Jason Jones [frjones@swbell.net] wrote:
>I'm SORRY I can't give you a source other than the discovery channel, but
>from what I had seen on that show the major evedience for global warming
>was a 1 degree F increase in the world's total average temperature.Anyone
>seen anything like this?
There are numerous problems with this 'evidence'. Firstly, even if you accept the surface temperature data, then the temperature today is only a fraction of a degree higher than it was at the beginning of the 19th century! This is why most of the pro-warming arguments discuss temperature changes from the mid-19th century to today, because there was a major drop in temperature around 1820, and that significantly inflates their figures.
Secondly, various people have shown problems with the surface temperature data. One temperature measuring station used in many studies showed a one degree change... but when someone actually went there and looked at the station they discovered that over the last couple of decades bushes had grown around it blocking out a cold wind; compensating for the wind effect removed the increase. The other stations are not evenly distributed, and many are near airports or in cities where the temperature will be rather higher than average. The global measurements by satellite show almost no change in the last few decades.
So the basic global warming issues are:
We don't know.
2. Is the temperature changing?
We don't know.
3. If so, are the changes the result of human action, or are they natural variations?
We don't know, though the evidence seems to show much larger natural changes than anything supposedly caused by human activity.
4. If so, will this have a worse effect on us than closing down industrial civilization?
We don't know, but I find it strange that many of the pro-warming folks love to trumpet the glory of Gaia, their wonderful self-regulating global organism, yet then turn around and tell us that actually Gaia isn't wonderful enough to handle a small increase in carbon dioxide.
Given another twenty years we may know the answers to many of these questions, but today we just don't have enough data and rely on dubious computer models instead.
Mark