I just love this debate, if for nothing else than the amount of actual science availble to match up with the theory. I live in the DC area today, and this morning on the weather, it was predicted that today was going to be in the 60's. It might get close to the record of 71, which was set back on '02 - 1902 that is. It is just another example of how we look at shit that we don't know, but like to pretend to. There has been a report on Trophospheric temps, that indicate that the warming predicted is not happening. I'll find it and post for Thoughtone to ignore and go back to his FauxNewsRepublicanLibertarianMeanPeopleWhoHateNonWhitePeopleButLiketoMessWithThem polemics.
I understand, scientific trends mean nothing. Like I said, blame the facts. Damn liberal science.
source:
BBC News.com
2005 Warmest Ever Year In North
This year has been the warmest on record in the northern hemisphere, say scientists in Britain.
It is the second warmest globally since the 1860s, when reliable records began, they say.
Ocean temperatures recorded in the northern hemisphere Atlantic Ocean have also been the hottest on record.
The researchers, from the UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia, say this is more evidence for the reality of human-induced global warming.
Their data show that the average temperature during 2005 in the northern hemisphere is 0.65 Celsius above the average for 1961-1990, a conventional baseline against which scientists compare temperatures.
The global increase is 0.48 Celsius, making 2005 the second warmest year on record behind 1998, though the 1998 figure was inflated by strong El Nino conditions.
The northern hemisphere is warming faster than the south, scientists believe, because a greater proportion of it is land, which responds faster to atmospheric conditions than ocean.
Northern hemisphere temperatures are now about 0.4 Celsius higher than a decade ago.
"The data also show that the sea surface temperature in the northern hemisphere Atlantic is the highest since 1880," said Dr David Viner from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Error bar
No measurements of average temperature can be completely accurate, and David Viner believes the team's calculations are subject to an error of about plus or minus 0.1 Celsius.
However, he says, the long-term trend is clearly upwards — rapidly over the last decade — indicating the reality of human-induced global warming.
"We're right, the sceptics are wrong," he told the BBC News website.
"It's simple physics; more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, emissions growing on a global basis, and consequently increasing temperatures."
However, Fred Singer from the Science & Environmental Policy Project in Washington DC, a centre of the "climate sceptics" community, disputed this interpretation.
"If indeed 2005 is the warmest northern hemisphere year since 1860, all this proves is that 2005 is the warmest northern hemisphere year since 1860," he told the BBC News website.
"It doesn't prove anything else, and certainly cannot be used by itself to prove that the cause of warming is the emission of greenhouse gases.
"It requires a more subtle examination to know how much of warming is due to man-made causes — there must be some — and how much is down to natural causes."
Eight of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred within the last decade.
source:
The Washington Post.com
Climate Experts Worry as 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S.
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 10, 2007; Page A01
Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years -- capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday.
According to the government's National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth -- which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year's Day -- was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there's a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change."
The center said there are indications that the rate at which global temperatures are rising is speeding up.
Average temperatures nationwide in 2006 were 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the mean temperatures nationwide for the 20th century, the agency said. It reported that seven months in 2006 were much warmer than average, and that last month was the fourth-warmest December on record. Average temperatures for all 48 contiguous states were above or well above average, and New Jersey logged its hottest temperatures ever.
Many researchers are concerned that rising temperatures could lead to widespread melting of the polar ice caps, resulting in higher sea levels and more extreme droughts and storms. But NOAA also pointed to one silver lining: The unusually warm temperatures from October to December helped keep residential energy use for heating 13.5 percent below the average for that period.
NOAA said an El Ni?o weather pattern in the equatorial Pacific also contributed to the warm temperatures by blocking cold Arctic air from moving south and east across the nation.
Climate experts generally do not make much of temperature fluctuations over one or two years, but Lawrimore said the record 2006 temperatures were part of a long and worrisome trend. For instance, NOAA said, the past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the continental United States.
Advocates for more action to control carbon dioxide emissions also voiced concern.
"No one should be surprised that 2006 is the hottest year on record for the U.S.," said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public interest group. "When you look at temperatures across the globe, every single year since 1993 has been in the top 20 warmest years on record."
"Realistically, we have to start fighting global warming in the next 10 years if we want to secure a safe environment for our children and grandchildren," she said.
Lawrimore said other NOAA research has found that the rate of temperature increase has been significantly greater in the past 30 years than at any time since the government started collecting national temperature data in 1895. Globally, 2005 was the hottest year on record, Lawrimore said, and 2006 was slightly cooler.
He said that although there is a scientific consensus that carbon dioxide from cars, power plants and factories is leading to global warming, there is no consensus yet on whether the warming will increase more quickly or more slowly in the future. Some researcher have predicted that temperatures worldwide will increase by a catastrophic 7 to 8 degrees on average by the end of the century, while others project an increase of a more modest 2 degrees by century's end.
The burning of oil and other fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, which rises, blankets the Earth and traps heat. Climate scientists report that there has not been this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past 650,000 years.
The Bush administration has rejected proposals to cap carbon dioxide emissions or impose carbon taxes as a way to limit global warming. Lawrimore said he believes the problem could and should be addressed by developing new technologies for powering vehicles and industry.
Late December's springlike temperatures in the eastern two-thirds of the country made it the fourth-warmest December on record in the United States and contributed greatly to the record high for the year. Several Northern cities were unusually warm -- with Boston 8 degrees above average and Minneapolis-St. Paul 17 degrees above average for the last three weeks of the month.