Regis Philbin
Apr 18th, 2006, 04:48 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/1017204.stm
Questioning global warming
By BBC News Online's Jonathan Amos
There is nothing so hot as the debate that has surrounded global warming.
Most mainstream scientists believe that human activity - notably emissions of greenhouse gases - has contributed to a significant increase in the average surface temperature of the planet.
However, there is still a sizeable group of researchers who dissent from this consensus.
They question much of the science which underpins the global warming hypothesis:
Urban heat islands
Data from weather stations on land and at sea have been used to reconstruct variations in the Earth's annual-mean surface temperature over the past century.
These show a warming in the range 0.3-0.60C over the period. But the sceptics doubt whether much, or any, of the warming can be linked to increases in C02.
They make the point that much of the data comes from weather stations close to towns and cities. The warming may simply reflect the heat associated with the growth of those towns and cities.
Any "real" warming that may exist once this bias has been properly extracted falls well within the "noise" of natural climate variability.
Questioning global warming
By BBC News Online's Jonathan Amos
There is nothing so hot as the debate that has surrounded global warming.
Most mainstream scientists believe that human activity - notably emissions of greenhouse gases - has contributed to a significant increase in the average surface temperature of the planet.
However, there is still a sizeable group of researchers who dissent from this consensus.
They question much of the science which underpins the global warming hypothesis:
Urban heat islands
Data from weather stations on land and at sea have been used to reconstruct variations in the Earth's annual-mean surface temperature over the past century.
These show a warming in the range 0.3-0.60C over the period. But the sceptics doubt whether much, or any, of the warming can be linked to increases in C02.
They make the point that much of the data comes from weather stations close to towns and cities. The warming may simply reflect the heat associated with the growth of those towns and cities.
Any "real" warming that may exist once this bias has been properly extracted falls well within the "noise" of natural climate variability.