More accurate global temperature measurements

[DevineHerring]

From the article "For the first time, satellites have been used to develop an 18- year record (1981-1998) of global land surface temperatures. The record provides additional proof that Earth's snow-free land surfaces have, on average, warmed during this time period, according to a NASA study appearing in the March issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The satellite record is more detailed and comprehensive than previously available ground measurements. The satellite data will be necessary to improve climate analyses and computer modeling."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-saa042204.php

There was a good BBC link from yesterday that I've lost track of about projected flooding levels exacerbated by clime change..

[Artoo]

I read that NASA staff have been told not to comment on the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow'. That might explain why!

Certainly in our bit of the world (Central Scotland) there's plenty of evidence of global warming - e.g plants flowering much earlier, the effective shutdown of the ski-ing industry. I guess the central question is, are we doing it? And, if so, are we reducing the risk of the next ice-age or increasing it by upsetting the ocean convection.

[Eleana]

Do we have enough data from an statistical point of view? Considering the earth's age one hundred years exact date are surely not enough...

[DevineHerring]

One of the problems is that climate change might work chaotically - in which case we'll have little time to react.

Then of course we have to rein in good ol' George Dubya et al. And persuade a few developing countries that it might be a good idea if they joined in.

Stop the world, I want to get off?

[Edited by Artoo on 29th April 2004 at 13:42]

[DevineHerring]

damn good editing... I'm not really a doomsayer... but I can get bombastic..

[Eleana]

Don't you just love the editing skills of moderators?

*chuckles*

IMHO Chaos is the building principle of nature. In addition we humans are not built to understand complex relationships and dependencies. Though the technology of computers has advanced significantly all calculations are based on equations we feed in. Opportunity to err galore.

It is my belief that the climate is changing and that pollution is a major contributor. Still the lack of long term data, I mean long, long term data makes many calculations questionable form a statistical point of view.

It should not be an excuse for ruthless politicians, but also not a vehicle for people to get media attention.

Nature is most powerful and will survive us effortlessly.


Ha how's that for a morning without a coffee yet?

[kathyv]

While I agree that pollution had affected the weather and is not healthy for our planet and needs to be halted, we can't discount the natural pollutants built into our world. Volcanos have been known to cause devestating, world wide climate changes. Dust storms cause smaller scale changes. These natural phenomona have occured and will continue to happen.

Earth has had cataclismic global warmings and cooling cycles throughout the last billions of years. Lifeforms have been changed and lost because of detrimental weather....(as well as other happenings)

Some of the older folks around here remember times when our local lake froze soilid enough to allow a team to pull a sleigh across it, I have lived here for 22 years and can only remember 2 of those years that it froze enough for ice skating, there is no way we could have driven anything across it. I can't say for absolute sure this warming has been caused by man, I am pretty sure pollution hasn't helped BUT we have all been taught about receding ice sheets at the end of the last major ice age. Did this happen due to global warming caused by mankind's pollutants?

I guess, as a responsible human attempting to do my part to keep Earth clean, I resent having every enviromental groups finger's pointed at me as the one and only cause of the Worlds pollution! I also don't think it's fair to blame the World's current poilitical groups for causing and not halting pollution/global warming. A lot of this stuff was happening even before these people were born and joined their party of choice. I am not positive about other countries policies but here, Georgie has not got complete controll over the American economy or the wishes of the entire population. Granted, he is the person who can throw his political weight into the ring for most causes but he is one man. Environmental groups as well as those that represent industries are every bit as powerful. Lawyers and Lobbiests drag issues through the mud and have their own media personell report partial and baised information. I don't think what we are told is all that accurate.

We do need more data, hopefully from non-baised researchers. My question is can we get non-biased info? Will the research be a reflection of the funding group's current opinion?

We also need to cooperate as a world population.