It's Hot, Hot, Hot: Temperature Anomaly Chart.

1. Perceive
   June 16th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

   LOL at the manufactured controversy around global warming. Most other discoveries and theories that a majority of scientists are reasonably sure of, such as the existence of water on mars, nobody bothers debating or putting in disclaimers. But throw in one that may require political and corporate will to address, and suddenly it's an ambiguous issue with two or three or a billion sides to the story, all deserving of attention. GImme a break. Next time, just post the chart and let people think what they will.

2. Chris
   June 16th, 2007 at 9:27 pm

   And in 20 years, that map will be blue. It all works in cycles folks.

3. Mark
   June 16th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

   Look, for a three month period the weather was warmer than usual! That proves that there's a dangerous warming trend that will last for the rest of the century!

   It goes without saying that the weather we had when I was a kid was the absolutely ideal, optimum weather for the whole world. And any change would be disastrous! Change is evil!

4. Chris
   June 16th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

   LOL looks like a wiki fight on the global warming page...
   GM supporters, where are you?

   /SF2 theme music
   /"Round 2... Fight!"

5. Kristian
   June 16th, 2007 at 10:46 pm

   Yeah, y'all armchair scientists MUST be correct....I mean, I believe you before I'll trust anyone in a white suit.

   Sheesh, the spin machine has really done a number on the public. I wonder if the heat is also affecting brain cells, as I've recently read that an unfortunately large number of Americans don't believe in evolution as well.

6. Kristian
   June 17th, 2007 at 12:02 am

   I'm sorry, I just can't let this go yet. I decided to click through and see what else was on the website. Here is the description of 2006:

   "In an update to the 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S., NCDC scientists report that 2006 was the 2nd warmest year on record and nearly identical to the record set in 1998. Seven months in 2006 were much warmer than average, including December, which ended as the eighth warmest December since records began in 1895."

   And:

   "The top 25 warmest years on record from both data sets are shown below. Both data sets reflect the unusually warm conditions in the contiguous U.S. during both 1998 and 2006. Both data sets also show that the past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record."

   These quotes are not from any armchair internet complainers, but from the US Govt. Seriously, you can sit back and continue to keep your eyes closed, or you can do the prudent thing and at least take small steps to reduce the negative impact upon our environment...

7. spacemonkey
   June 17th, 2007 at 12:49 am

   "These quotes are not from any armchair internet complainers, but from the US Govt. Seriously, you can sit back and continue to keep your eyes closed, or you can do the prudent thing and at least take small steps to reduce the negative impact upon our environment"

   So you trust the US Govt, eh?

   Mr. Sun makes the world hot.

8. beajerry
   June 17th, 2007 at 12:50 am

   Looks like Sibera's gonna have a lot of unfrozen saber-tooth tigers running amok!

9. Dave
   June 17th, 2007 at 12:59 am

   "Small steps to reduce the negative impact upon our environment"? Hows about we start by moving the Earth's orbit a few notches further away from the sun?

   The problem I have with the global warming theory is that the people pushing it will also tell you that the Earth is billions upon billions of years old, and that using temperature data from the last 100 or so years tells them that we've got a crisis on our hands.

10. meg
    June 17th, 2007 at 1:17 am

    Just a note dave, we dont use data from just the last 100 years. Learn the facts about research methods before you bash them, ok?

    We have ice cores from icebergs, like in antarctica and greenland, that date back approximately 40,000 years at the bottom (that we can get to-it goes down much farther) that can accurately tell the average temperature of the earth at that location at that time to within approximately 3 degrees. And you know what? Extrapolation works well when you have that much data. Of course we aren't the hottest we've ever been...what about when the earth was formed?

    We're only talking about human impact though, and the data that we include in figuring this out DOES include 2 ice ages and several mini ice ages, along with many very hot spells and just about everything in between. While I'm not going to say definitively whether or not humans are the main cause of this increase in temperatures until we have more data and better ways to interpret it, I can say that the data is definately pointing to humans having at least some impact on it.

11. meg
    June 17th, 2007 at 1:18 am

    Spacemonkey, of course the sun makes the world hot. We keep the heat in, that's all. Used to be able to escape.

12. Dave
    June 17th, 2007 at 1:59 am

    Fret not, Meg; I've seen your "facts" and still don't buy your theories. Ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland may be able to tell you what the temperatures were in those locales, but that's one heck of an extrapolation to apply it to the whole globe for millennia.

    The causal link between global warming and human activity is far from a bygone conclusion. You may point to a general "agreement" among the scientific community, but agreement doesn't make for proven science.

    Not long ago it was CFC's and the ozone, now it's carbon footprints (feetprint?) and global warming that's threatening the Earth's climate. The frenetic activities in the '80's & '90's got CFC's banned from developed countries, and suddenly the threat (of a global ice age) disappeared, even though developing countries still dump them into the atmosphere at will.

    It'll be the same with the dreaded burning of fossil fuels; fanatic environmentalists will eventually have their political objectives fulfilled in the US and other developed nations, and the burning of fossil fuels will be banned. Then the threat will miraculously have disappeared, even though China and India and all of Africa will be exempt from the ban.

    Face it, Meg; it's all political. You and your ilk have an agenda, and it's not the saving of the planet. And if you're intent on convincing others of your stance on a given subject, you should at least turn on spell check. Most definitely.

13. david
    June 17th, 2007 at 2:28 am

    Man, I can't believe the ignorance of Neatorama readers. From blaming the sun for global warming to implying that scientists only use records from the last 100 years to determine global temperature trends - unbelievable. Yes, there are cyclic changes, but there has been a recent significant trend upwards with even warmer down cycles than normal. Using statistics and mathematics, these trends imply a dismal future for our planet. Very few renown scientists disagree with this conclusion and to my knowledge there has been no peer-reviewed study to imply otherwise. Studies and statistics are all we have to go on, they are the basis for advances in every scholastic field from medicine to archeology.

14. Jimbo
    June 17th, 2007 at 6:29 am

    I love how the global warming cult followers love to blame mankind. We have been warming since the ice age. Glaciers are melting, and have been for thousands of years. So why is it now man's fault? MONEY!

    There is NO money in disproving global warming, but billions in saying the sky is falling. Just a small percentage of scientist preach global warming.

15. Jimbo
    June 17th, 2007 at 7:22 am

    Just came across this video that discusses this issue.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io-Tb7vTamY

16. Paul
    June 17th, 2007 at 7:35 am

    See that little bit of blue in northern NY? That's where I live. Bring on the global warming, says I. Oh, and if it's real, and the coasts are going to rise, stop building in Manhattan.

17. Molly
    June 17th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    You think money is what motivates people to STOP global warming? Then why are oil companies offering $10,000 payments to specialists who will deny global warming publicly?

    http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/01/oil-lobby-payments/

    The idea that most scientists don't agree with these studies is a total myth. Within peer reviewed journals the consensus is close to 100%. Media outlets just love to report on non-experts with more volatile opinions. If you had cancer, would you go with the advice of accepted medical literature or listen to the one guy with no credentials telling you any treatment is useless?

    I think it's safe to say that if you don't accept the reality of global warming by now you are pretty dumb

18. Mark
    June 17th, 2007 at 9:17 am

    My objection to the "global warming" brouhaha is that the words are not used in the same way. Environmentalists use that term to encapsulate all of the following propositions:

    (1) The Earth, or at least the surface of it, has been getting warmer in the past century.
    (2) This warming trend will surely continue--at least, if human beings do nothing about it.
    (3) If human beings do something about it, this warming trend can be diminished or delayed ...
    (4) ... or perhaps even prevented altogether. Or perhaps even reversed.
    (5) The continuation of the warming trend, on balance, would be bad ...
    (6) ... very bad.
    (7) The effort that human beings would have to make in order to lessen or delay or prevent the warming trend would be worth the cost ...
    (8) ... so well worth the cost, in fact, that we would be crazy not to do it...
    (9) ... and we must begin at once, because our opportunity to take action to lessen or delay or prevent global warming will soon be over.

    I think it should be obvious that not all nine of these propositions is equally well-supported. I agree that there probably is a broad scientific consensus in support of (1). For (2), a little less. For (3), still less, and so forth. And when you get toward the bottom of the list, the questions are no longer scientific, but economic and political, and some involve pure guesswork about the kinds of technology that will (or won't) become available over the course of the coming century.

19. Daniel Leroy
    June 17th, 2007 at 11:14 am

    I think the life is difficult, you need to choose between your 4X4 (4wd?) three cars at home nice climatisation and the future of your children... but who mind when you have a 4wd! US is not third world..."after me the Deluge" (flood)

20. Chris
    June 17th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

    I love Micheal Crichton :

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#.22Aliens_Cause_Global_W arming.22

    and a good read : State of Fear.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear

    Honnest, you read the study pages at the end of the book and you begin to have a slight doubt about GM.

    Anyway, putting my A/C full spead ahead now.

21. Alex
    June 17th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    Michael Crichton, talented that he is as a writer, is not a reliable source for global warming arguments, see: Answers to Key Questions Raised by M. Crichton in State of Fear.

    Most of the arguments against global warming had been cherry picking of data. Overall, there is no scientific doubt that there is a change in the earth's weather and mean temperature, and that we're going to see more extremes in weather events (be it cooling or heating).

22. meg
    June 17th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    well the main problem with global "warming" is that it's really not all warming at all...like alex said, there are more EXTREMES. I have never heard an intelligent argument against the fact that humans are impacting the environment to the point that it's becoming FAR more extreme than before; almost every single naysayer only attacks the "warming"...which is NOT our only problem.

23. Jimbo
    June 18th, 2007 at 4:49 am

    I love how people get facts wrong. For those who didn't watch the video, (and I knew you didn't want to know the truth), I remember the 70's. After a 30 year cooling period, they were concerned about Global Cooling.

    I was there, and I live through it. Junk Science has been around for years. Remember when they thought that cigarettes were good for you? They were looking at flawed data, just like the global warming cult does today.

24. Sid Morrison
    June 18th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    Jimbo is dead on. I was in grade school in the 1970s and our (ahem) "science" teachers warned us that the Earth was cooling. It's true, they insisted! "Scientists had studied gobs of data, ice cores, glacier samples, etc. and determined that we were headed for an Ice Age." Brrrr!

    It's a major crock of ship that a lot of folks are getting rich off of. How about those charlatans selling "carbon credits" (nothing more than carbon indulgences, really!) so they can ease their guilty consciences? It's a major scam.

    Fortunately, the US recognized Kyoto as the fraud that it was and never signed on. I'm not quite so sure how the Red Chinese and Indians were able to bamboozle the Europeans so easily. While Europe agrees to limit its "carbon footprint", Red China is building 2,000 (yes, two THOUSAND) coal-fired power plants. If you are among those who sip the global warming Kool-Aid go complain to the Chocoms, not the U.S.

    Straight talk from Sid.

25. contraryMary
    June 18th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    it's interesting that more energy is spent debating is/isn't happening instead of making solutions. Not just global warming, but being a better person who doesn't have such a destructive enviornmental impact. & I too was taught the ice age was coming again, thus I find the gloabal warming thing hard to believe. I just try and live gently. Nature will cycle.

26. aly
    April 20th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    i am only 12 years old and way smarter than most of the people on this site. global warrming is not happining . god promised to nerver flood the world again. who carees about polar bears

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