In November of 2013, my blog post expressed skepticism about
global warming. Skepticism, not denial but
basically a desire for more information, because I saw a hiatus or leveling of
the warming data measured by NASA.
Essentially, the period 1975 to 2002 showed a steep increase in the
earth’s temperature. The average increase
was 0.023 degrees C per year. If the trend
remained it could have resulted in a 2.3 deg C (4.1 deg F) increase by the year
2100. This was in the Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth) era when
sensitivity to the possibility of severe global warming became widespread (and
the deniers flared up like a prairie wildfire).
Then about 2003 a hiatus in the warming began. Looking at
the NASA data as it was published for several years, I saw a definite flat
curve and that lead to my blog post in 2013.
In the 2003 to 2013 period, the annual temperature increase was only 0.0018
degrees C per year. If this trend
continued, the increase would only be 0.16 degrees C by 2100.
(This information is from NASA web site http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
Now in 2015, the NASA data shows a sharp turn upward—sharper
than in the earlier period. The
tabulated NASA data shows a temperature increase of 0.09 degrees C in 2014 and 0.13
degrees C in 2015. These points are
alarming—they could mean 0.11 degrees C per year or 9.4 degrees C (16.9 degrees
F) increase by the year 2100. Startling
numbers! Although two points on a chart
aren’t conclusive, the need to take climate data seriously is obvious.
This increase is, to me, as mysterious as was the 10-year
hiatus. Let us hope that the scientists
can freely delve into the nature of things without interference by politicians
and their minions and provide us answers about the environment that in which we
will live for future generations.
