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WORLD TEMPERATURES KEEP RISING WITH A HOT 2005
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202
498.html

New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest
year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures.

Climatologists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies calculated the
record-breaking global average temperature, which now surpasses 1998's
record by a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, from readings taken at 7,200
weather stations scattered around the world.

The new analysis comes as government and independent scientists are
reporting other dramatic signs of global warming, such as the record
shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice cover and unprecedented high ocean
temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

Late last month, a team of University of Colorado and NASA scientists
announced that the Arctic sea ice cap shrank this summer to 200 million
square miles, 500,000 square miles less than its average area between 1979
and 2000. And a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration determined that sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of
Mexico were higher in August than at any time since 1890, which may have
contributed to the intense hurricanes that struck the region this year.

"At this point, people shouldn't be surprised this is happening," said
Goddard atmospheric scientist David Rind, noting that 2002, 2003 and 2004
were among the warmest years on record.

Many climatologists, along with policymakers in a number of countries,
believe the rapid temperature rise over the past 50 years is heavily driven
by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities that have spewed
carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere. A vocal
minority of scientists say the warming climate is the result of a natural
cycle.

Rind compared the warming trend to what happens when a major league baseball
team owner spends lavishly on players' salaries. Pumping heat-trapping gases
into the atmosphere, he said, produces the same kind of predictable results
as boosting a team's payroll.

"When they get into the playoffs, should we be surprised?" he asked. "We're
putting a lot more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and we're getting a
lot higher temperatures."

Global temperatures this year are about 1.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.75
Celsius) above the average between 1950 and 1980, according to the Goddard
analysis. Worldwide temperatures in 1998 were 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit (0.71
Celsius) above that 30-year average. The data show that Earth is warming
more in the Northern Hemisphere, where the average 2005 temperature was
two-tenths of a degree above the 1998 level.

Climate experts say such seemingly small shifts are significant because they
involve average readings based on measurements taken at thousands of sites.
To put it in perspective, the planet's temperature rose by just 1 to 1.5
degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.

Rind, who said it would probably take a major event such as a massive
volcanic eruption to keep this year from setting a record, said that
scientists expect worldwide temperatures to rise another degree Fahrenheit
between 2000 and 2030, and an additional 2 to 4 degrees by 2100.

From that perspective, this year's higher temperatures are "really small
potatoes compared to what's to come," he said.

But one skeptic, state climatologist George Taylor of Oregon, said it is
difficult to determine an accurate global average temperature, especially
since there are not enough stations recording ocean temperatures.

"I just don't trust it," Taylor said of the new calculation, noting that
Goddard's findings are "mighty preliminary."

Several scientists said yesterday that Earth's rapid warming could become
self-perpetuating as the buildup of heat in the air, on land and in the sea
accelerates. Ted A. Scambos, the lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice
Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said the shrinkage of sea ice in the Arctic
makes it more likely that the region will warm faster, because open water
absorbs much more heat from the sun than snow and ice.

"Change is really happening in the Arctic. We're going to see this again and
again," Scambos said. He added that, because the Arctic helps keep global
temperatures down, any warming there can mean "you're going to change [the
world's] climate significantly."

In response to recent warming in the Arctic, a coalition of environmental
groups said it plans to sue the Interior Department to force it to list
polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because the sea
ice they depend on is disappearing. The Natural Resources Defense Council,
the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups petitioned for the
listing in February, but they say Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton has yet
to respond.

"The polar bear's a harbinger of what's to come. It's the first animal to be
threatened with extinction by climate change, but it won't be the last,"
said NRDC attorney Andrew Wexler. He noted that polar bears cannot adapt
well to rising temperatures because they are dependent on sea ice for
survival.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris Tollefson said the agency is
analyzing the petition. "We haven't really reached a conclusion," Tollefson
said.

The Bush administration has consistently advocated funding for technological
research rather than requiring curbs in carbon dioxide emissions, saying
that such limits could damage the economy.

William O'Keefe, chief executive of the George C. Marshall Institute, which
is skeptical of global warming predictions, said policymakers should not
rush to impose new rules on industry when it remains unclear whether the
current warming worldwide reflects natural climate variability or a
human-induced trend.

"It still remains very complicated," O'Keefe said.

But Rafe Pomerance, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for
the environment under President Bill Clinton and who now chairs the
bipartisan Climate Policy Center, said a modest system to limit and trade
carbon dioxide emissions could help curb global warming.

"We need to develop a range of very serious policies and put them in place,"
Pomerance said.

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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