To the editor:

The recent assertions that the debate on climate change is over are true only for the liberal news media and the politicians who all have an ax to grind. These two have also convinced the general population that the debate is over by using misleading statistics. As one of a very limited number of properly trained atmospheric scientists I can assure you that we do not consider the debate closed.

If the equations describing the atmosphere were perfect and the input data to the models were perfect we would know the correct answer. Since they are not perfect we do not have perfect models to give us the answer. We know that the atmosphere has many natural checks and balances. For example, if the global temperature increases one degree, more evaporation occurs and the cloud cover increases which cuts off sunlight and cools the earth.

We know that ice and snow melts at a precise temperature so why don’t we use a common-sense approach and look at the yearly change in the amount of arctic and Antarctic ice and snow cover? We have excellent ice and snow cover records since the age of satellites. Those records show that global changes occur slightly each year but the overall trend is neither up nor down. In fact, the amount of Antarctic ice and snow cover set a new record this year for most coverage, not the least. So I think you can see this issue is far from settled.