Even the Experts Argue Over Global Warming

May 31, 2007 — -- Scientific conferences on the subject of climate change sometimes turn into intellectual free-for-alls, as experts who look at the same data reach opposite conclusions.

But believe it or not, that's an improvement over the situation just a decade ago, when climate scientists debated fiercely over whether current trends toward warmer temperatures were human-driven or just natural fluctuations in global climate.

There is little debate on that subject now. Few scientists today doubt that global climate change is at least partly anthropogenic, meaning we did it.

But uncertainty reigns supreme on even some of the most fundamental questions. Richard Houghton, deputy director and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, is an expert on Earth's carbon cycle, the process by which the planet and its atmosphere absorb and release carbon in various forms. That includes carbon dioxide, the primary cause of the greenhouse effect.

Houghton is the author of a comprehensive report detailing the uncertainties over what humans have already done to the planet and what the future holds. The report, published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, surveys scores of major studies and is laced with expressions like "agreement is poor" and "the results are mixed."

That's of great concern to him, as well as to many others, because if we don't really understand exactly what is happening, and what to expect in the future, we're not likely to succeed in mitigating the impact and managing such critical elements as the carbon cycle. Houghton ends his report with this basic question:

"Will we still be able to manage the carbon cycle by the time we have the answers?"

The disagreement among experts includes some of the most basic issues. Some argue, for example, that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause forests and plants to grow more robustly, because carbon is the basis for organic material and warmth induces more growth. But other experts argue that the evidence shows there's only so much the forests can do, and the greenhouse effect will continue unabated.