The following article is a must-read for all graduate students, undergraduate students, and K-12 teachers with an interest in climate change and global warming. Dr. Kerry Emanuel of MIT, one of the most prolific scientists in the study of the relation between hurricanes and global warming, has produced a very readable (albeit long) article that succinctly describes the history and physics of climate change and global warming. The article represents a balance between some of the global warming hysterics (e.g., global warming will end civilization) and the global warming skeptics (e.g., global warming doesn’t exist).
Some highlights are his discussions of the relative certainties and uncertainties of global warming phenomenon (under Science, politics, and the media) and his discussion of how climate scientists can separate natural from anthropogenic climate change (under Determining humanity’s influence). It should be noted that Dr. Emanuel has received some criticism on his section titled “The politics of global climate change” at the end of the article, so read this section with a grain of salt.
