle with the Internet.
Blog after blog denies climate change is a problem or that people's actions have anything to do with it, said Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State University researcher who spoke Thursday at a University of South Florida conference on global sustainability.
Often, "there's no basis behind what is reported," he complained. He also had some advice for Internet readers: When you see something on climate change, check out the writers.
Ask questions, he said.
•Have they done their own research?
•Do they talk about science and the scientific process?
•Whom do they represent?
Even the best informed reader will have trouble learning the whole truth about climate change. That's because even the scientists haven't figured out what's happening, said USF marine science professor Robert Weisberg.
The systems involved, Weisberg said, are complex.
That's not to say climate scientists haven't nailed some things down.
Thompson came to USF this week, as the university inaugurates its School of Global Sustainability, to talk about his 35 years of research.
"The last 80 years are really unusual" in the rate of warming, he said.
His biggest worry is the massive land-based glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. As the water melts, sea levels rise.
That's a concern in a peninsula such as Florida. The rise here is slight, 0.003 meters a year or about 3 inches in 25 years.
"What we fear is a catastrophic shedding in Greenland and Antarctica," Weisberg said.
Will that happen? If so, when?
The scientists don't have those answers, Weisberg said, but they're searching, trying to understand all the consequences of decades of using fossil fuels.
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