Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 01:03:29 -0500 (EST) To: letters@nytimes.com Subject: John Tierney's Climate Misrepresentations To the editors - It is rather disappointing to read John Tierney's misrepresentation of this year's climate news (In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm, Jan 1, 2008). Tierney notes UK scientists' predictions, early in the year, that 2007 would be the hottest on record. Tierney then points out that despite 2007's failure, according to the same scientists, to surpass the any year since 2001, the BBC noted that the "2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend", demonstrating, the reader is supposed to surmise, that the BBC - or maybe the scientists - were engaging in "alarmism". Tierney's words give a seriously distorted picture of what happened. The UK Met Office prediction early in the year that 2007 would be hot (a 60% chance that it would break the record) was made on the basis that conditions for an El Nino appeared to be forming. An El Nino is a poorly understood Pacific Ocean condition that has the effect of raising the temperature. (See the Jan 4, 2007 prediction here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070104.html ) However, the El Nino petered out, and instead a mild La Nina developed, an opposite condition that has the effect of cooling temperatures. (As everyone knows, weather prediction is still quite an inexact science.) In such circumstances, it was quite significant that the global temperatures still stayed in the same range as other years this decade. No solace should be taken from 2007 data, as the BBC correctly noted. Sincerely, Mitch Golden P.S. I am unable to find any reference to the data to which Tierney appears to be referring. As of October 2007, the UK's Hadley Center data showed 2007 as hotter than 2006 - though not statistically significantly - see http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.htm Another data set prepared closer to home by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies actually placed 2007 (through November) as the second hottest on record, see http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20071210_GISTEMP.pdf Of course, no one need quibble about the differences between the two data sets. The trend shown in all the graphs is quite clear and unambiguous - and, I daresay, alarming.