Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist from MIT specializing in the study of hurricanes, has written this long, but comprehensive article summarizing the latest science of climate change in the Boston Review. It’s written for a popular audience and does a good job of laying out what aspects of climate change (and the human influences) scientist know for certain and what they are less sure of. If you don’t want to read the much longer IPCC report coming out on Friday, this might be a good primer.

Emanuel writes in cool, impartial, measured language but towards the end, in the sections entitled “Science, politics, and the media” and “The politics of global climate change” he lets it rip. If you read this Q&A we did with him last year about his interactions with the popular press post-Katrina, you’ll understand why he becomes a tad more critical in these sections.

Here’s one of my favorite parts:

We have preciously few representatives in Congress with a background or interest in science, and some of them display an active contempt for the subject. As long as we continue to elect scientific illiterates like James Inhofe, who believes global warming to be a hoax, we will lack the ability to engage in intelligent debate. Scientists are most effective when they provide sound, impartial advice, but their reputation for impartiality is severely compromised by the shocking lack of political diversity among American academics, who suffer from the kind of group-think that develops in cloistered cultures. Until this profound and well documented intellectual homogeneity changes, scientists will be suspected of constituting a leftist think tank.

Thanks to RealClimate for first pointing this article out.

Addendum: I failed to mention earlier that this article was the cover story and several authors wrote accompanying pieces, including two people from Tufts.