Myth or reality; Some data dispute global warming theory
Science in March 1990 published a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) analysis of data collected from 1979 through 1988 by the TIROS-N series of weather satellites. The data include the most precise global temperature measurements ever taken. The study found no evidence of global warming from the greenhouse effect during that period. If anything, the short-term trend was toward cooling, since the average of the first five years, 1979 to 1983, was warmer than the most recent five. The NASA findings can be added to a burgeoning body of scientific data seriously questioning the contention that Earth is threatened by global warming resulting from a greenhouse effect primarily instigated by man. Ironically, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been the nation's most outspoken advocate of the thesis that, because concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) and other greenhouse gases, such as methane, have risen by 30 percent in the last 100 years and are expected to rise another 40 percent by 2050, the planet eventually will warm by about 4 degrees Celsius. According to this hypothesis, the warming will cause major coastal flooding, inland droughts and sundry other catastrophes. But Reid Bryson, founder of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, contends Hansen's thesis cannot be accepted, and Michael Schlesinger, professor of meteorology at the University of Illinois, asserts the chance that global warming has already been detected is pretty close to zero.
- OSTI ID:
- 5936225
- Journal Information:
- Hazmat World; (United States), Vol. 4:4; ISSN 0898-5685
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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