Science clear on climate change

Recent letters to the editor have defended Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon the Paris climate accord by claiming that human actions are not heating up the planet.

The science on climate change is clear.

For more than a century, scientists have known that adding certain gases to the atmosphere, for example carbon dioxide and methane, increases the capacity of the atmosphere to retain heat. Unquestionably reliable measurements show that the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities have increased the proportion of these certain gases in the atmosphere. Temperature measurements demonstrate a corresponding significant warming of our planet.

If anyone doubts the reliability of thermometer measurements, nature provides unmistakable signs of warming, for example the retreat of glaciers worldwide and the melting of Arctic sea ice.

The American Meteorological Society concludes, “It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases ...”

That conclusion is shared by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and 200 other scientific societies around the world.

When the Lowcountry floods and other disasters caused by global warming accumulate, what excuse will the deniers offer? They better not claim the science was unclear, because that would be a lie.

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 7:30 AM with the headline "Science clear on climate change."