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7am News
Despite some
evidence that the world may be getting warmer, many scientists
and the Bush administration still doubt the overall existence
of so-called global warming.
Experts do
generally agree that the world, in the past century, has grown
0.5 to 1 degree warmer on average – a phenomenon they say
is responsible for eroding beaches and melting ice caps.
But mostly
the debate centers on whether human activity is responsible for
the phenomenon or whether the Earth is naturally warming after
billions of years.
Some of the
holdouts on estimates of worst-case scenarios in the future are
very notable, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday.
They include
the hurricane forecaster William M. Gray, an atmospheric scientist
at Colorado State University; Richard S. Lindzen, a highly regarded
professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and John Christy, a University of Alabama researcher, the paper
said.
Gray says
that the recent upswing in hurricanes has absolutely nothing to
do with rising global temperatures. Global warming could no more
explain the increase in storm frequency, he says, than it could
explain the quiet hurricane periods of the 1970s and '80s, the
paper said.
Lindzen questions
whether a consensus has really formed around the notion of global
warming. He has likened the greenhouse issue to the eugenics movement
of the 1920s, which held that certain mental defects could be
explained by a gene disorder, said the paper.
Lindzen has
argued that the eugenics movement, which led to a restrictive
immigration law, was fed by a false perception of scientific consensus
and that a similarly false perception of consensus is helping
shape the public attitude toward greenhouse warming, the Inquirer
said.
Surface readings
have shown significant warming, especially in the last 10 years,
but satellite data provide a somewhat different picture.
Using microwave
profiles of the bottom five miles of the atmosphere, Christy and
NASA's Roy Spencer have compiled a record showing only a tiny
increase in global temperature since 1979, the paper said.
Warming in
the Northern Hemisphere has been counterbalanced by cooling in
the Southern Hemisphere, the researchers say.
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