The headline of a story written by a Peoria Journal Star reporter on the front page of the business section on 10/25/05 declares “Projection indicates hotter, longer summers.”  A quote in the story proclaims “’Take the hottest two or three weeks we have currently and figure on having that weather last for two months,’ said Diffenbaugh, referring to climate patterns in the latter half of the 21st century.”  Also on this first page of the story, we are told that these predictions are the result of “the most comprehensive model ever developed” and then analyzed by supercomputers.  We also learn that Midwest winters will be warmer by around 20 degrees.  (Personally, I’ll vote for that but then I enjoy the warm winters of Tucson.)  Furthermore, the Southwest where Tucson is located will be even hotter than it is as that area of the country experiences the greatest heat increase in its climate.


The article does not state what assumptions were used to develop the model.  It does finally allude to the basis of the model in the second to last paragraph of the story in the second page of the business section.  “That bottom line for the climate model is that extreme weather is in our future unless we find a way to limit greenhouse gases, he said.”  Finally, after some readers have stopped reading we are told that apparently the model was developed around the theory that greenhouse gases are increasing the temperature of the earth.  


Wouldn’t it have been important to state this in the first one or two paragraphs?  Aren’t the assumptions used to develop the model at least as important as the conclusions reached by the supercomputer?  We know that a good article gives the most important details of the story in the first few paragraphs.  We know that some readers won’t get past the first few paragraphs and even more will not follow the story onto the second page.  Yet, the validity of the conclusions is dependent upon the information used to develop the model.  Is this article supposed to be a mystery novel or an informative news story?


I’m not a computer person and I don’t claim to be a natural scientist.  However, even I am aware of the saying “Garbage in; garbage out!”  If the model is not correct, it doesn’t matter how super the computer is.  “Garbage in; garbage out!”  The computer as far as I know does not change the developed model but only works from that which it has been given.        


My conclusion: one more Peoria Journal Star article that is slanted and biased in it presentation of the information.  Garbage in; garbage story.