Article here.

The fresh findings, and Dr. Emanuel's willingness to follow the science, remind me of something he told my colleague Claudia Dreifus in 2006: "[I]t's a really bad thing for a scientist to have an immovable, intractable position."

On his SciGuy blog, Eric discusses some of the ramifications of Dr. Emanuel’s new storm study:

• This should put to rest a lot of the nonsense about a global warming conspiracy among scientists. Emanuel, faced with new evidence, has moderated his viewpoint. That's what responsible scientists do, and most are responsible. The amount of scientist-bashing when it comes to global warming is generally quite deplorable.

• Anyone who doubts that the threat of large hurricanes is still being used as part of global warming campaigns should look no further than the energy and climate platform of a presidential candidate [pdf alert], who writes, "Global warming is real, is happening now and is the result of human activities. The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years."

• If you're a skeptic, and you welcome these results, please remember that these are the same climate models you bash when they show global temperatures steadily rising during the next century.

They are solid points that hold lessons for advocates on both sides of the charged debate over climate science and its implications for society.

There are lessons here for journalists, too. Science is a trajectory toward understanding, not a set of truths. Sometimes that can be inconvenient, whether writing a headline or advocating for a climate bill.

But somehow society has to learn how to be comfortable with this aspect of the scientific enterprise, while not fuzzing out because things aren't crystal clear. As Stephen Schneider, a veteran climatologist at Stanford, recently mused, the question is, "Can democracy survive complexity?"

It's clear that Dr. Emanuel’s admonition about the need for a lot more work applies beyond the realm of science, as well.