A Smoking Gun in Oklahoma

(And Another in Alaska)

From an article in The Space Reporter: 

Recalling Oklahoma Senator Inhofe's antics on the Senate floor yesterday, it seems only fitting that today's news about climate change comes from research performed in Oklahoma (and Alaska). A team led by Dan Feldman put precise measuring equipment in those states, to monitor carbon dioxide levels and the radiation budget -- incoming solar energy, outgoing energy radiated by the earth, and energy reflected, absorbed and emitted by the atmosphere. 

Result: Over the period from 2000 through 2010, carbon dioxide levels increased. Over the same period, energy absorbed by atmospheric carbon dioxide and reradiated back to the surface also increased. The science that predicted this result has now been confirmed.

Of course, we already had it confirmed. This is the same science that has let meteorologists improve their weather forecasting models by incorporating satellite measurements of the vertical profile of atmospheric temperature, based partly on the distribution of carbon dioxide. Everybody likes to gripe about inaccurate forecasts, but we all carry a weather app in our pockets nowadays, and we don't really question tomorrow's forecast very much. Forecasting has improved, in no small part due to the science of radiative transfer in the atmosphere -- the same science that says that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to a greenhouse effect and global warming.

The article quotes Feldman as saying, "This is clear observational evidence that when we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, it will push the system to a warmer place."

Take that, Senator Inhofe (and please drop your silly snowball)!