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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (59118)	4/14/2008 8:49:07 AM
From: biotech_bull	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542090

Here's one data point Here's one picture - worth a thousand words It's irresponsible to deny facts for the sake of shortsighted partisan politics The recent satellite image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegrating is alarming to put it mildly images.google.com

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (59118)	4/14/2008 2:58:09 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542090

Bob - If you want to look at trends in global temperatures, you do have to look at long periods of time, and there will be variations. Like a stock that is rising, these temperatures aren't going to go up in a straight line. The question is not whether temperatures rose or fell within the shorter period, but whether they stayed within the measured trend lines. I would also note that the study in question did not say that temperatures had fallen over that period. It said only that they had not risen. Thus, headlines about "The Chill" are misleading. I don't usually go to business journals for my science, anyway. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports this: "The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle. "Figure 1 shows 2007 temperature anomalies relative to the 1951-1980 base period mean. The global mean temperature anomaly, 0.57°C (about 1°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 mean, continues the strong warming trend of the past thirty years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases (GHGs) (Hansen et al. 2007). The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990." Emphasis mine. data.giss.nasa.gov I am aware that there is some serious disagreement among climatologists about the degree to which overall warming is occurring, and over the question of whether it is partly caused by mankind or not. However, the extent of the disagreement really doesn't support your view that the entire notion of global warming is nonsense. Empirical evidence, such as the fact that arctic permafrost is melting, and that last year's summer arctic ice cover was the smallest ever recorded, indicate that something serious is going on. - Allen