Читать книгу Global Warming and Other Bollocks - Stanley Feldman - Страница 30

• The correlation between CO₂ and temperature demonstrated in ice-core samples shows that in some instances the rise in temperature occurs before the increase in CO₂, often by about 600 to 1000 years.

• Earth was believed to be at its coldest 600 million years ago (Snowball Earth) when the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere was up to 100 times higher than today.

• In the past 50 years, when the measurements are most reliable, the correlation between CO₂ levels and temperature is not very good. The correlation between temperature and solar activity is much better.

• There was a rise in temperature in the medieval period and a fall in the 16th and 17th centuries. Neither appears to have been associated with an abrupt change in CO₂ levels. The fall in temperature between 1945 and 1970 occurred at a time of intense industrial activity.

• The changes in temperatures have not been the same all over the world, although CO₂ levels in all areas are similar.

• 2007–08 has seen some unusually cold weather in various parts of the world with snow in Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Athens and Shanghai. The coldest winter weather since 1941 was recorded in NE Australia; a very cold winter was recorded in the northeast of the USA; there was a cold spell in California in January 2008, which devastated the citrus crop.

• The CO₂ released by human activity comes from the carbon sequestrated from the atmosphere many years ago. It is not newly produced, merely recycled, and has therefore not added to the net level of the CO₂ on the planet.

• The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is minute compared with the amount of water vapour and droplets. Water is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂.