Every morning I take a quick look at the latest news items relating to climate change and global warming. If I find anything interesting I add it to the LATEST NEWS section. I like stories that add to my understanding of climate change as a scientific puzzle and as a global problem that affects all of us in differing degrees. People and places. Politics and power.
Today I came across a couple of useful reminders that what we don't know about climate change is as important as what we do know. One article deals with the problem of figuring out just what exactly is going on with the Himalayan glaciers. Most of them are remote and inaccessible and when you do get there, the techniques for measuring change are dangerous to execute.
The other article provides a good introduction into the complexities of trying to understand the impact of aerosols on the climate. They can sometimes cool things down and sometimes heat things up. What helps with keeping the climate cooler in the atmosphere hurts when it comes back to the ground as acid rain. (My little primer on "Why Is It Getting Warmer" touches on these same points.)
Those who would downplay the urgency of the problem point to the gaps in our knowledge about climate as reasons to go slow, to stick with business as usual for a little bit longer.
What worries me is that when we fill in these empty spaces on the canvas we will have painted a picture that looks much more worrisome than what we see now. For now the important thing is to continue the research and to expand public understanding of how science works and what the process is telling us about climate.
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