World heads for warmest year yet

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[This is not news to most of us]

World Heads for Warmest Year Yet

Thu Aug 1,11:29 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The first six months of the year have been the second-warmest ever and average global temperatures in 2002 could be the highest ever recorded, British weather experts said Thursday.

"Globally 2002 is likely to be warmer than 2001, and may even break the record set in 1998," said Briony Horton, the Meteorological Office's climate research scientist.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body that advises governments on long-term climatic variations, blames global warming, caused by rising emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, for the rise in temperatures, a Met Office spokesman said.

"We agree with them," he told Reuters. "Since 1970 there has been a marked trend in the rise of global temperatures.

"The actual rise prior to 1970 was partly man-made and partly due to natural effects. But since 1970 scientists are in fairly general agreement that warming can be attributed to man's polluting activities."

The Met Office said global temperatures were 1.03 Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average of about 59 Fahrenheit in the period from January to June.

In the nearly 150 years since recording began, only in 1998 has the difference been higher, 1.08 Fahrenheit, and that was caused by the influence of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The figures also showed that the northern hemisphere had its warmest-ever half year, with temperatures 1.31 Fahrenheit above the long-term average.

The Met Office compiles its figures from data collected from observatories round the world, as well as from ships at sea.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2002

Answers

Not news to me, either. The question is why? Are we, as some scientists have postulated, entering a warm cycle? Or is it global warming? There seems to be an awful lot of junk science associated with the global warming studies.

The bottom line: my electric bill. OUCH!!

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2002


Actually, the bottom line is our oxygen.

Most don't realize that with the greenhouse effect, and man's pollution, these gases are displacing the oxygen. Then add in the effect of pollution of the ocean which kills the algae, and the deforestation by man and fire.

[Has anyone else read "The Last Gasp'?]

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2002


My position has long been that I don't care what's causing it, hummans or Nature, only that it IS. At the same time, it doesn't hurt to reduce pollutants of any kind, for a myriad of other reasons.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2002

Meemur, the people screaming about "junk science" re the global warming studies are actually the ones peddling it.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2002

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