Thumbs up to the Kirkland City Council for supporting climate change initiatives. Thumbs down to the Kirkland Reporter for the curious addition of an out of context paragraph referencing a recent study by Johnstone and Mantua published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS 2014 111(40) 14360-14365).

The article cited describes evidence that natural variation in atmospheric circulation may account for a large part of the temperature variation in the Pacific Northwest over time periods as long as a century. There have been thousands of published articles in the scientific literature on climate disruption in the past two years, including 91 in PNAS, the journal you cite.

The study in question does not refute the fact that carbon dioxide emissions as a result of human industrial activity have risen over the past 200 years resulting in a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and that atmospheric CO2 reflects heat back toward earth resulting in a rise in mean atmospheric temperature. Nor does it lessen the concern that rising temperatures resulting in extreme weather events and spread of tropical disease pose a risk to human health and safety. It merely describes in detail another variable in the complex process in which a rise in global mean temperature can also alter so called “natural” atmospheric circulation patterns.

I am certain that the City Council considered the full body of scientific literature and the potential for serious adverse human consequences in making their decision.

Mark Vossler, MD, Task Force on Climate Change