The Trib Braintrust Just Can't Stop

With STILL no mention of how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has concluded that global warming is "undeniable" the scientifically challenged Scaife Braintrust trusts the rantings of another of the scientifically challenged, Christopher Booker.

We've met Booker before.

Here's the braintrust this morning:

"Experts" trotted out disputed "science" to buttress predictions of climate cataclysms. Notes British columnist Christopher Booker in The Telegraph, the same United Kingdom National Weather Service computer that predicted a four-degree rise in global temperatures over the next 50 years also "has consistently got every one of its winter and summer forecasts hopelessly wrong" over the past three years.

Here's Booker's article and in it he claims for example:

Far from the oceans acidifying, their pH currently ranges between 7.9 and 8.3, putting them very firmly on the alkaline side of the threshold, at 7.0.

And yet when a real scientist looks at the pH of the ocean the story is different:

The increasing acidity of the world's oceans -- and that acidity's growing threat to marine species -- are definitive proof that the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is causing climate change is also negatively affecting the marine environment, says Antarctic marine biologist Jim McClintock, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Biology.

Now here's the interesting part:

A substance's level of acidity is measured by its pH value; the lower the pH value, the more acidic is the substance. McClintock says data collected since the pre-industrial age indicates the mean surface pH of the oceans has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 units with another 0.4 unit decline possible by century's end. A single whole pH unit drop would make ocean waters 10 times more acidic, which could rob many marine organisms of their ability to produce protective shells -- and tip the balance of marine food chains.

Now look at what Booker wrote. See the weasel words? The science points to an increasing acidity of the world's oceans (meaning they are getting more acid and less alkaline). This is dismissed by Booker because the pH is "still on the alkaline side of the "threshold."

In any event, let's see what some some real scientists have to say:

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say the 2010 meteorological year, which ran from December 2009 to November 2010, was the warmest in 131 years of of record keeping.

The world’s average temperature in 2010 was 14.65 degrees Celsius, or 58.57 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2005, the former front-runner for warmest meteorological year, the temperature was 14.62 degrees Celsius, or 58.32 degrees Fahrenheit.

NOAA says it's undeniable.

That "asbestos is the same as talcum powder" guy says otherwise.

Who would you believe?

And who does Scaife's braintrust?