An Ever Warmer World | Green Energy News

October 9, 2005 – Vol.10 No.29

AN EVER WARMER WORLD.

Again the planet is on track for another record year for warming.

New data collected from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) shows that 2005 will turn out to be the warmest yet on record. Data from 7200 weather stations scattered around the globe show that average global temperatures will be about 1.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.75 Celsius) warmer than the average between 1950 and 1980.

And there’s more warming to come, scientists say. By 2030, only 25 years from now, temperatures could rise another degree compared with 2000. And, by the end of the century another 2 - 4 degree rise is expected on top of the 2030 mark.

There are hundreds of millions of people alive today who will be able to watch temperatures climb steadily throughout the century. And there are hundreds of millions of people alive already who will have children who will experience the worst effects of global warming yet to come.

Already this year other records have been broken. Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were higher in August than at any time since 1890. Katrina, and then Rita, were fueled by the Gulf’s hot waters.

And at the top of globe the Arctic sea ice shrank this summer to 200 million square miles, 500,000 square miles less than its average area between between 1979 and 2000.

Skeptics still say the global warming is part of a natural cycle of the planet, yet they have yet to say exactly what causes that natural cycle. The fact that global temperatures are rising along side rising greenhouse gases is just coincidence, they seem to say.

The Bush Administration still refuses a government mandate to cut emissions saying it wants technology to solve the problem instead. The administration thinks mandatory cuts will damage the economy.

Taxpayers dollars spent (or moneys borrowed) for efforts such as hurricane cleanup and rebuilding can help the economy in jobs created but damage the economy in money spent on rescue and aid to victims.

Bush still has another 3 hurricane seasons before he leaves office, and current season isn’t over yet.

Visit NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies http://www.giss.nasa.gov/ .