Please forgive me for my crude verbage that needed to be edited. In this day and age I really figured that modest word (with asteriks) was just that...modest. I see I was wrong. Thanks for the gentle reminder and I'll keep it all "above board" from here on out.

Brian - you weren't the guilty party (or at least the guiltiest). But for consistency's sake, I tweaked you comment. We've had complaints over things even milder than what you wrote.

Is it really Global Warming or a lack of radiational cooling in the big cities! Most record keeping dating back to the late 1800's is in the major cities, which have grown --- buildings and cement --- and seem to hold much more heat, especially at night.

Are we really comparing "apples to apples"? Also, when "experts" say that the earth in 2007 may be the warmest it has ever been, it seems a bit absurd since the earth has been around much longer then the 150 years of record keeping!

I am not saying the idea of Global Warming is not a real possibility, but the minor change in statistical temperatures could be misleading and skewed when comparing the record keeping from 1888 and 2007 (types of instruments and size of big cities).

Maybe what UN can really do is throw out the discredited "Hockey Stick Graph" and collect some real data. And please, don't throw away the inconvenient medieval warming period or the mini ice age.

If anyone wants to do any real actual science I'd love to know what is "really" happening to our planet.

Maybe then there could be true consensus and an action plan for the future.

So much junk science, fudged numbers, alarmism, and peer pressure to agree, including threats against tenure that the message has no value.

Remember we?re getting global warming from the same people who had consensus about the coming ice age 30 years ago?. Still waiting for that to happen.

Regards,
Chris

Tim -

The various scientific groups (NASA's Goddard team, NOAA and the University of East Anglia) have developed sophisticated algorithms for discarding data that is biased because of urban effects. So the global temperature records you routinely hear cited really are "apples to apples."

Chris -

The "discredited hockey stick" is not, in fact, the only climate reconstruction. It is merely the first of a number that have used different methods and different data sets to come to the same conclusion - an unprecedented warming in the 20th century relative to the record of the last 1,000 to 2,000 years (depending on which data set you look at). Throwing out the "discredited hockey stick" - the original Mann, Bradley and Hughes work - is probably a good idea, as the later work has been substantially refined. But it doesn't change things much. They all look like hockey sticks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

As for your contention that there was "a consensus about the coming ice age 30 years ago," that's a thoroughly discredited myth. William Connolley of the British Antarctic Survey has compiled a set of references laying out the details:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

I just wish I understood why you consistently seem to be erasing my comments. I don't recall using any crude language of sorts.

But hey, that's the new thing now, anyway. Censorship.

Very surprising to see all the skeptical comments regarding global warming.

Here in Upstate New York, Global warming is a good thing as it has made life far more tolerable. What was once 3 months of solid artic like conditions every winter is now just an occasional dusting of snow with brief periods of below normal temperature. Although this might be considered just a regional effect, one only has to look as far as the NOAA website for the long term view. NOAA: That?s the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration as in the United States Federal Government. Here?s their conclusion:

1. Dramatic warming has occurred since the 19th century.
2. The recent record warm temperatures in the last 15 years are the warmest temperatures the Earth has seen in at least the last 1000 years, and possibly in the last 2000 years.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html

This global warming hoax is nothing more than that - a hoax to bring the United State down to third world level. I've also noticed that you people will not debate. Serious scientists or meteriologists who disagree are in danger of having their funding cut or credentials pulled. So much for free speech. You people perpetuating this hoax need to go get a real job.

Accepting as a fact that Earth is in a period of global warming, then the question is: "What's the
cause?" Scientific evidence tells us that there have been warming and cooling periods on Earth
for millions of years. The Gobi Desert was once a fruited plain, as was the Sahara. The dry lands of Western Nebraska used to hold a mighty
cedar forrest. So these things come and go.
The reality is that no one, particularly politicians such as former V.P. Gore, know the cause of the current warming tend.
There is also little knowledge of just what impact
a slow warming period will have on the world economy.
What we do know is that an army of activists, with the typical activists'revulsion for fact,
will stampede an ignorant political establishment into making knee jerk policies which will ultimately do more damage than global warming.

Sean - I deleted one of your comments, which contained a word which is not allowed according to our corporate ToS. After I deleted it, I realized I *could* have edited it instead. So I apologize for that.

You're free to express any opinion on topic here that you want, so long as you follow the ToS. No censorship.

Really I think all of you, yankees, are very superb. First, you rejected the Tokio agreement for reducing emissions. And now, you are very worried about that. HUMBUGS!!!
Only one you see is your interest.
I hope you publish this comment.

CENSORSHIP BY CENSORS

Censorship? I just don't see it.

I have to agree with Tim Coutu about the warmest year ever. This planet once had an average temperature in the area of 185f in its distant past. It has also been a completely frozen spinning ball of ice.

The audacity of man to think that 150 years of record keeping means anything is absurd on planet that is billions of years old. Just because man showed up does not mean that this earth has always been and will always have a suitable climate to sustain human life. The vast array of living things here, from life that lives around thermal vents to bacteria that lives deep in the earths crust proves our lack of appreciation for the real story here on earth.

We should stop fretting about our supposed impact on warming this place and concentrate on dealing up the truly dangerous things like pollution, over fishing, nuclear power waste, over population, rampant consumerism, etc.

Good afternoon: I wish to say somenthing. You know, ambientalist are very tragical but in some reason doing this is necessary. Do you think corporations will control themself about emissions? Perhaps they need "a pain in the backside" to moderate their behaviours.
Thanks for your job Laura,
Regards

Laura, are you here??
If you are, ASK!!!!