Scepticism squashed?

The BBC report that: A formerly sceptical climate scientist says human activity is causing the Earth to warm, as a new study confirms earlier results on rising temperatures...

...latest study, released early on Monday (GMT), concludes that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 1.5C (2.7F) over the past 250 years.

...In a piece authored for the New York Times, Prof Muller, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming.

"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."...

Full story and access to lot of data, analysis, comment and debate via the BBC report here. Arguably it is because Prof Muller et al had a moderate, practical, pragmatic scepticism that he reasoned that a change of mind was justified by the evidence. Long may moderate, practical, pragmatic scepticism reign.

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Horizon, 2010-2011, What is One Degree?

Comedian Ben Miller returns to his roots as a physicist to try to answer a deceptively simple question: what is one degree of temperature?
His quest takes him to the frontiers of current science as he meets researchers working on the hottest and coldest temperatures in the universe, and to a lab where he experiences some of the strangest effects of quantum physics - a place where super-cooled liquids simply pass through solid glass. Plus, Ben installs his very own Met office weather station at home.
Ben's investigations in this personal and passionate film highlight the importance of measurement and accuracy in the 21st century.

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Horizon, 2010-2011, What is One Degree?