Wait 'til You See What Real Global Warming Looks Like

"Freaky sun" courtesy of Seattlest Flickr Pool member twatson

After our recent heat wave, UW meteorologist Cliff Mass emphasized that weather shouldn't be confused with climate change. Then he added, with scientific sangfroid, "I suspect mankind will not act fast enough to reduce fossil fuel use to stop large global warming effects and that we will learn to live with it."

His readers had questions, so Cliff did what any canny blogger does and has started on a "Global Warming for Dummies"-style series. The first explains why scientists have confidence in 50-year forecasts of global warming.

Back in high school science class, there was a guy who'd sit in the back and shoot spit-wads at us while we were taking notes. (We'd think, Spit-wads? Really? High school nogoodniks were shooting spit-wads back in The Hardy Boys. Eventually we worked out a notes-for-no-spit-wads agreement.) He is likely not going to understand Cliff's reference to an initial value problem versus a boundary condition problem, but we really hope he trusts Cliff's notes.