Satellites Show That Earth Has a Fever

Roland Piquepaille writes "A recent study from NASA says that satellites are acting as thermometers in space. Contrary to meteorological ground stations which measure the air temperature around two meters above the ground, satellites can accurately measure the temperature of the Earth's skin. And this new study, which covers the 18-year period going from 1981 to 1998, shows that the Earth's temperature is rising 0.43C per decade instead of the O.34C found by previous methods. Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever. This overview contains more details and a spectacular image showing the European heat wave of the summer of 2003."

Comments

Re:So?

[Syberghost]

Worst-case scenario is that the eco-terrorists actually convince somebody to try to reverse the trend, and instead of everybody having to move a little north we all end up stuck inside a glacier.

Re:Come on already

[DarkOx]

Right, because it makes since to sacrifice the 3 Billion dollors worth of economic steam just to enfoce Kyoto so we can actually lower the rate of global warming by 1% which is likely a natural occurance that we are speeding up in an insignifigant way. Most resonobly attainable emmisons reduction goals would have NO MEANINGFUL impact on the enviornment, over just keeping current standards. They will be a huge economic burdon. To really "stop polluting" you would drive the economy to a screeching halt.

In either case that means lost jobs. Less money availble to solve other problems like hunger and develop cures for medical problems, liberate the middle east, protect morons like you from yourselves and the terrorist alike, educate your children, the list goes on. So please understand there is no we might as well argument to be made here, its more of a we should'nt unless type of situation. Unless we are reasonbly sure we are damaging ocean currents and screwing up the climate it makes no sense to certainly RUIN many people well being over it.
What is called for is some money and time to conduct real unbiased studies and learn what we can, and to get all the people spewing forth the "bad science" on both sides of this issue to sit down shutup and move over for legitimate study. Then maybe in another 30 years when we have some really information we make INFORMED decisions on how to procede.

fuck you troll

[jbrians]

Your name is fitting.

You can blather on about proof and a shadow of a doubt all you want, but the fucking temperature has been rising for the last 20 years. The overwhelming consensus among academics in the field is that a) Global Warming is real and b) human activity is at least a contributing factor.

You're technically correct that they could be wrong, and we don't have definitive proof. But all indications are that we should do something about this problem. The consequences for being wrong in inaction are billions of lives and untold destruction of civilization as we know it. The consequences for being wrong in action are that we waste some time and money.