Now where was I before we had the interlude; thats right the inaccuracy of the model that is forecasting our future tax rates, I mean future temperatures.

The temperature from 1856 to 2000 went up between 0.4 –0.8 degrees Celsius. This is not based on tree rings, monkey’s feet or wetting your finger and holding it into the air. No, it’s based on actual recorded temperatures.

All of the 20th century’s temperature increases occurred in two time frames –1910 to 1945 and 1975 to 2000. Now we can all accept the second period but what caused it to go up in the first period? The IPCC (remember them, the UN group) think it was caused by an increase in solar irradiation from 1700 onwards but cannot scientifically justify this. As I have said before “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story”.

But the big question for us is “Tell me what the temperature will be in the future?”

This probably means forecasting the future green house emissions. In 1990 the IPCC put out a report which described the business as usual scenario, in other words we carry on as we are now and make no changes. This was contrasted to three other scenarios where we make some changes. In 1992 they updated the report and added more scenarios. In 2000 they updated the report again, they scrapped the business as usual scenario and ended up with 40 (that’s right Virginia, 40!) scenarios. I think this is called obfuscation (my wife’s favourite word at the moment). This is the concept of concealing the meaning of communication by making it more confusing and harder to interpret –Doctors do this, and people in the IT industry.

If we take the six scenarios that constitute the smallest subset, we get an estimated temperature increase by 2100 (won’t affect me, or probably anyone reading this –you do read it don’t you?) will be between 2-4.5 degrees Celsius.

From this they estimate the sea level will rise by 31-49 cm (12.2 to 19.3 inches for the oldies once again). This is a lower increase than the previous estimate of 38-55 cm because the computer models are better. By the time 2100 comes around they won’t need computer models!

1. How much effect does CO2 have on the temperature? If they effect is slight then we don’t have much to fear from Global Warming.

2. Could temperature increases be caused by other events? If the temperature increases we have seen and observed are not due to global warming then it becomes less important.

3. Are the greenhouse scenarios reasonable? In other words are the predications based on reasonable assumptions?

4. What will happen if the temperature does increase? If it does not result in catastrophic consequences then perhaps the problems are not as great as imagined.