Matt Drudge recycles

Matt Drudge may not believe in global warming, but at least he’s recycling. Nico Pitney catches the Internet maven using the same joke he made back in 2004. Basically, it’s cold and snowy outside, so therefore the climate isn’t warming! Ha, ha, right?

Of course, as Nico points out, weather and climate are different beasts. The overall trend is clear: The planet is warming, and nobody serious argues with that. What the weather is like on any given day is neither here nor there, and in fact extreme weather events could be part of the show.

I wouldn’t say that it’s indisputable that climate change is caused by humans, however, but we’re getting close to that point. Here’s the gist of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in its fourth assessment report (pdf), according to the scientists at RealClimate.org:

[T]he report concludes that human influences on climate are ‘very likely’ (> 90% chance) already detectable in observational record; increased from ‘likely’ (> 66% chance) in the [Third Assessment Report of 2001].”

So where’s the real debate among climate scientists?

The uncertainties in the science mainly involve the precise nature of the changes to be expected, particularly with respect to sea level rise, El Niño changes and regional hydrological change – drought frequency and snow pack melt, mid-latitude storms, and of course, hurricanes.

That doesn’t sound so funny to me.