The
former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded
New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes,
worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets —
mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had
seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The
Associated Press.
The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and
phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of
climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is
in limited release, or read the book.
But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore
conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a
manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School
of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the
important material and got it right."
Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the
slideshow presentation that is woven throughout the documentary.
"I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell
said. "After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away.
There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no
error."
Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn't surprised "because
I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right."
The tiny errors scientists found weren't a big deal, "far, far fewer
and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical
politician explaining an issue," said Michael MacCracken, who used to
be in charge of the nation's global warming effects program and is now
chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.
One concern was about the connection between hurricanes and global
warming. That is a subject of a heated debate in the science community.
Gore cited five recent scientific studies to support his view.
"I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was
inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of
disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is
much greater scientific consensus," said Brian Soden, a University of
Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.
Some scientists said Gore confused his ice sheets when he said the
effect of the Clean Air Act is noticeable in the Antarctic ice core; it
is the Greenland ice core. Others thought Gore oversimplified the
causal-link between the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and rising
temperatures.
While some nonscientists could be depressed by the dire
disaster-laden warmer world scenario that Gore laid out, one top
researcher thought it was too optimistic. Tom Wigley, senior scientist
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thought the former
vice president sugarcoated the problem by saying that with
already-available technologies and changes in habit — such as changing
light bulbs — the world could help slow or stop global warming.
While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened
in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers.
President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the
Environmental Protection Agency and
NASA haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.
"They are quite literally afraid to know the truth," Gore said.
"Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is
saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70
million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is
putting into the atmosphere every day."
As far as the movie's entertainment value, Scripps Institution
geosciences professor Jeff Severinghaus summed it up: "My wife fell
asleep. Of course, I was on the edge of my chair."
WASHINGTON - The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, 5 stars for accuracy. 
