On Thursday, a new study came out warning that even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the world has reached the “point of no return” for climate change. The paper claims that’s because Arctic permafrost—carbon-rich, permanently frozen earth made of rocks, water, and dead wildlife—is melting irreversibly, and it could continue to heat the planet for centuries by releasing carbon dioxide. Terrifying, right?
...“To be frank, the paper is crap that should not have passed any competent peer review,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and energy systems analyst, said. “It’s an interesting thought experiment, but its results should be taken with extreme skepticism until more complex Earth System Models produce similar results.”
The problems with the study begin with its title, which refers to the “melting of permafrost.” That’s a red flag because as Merritt Turetsky, an ecologist who directs the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, noted, permafrost thaws rather than melting.
...Even before getting into the body of the study, the authors credited made me lift my eyebrows. They’re not climate scientists, they’re business school professors....