OPINION/COMMENTARY

A Matter of Balance

A leading U.S. hurricane researcher at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Dr. Chris Landsea, has resigned from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The reason: To protest the personal leanings of an IPCC lead author on the subject of climate and hurricanes. That is no small matter. The IPCC is widely considered by the world's governments to be the most authoritative source for what we know about global warming. It periodically produces reports on the sate of the science of global warming, and is currently working on its Fourth Assessment Report. Landsea, in resigning, is protesting a lack of such balance on the part on one lead author - Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the Observations chapter on which Landsea was working. Landsea notes in his letter to the scientific community that Trenberth has publicly advocated the view that substantial increases in hurricane activity will accompany global warming, despite the lack of a scientific basis for a hurricane-global warming connection. Dr. Landsea, in fact, believes from his research that the current state of the science suggests little if any increase in predicted hurricane strength in the next 80 years. His view is consistent with the IPCC's Third Assessment Report of 2001....