The Economist
gregladen | April 11, 2013Climate sensitivity is the number of degrees C that the earth's average temperature (of the atmosphere air and water on top of the "earth" per se) will increase with a doubling of "pre-industrial CO2" in the environment.
This is an important number ... and it is a number, and to save you the suspense, the number is about 3 ... because it tells us what the direct effects of the release of fossil Carbon (mainly in the form of CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels would be.
Here's the thing. Climate change denialists would like the number to be 1, or some other number lower than 3. Well, we…
hrynyshyn | March 23, 2010The Economist's reputation as the intellectual's news outlet of choice is probably undeserved -- its questionable choice of correspondents and lack of bylines, heavy editing and conservative politics undermine it's credibility in my book -- but because it's widely read in elite circles, it's hard to ignore. So the magazine's feature treatment of climate science is worth looking at. I am pleased to report that, while The Economist may be a straggler when it came to embracing the science, it is now fully on board.
In any complex scientific picture of the world there will be gaps,…