Science Article Summary - 1

1.

Past Decade Warmest on Record

[1] J.M. Broder, “Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows,” The New York Times, Jan. 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/science/earth/22warming.html

      Just as speculations into the truth of global warming start to rise, NASA releases a report which stated that the decade from 1999-2009 was the hottest decade to be recorded since weather data began being reported in the late 1800's. The hottest year ever record was 2005, with the rest of the most hottest years all being from that same decade. James Hansen, one of the worlds leading climate experts notes that the temperatures vary greatly because of the oceans temperature fluctuation cycles, but when you average those temperatures over a period of time the findings are conclusive that global warming is still continuing at a rapid rate.

      The National Climatic Data Center has also released studies recently that confirm NASA's findings, but nonetheless the arguments over the truth of global warming will continue, especially after the recent "climategate" fiasco. Climategate caused Hansen, like many other scientists, to be scrutinized over their use of temperature data, claiming that the data had been transformed to their liking in order to hide the real truth from the public.

      Despite the divided opinions after climategate, most scientists and leaders still agree that global warming is a real problem, and will be as long as the Earth's temperature continues to rise at its average of .36 degrees per decade. In order to solve these problems, the worlds leaders at the United Nations climate change summit agreed to try and stop the current global warming trends at 3.6 degrees so that the effects will be more manageable. We will just have to wait and see if these promises will actually be kept within the near future, because most of them are eventually overlooked and forgotten.