Global warming
The World Meteorological Organization reported that the decade of the 1990's were the
hottest ever measured. In fact they report that each year in the 1990's was hotter
than the year before. They also report that the 1990's were the hottest century
on record ever.
REF: Al-Ghanem, Taysir M.; 1999 Closes the Warmest Decade and Warmest
Century of the Last
Millennium Accordijng to WMO Annual Statement on the Global Climate;
World Meteorological Organization; Thursday, December 16, 1999.
http://www.wmo.ch/web/Press/Press644.html.
The report notes three other points of interest:
In spite of La Nina activity, the temperatures still rose.
There were droughts in the United States and Australia.
Weather patterns were more severe.
A story in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday June 17, 2000 also reports how
scientists are baffled by the fact that La Niña activity did not produce
cooler temperatures.
The Washington Post reported on June 17,2000 that the United States experienced
the warmest spring in 2000 in 106 year. Globally this is the 24th straight year
where temperatures have been higher than normal in the Northern hemisphere.
If polar ice melts island nations may be eliminated by rising sea levels
If there is a link to droughts and severe weather from warming, farming
might be destroyed, causing starvation, food shortages, and disease. It might
increase the insect pest population.
Due to global warming with increasing CO2, BBC News reports that climate
change will cause the beautiful trees in New England to disappear. They will be
replaced by hardwoods from the south, like oaks. The prediction comes from Steven McNulty of
the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service based on a national assessment of
the impact of climate change. McNulty says that the aspen maple and cedars will be "driven
north by rising temperatures."
Greenhouse warming causes ozone holes
Some people liken greenhouse gases to a blanket, but actually that is a bad analogy.
In the absence of greenhouse gas, solar energy is reflected back into outer space.
Greenhouse gases absorb this radiation at lower altitudes and don't reflect it
back into outer space. Thus, the upper atmosphere, where ozone is, gets colder. Ozone
is less stable in colder temperatures. Ozone protects us by blocking out harmful
solar radiation. When ozone breaks down because of upper atmosphere cooling due to
greenhouse warming, these harmful rays get through to the lower atmosphere.
