Climate change study forces sceptical...

Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds

Earth's land shown to have warmed by 1.5C over past 250 years, with humans being almost entirely responsible

Leo Hickman

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 July 2012Â

Â Â

The Earth's land has warmed by 1.5C over the past 250 years and "humans are almost entirely the cause", according to a scientific study set up to address climate change sceptics' concerns about whether human-induced global warming is occurring.

Prof Richard Muller, a physicist and climate change sceptic who founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (Best) project, said he was surprised by the findings. "We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds." He added that he now considers himself a "converted sceptic" and his views had undergone a "total turnaround" in a short space of time.

"Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 2.5F over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases," Muller wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

Read moreÂ >>>>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind