NASA scientist: Global warming a ‘scientific fact’

It’s getting harder and harder for anti-science types to claim global warming is a ‘hoax’. The math tells us otherwise.

In a blunt departure from most climate research, Hansen’s study — based on statistics, not the more typical climate modelling — blames three heat waves purely on global warming:

• The 2011 drought that devastated Texas and Oklahoma.
• The 2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.
• The 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.

The analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have seared much of the United States and Central Canada this year. But Hansen believes this is simply another prime example of global warming at its worst.

Not to be alarmist but NASA’s James Hansen says that the repercussions from global warming are worse than we thought.

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

X-posted at Let Freedom Rain