When global warming was a hot topic, the announcement of average annual temperatures was a heralded event. So when the National Climatic Data Center announced the 2009 average temp. for the United States on Friday, January 8, 2010, one might think that the interest would at least be piqued. Key "annual average temperature" into Mr. Google news and the first article that actually deals with this subject is from London and is focused on the high cost of "warmists." When global warming proponents (I do like the term warmists) beat us over the head with 14 years of warming (1995-2008) they should also be glad to tell us that the last two years have been so close to normal that the difference is a statistical one (in other words, you probably don't feel it).
North Georgia folks probably don't have a problem telling you its colder because we didn't see normal temps - we were 4 degrees Fahrenheit below normal in December, 2009, and that's a little more than statistically significant. A large portion of the center of the country was 8 degrees Fahrenheit below normal last month. In Atlanta, this has been the coldest start to January since 1869, when records were first kept.
I do believe that global warming is occurring. I just have never been sure why, I don't know if its a short-term or long term change, and nobody has proven to my satisfaction that the CO2 theories of the warmists are scientifically sound. Remeber the "ozone hole" whose growth could destroy mankind? Guess what - it reached its peak in September, 2006 and has been shrinking since. Right now its about the size it was in 1992.
The warmists have arguments that sound logical, but are they really reasonable? One example Al uses is the melting of the icebergs in Alaska. Thunder Bay (now Glacier Bay National Park), has receded some 20 miles since the start of the 20th century (a fact Mr. Gore presented in his book. Well, the ice levels in Glacier Bay have been receding since it was explored in 1790, a half-century before the advent of fossil fuel and a 100 years before its use could be considered common.
In November, 2009 160mb of emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that showed the CRUs efforts to disseminate information that only supported the CO2 theory of global warming. The emails were then uploaded to Realclimate.org, where the file stayed for about 2 hours until it was removed. Researcher and author Kim Cobb wrote "CRU e-mails are an embarrassment to climate science in general." In America, only FoxNews seized on reporting the event and ran multiple stories on "Climategate." Furthermore, the results reported by the CRU can not be duplicated from the raw data available and the CRU has refused to release the "climategate code." (code is programming).
My wife and I have lived in Cherokee County for 17 years and have always been able to get out after a snow storm until we got 2 inches of the white stuff on Thursday, January 7, 2010. Because of the extended cold, when the rain from the start of the storm froze, it made our road impassible until the county salted it on Saturday. Now one storm doesn't mean global warming is history, but 24 months is a significant statistical anomaly that may force the warmists to rethink their claims.
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