Are greenhouse gases cooling the upper atmosphere?
The topic I chose to synthesize with this assignment is the phenomenon of a cooling upper-atmosphere in the wake of human-caused climate change. This was a topic that I was unfamiliar with, so I think my analysis on how well the Guardian reports the information from the paper reflects an unbiased stance.
To start, a quick summary of the scientific process is necessary to understand the key differences between the two pieces of writing. The paper (Cnossen 2020) highlights a phenomenon occurring ~500 km in the upper atmosphere where the carbon dioxide molecule has a cooling effect. This effect is also driven by shifts in the Earth's magnetic field near the poles, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. In Cnossen 2020, this effect is analyzed over a period of over 50 years, using a complex atmospheric model to quantify this change occurring in the upper atmosphere.
The article presented by the Guardian is one of the shortest news articles I've read summarizing a scientific research paper. In just three paragraphs, the Guardian article attempts to display what the Cnossen 2020 paper outlined in six bulky sections packed with information. While I do think a balance between the jargon presented in papers and what the general public would understand is necessary, the Guardian's report here is far too short to have true substance. In fact, the Cnossen 2020 paper isn't even mentioned in the article until midway through the third paragraph. Once it is mentioned, all the article states is the key finding that "carbon dioxide was the main driving force cooling the upper atmosphere" and that "shifts in the Earth's magnetic field and variations in the solar cycle played much smaller roles".
I have a few main issues with the way the Guardian article presented the Cnossen 2020 paper other than its length (which is a large issue in itself). The first is how dull the article feels. The Cnossen 2020 paper delves into a fascinating topic that I found to be incredibly intriguing, while the Guardian article reports it with no indication of why we as an audience should care about the information being presented to us. The article just briefly tells us what the phenomenon is, but literally nothing else. Luckily, the article at least provides a link to the paper, meaning people who are truly interested can access it (for a price).
The lack of explanation about this topic's significance also leads to another issue. In a way, I feel that the presentation of this information can be perceived as misleading. With only brief mention of the warming effects that greenhouse gases have on the lower atmosphere, someone can easily mistake the message of this article as support for the anti-climate science movement. Just by looking at the title, the message seems to be that greenhouse gases are behaving in contrast to how we normally would. I find this method of presentation a bit confusing, especially given the Guardian's pro-climate agenda. This is a dangerous method of providing information to the public because in the format that it is, it can be easily misinterpreted and can be an unproductive contribution to the conversation.
The final issue I take with the Guardian's display of information in this article is that I overall find it disappointing that they undersold the remarkable science done in the Cnossen 2020 paper. One of the parts of the paper I found most interesting was the shifts in Earth's magnetic field that supposedly plays a role in the upper atmosphere cooling, which was only briefly mentioned in the Guardian article. Despite it being a small role, the Cnossen 2020 paper still delves fully into the analysis.
Like you, I was pretty shocked to see such a short news article on a scientific report. I also feel that the title of the news article is very misleading- someone just scrolling through article titles would have a totally different impression of Cnossen's results if they had simply read the title "How greenhouse gases are actually cooling Earth's upper atmosphere" and moved on rather than investigating the results any further. I noticed that the article in JGR Space Physics is open-access. Do you think this excuses the author of the news article from delving into details of the scientific findings?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your thoughts. I too think this was too short of an article in order to get to the depth of the findings in the paper. Their complete lack of evidence makes it very hard to believe anything said in the article which could lead for some audience members to have conspiracy theories. Maybe there was a hidden agenda that the Guardian was trying to achieve based on the length and accessibility of the article? In the last paragraph of the article, they talk about an 11 year cycle in the sun's solar activity and the cooling trend, is it a strong relationship? What is, if there is, the correlation?
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for posting! I would say that a short news article about a scientific article isn't inherently a bad thing if done properly, but you're absolutely right that the Guardian article didn't do the 50+ years of data justice. Like you said, while the Guardian article glosses over magnetic field effects on the upper atmosphere, the 2020 article clearly states that there is an effect there, particularly in the Northern hemisphere at high (magnetic) latitudes. I guess I was just left questioning what the reader was supposed to take away from the news article, seeing as no further information was given on the consequences of upper atmosphere cooling/contracting.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! There was a lot of data in this paper that was simply not mentioned in this article which I found quite shocking. After reading the guardian article myself I was left questioning why the contracting atmosphere was a problem. If I was the general public reading this article, I would have felt no need to do anything further. If you were the author of the guardian article how would you have written this to convey to the public why this is important?
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I was surprised to see that the Guardian - which is generally regarded as a credible news outlet - put out a piece showcasing very little journalistic zeal. I wonder if the Guardian editors either had a specific agenda that they might have been trying to peddle to appease donors or if the author just did not do enough research into the topic. I was also surprised to see that the original article that was linked exists behind a paywall - this seems a tad bit strange as if the author may have been trying to prevent people from digging a bit further.
Hi Nathan - I like that you brought up the fact that the Guardian article presents this information in a very misleading way, seeming to support an anti-climate science message to those who don't read carefully. Ultimately, I think it comes down to a single word - the use of "actually" in the title. This makes it seem like this finding contradicts the entire trend of global warming, when it reality it goes along with it (the lower atmosphere is heating, while the upper atmosphere is cooling). I think this comes back to the "house of cards" analogy that Prof. Ault used in class on Tuesday - that climate change deniers often take one piece of information like this and think that it invalidates all of the previous findings that support that the climate is warming. I think if the title instead was "How greenhouse gases are cooling earth's upper atmosphere", this article wouldn't be quite as problematic in how it presents this information.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the analysis! Scrolling down to the comments section, I found it interesting that the Guardian decided to pin a comment that went into far more detail than their own article provided. What do you think about the fact that the Guardian decided to highlight someone else's comment as an alternative to adding to further detail to their article themselves?
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis of the article and paper! You have a really good point that by just reading the headline, normal readers may misunderstand the results of the study. I don't think this was intentional, as the first paragraph clearly states that this effect is directly the cause of greenhouse gases, but I agree it is very misleading. Do you think the benefit that comes from this article highlighting a lesser known atmospheric process outweighs the downsides of insufficient explanation possibly adding to climate skepticism?
ReplyDeleteHi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your detailed blog. While reading the Guardian article, I felt no real purpose in the writing. It felt like a teaser article but I feel like the layman would be less likely to read the scientific article that was linked. What do you think the purpose was for the article? Do you think they just intended to peak the public's interest? Also, how would you make this article better?
Hey, thanks for the great post! I read your blog post before reading the other articles and originally thought that a 2.5/10 sounded like a pretty harsh score, then I read the Guardian article and completely agreed - they did an absolutely terrible job covering this science! The lack of detail was astonishing, and they only reasoned that CO2 was responsible for this phenomenon by 'losing energy' to space, but by the definition of temperature, anything cooling is technically losing thermal energy, so this was not a productive description at all. In terms of the science, the article was very dense for me to read because I am not super familiar with how macroscopic modeling like this works, but the authors seemed to do a great job explaining their logical progression for tweaking their models. I am curious to see if you could expand on what 'gravity wave forcing' is and how that might be hypothesized to affect the cooling, I did not really understand that. I know the authors acknowledged that it was insignificant in their model, but I am curious what the idea behind it is!
ReplyDeleteI was shocked to see how short the Guardian article was! I can't say that I learned anything from it. As a scientists, it would peak my interest to then read the scientific article it was referencing, however, I'm not sure the same would occur for the general public. What key takeaways from the study would you have chosen to include to better inform the audience in one source?
ReplyDeleteHi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I spent a good few minutes searching for the rest of that Guardian article, only to then get confirmation from you that it doesn't exist. Three short paragraphs is appalling to report on the journal article at hand. While it can be difficult to report scientific modeling results for an audience of laymen, this article seems as if it was summarizing the plain language summary at the top of the journal article rather than the science itself. I also absolutely agree that the Guardian article could be taken as confirmation that global warming is a hoax for many in the anti-climate science camp. It seems that the Guardian recognized the inadequacy of their article in pinning an explanatory comment. In a scenario where a news article has an unintended detrimental takeaway, how do you think a news outlet should proceed? Amendments, retraction, addendums, or has the damage already been done?
I think the topic you choose is super interesting! I did not know that greenhouse gas can cool our atmosphere (from what I knew, greenhouse gas only warms up the climate). I really like your evaluation/articles! I think it is super easy to read, but it simultaneously conveys some essential ideas. (so great work!) It is also kind of surprising (funny) to see an online article with only three paragraphs that just went straight to the conclusion. I think you make a valid point on how Gradian's article can be quite misleading in that it almost portrayed a sense of anti-climate change. Thus, I agree with your 2.5/10 evaluation of this article!
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