Global warming column is silly

The Jan. 15 column by Cal Thomas on the issue of climate change was just plain silly. He begins his column by noting the difference between "weather," which deals with the day-to-day or month-to-month variation in the local environment, and "climate," which deals over periods of decades or longer. That's very true. The fact that we have snow on the ground here in Chicago as I write this has little or nothing to do with the long term increase in global temperatures.

But he then implies that the massive amount of different types of data from numerous sources showing an increase in global temperatures can all be dismissed because of a two-year blip in Arctic sea ice from 2007 to 2009. To address this specific point, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic has generally decreased at around 11 percent per decade from 1978 onward and took a very extreme sharp downturn in 2007. The amount of ice has rebounded slightly from this sudden 2007 drop, but remains roughly 25 percent lower than its 1978 level and is still consistent with the 11 percent per decade drop.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the very source that Thomas cites, are on record calling this situation "still very worrisome."

Information on sea level rise, ocean temperatures, atmospheric temperatures, and, yes, sea ice decreases from scientists from the U.S. and all over the globe all connect to warn us of a nightmare we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.

To claim this short term uptick in a single piece of data is a "recovery" is like saying that since there's snow on ground in Chicago for one week January it negates all the years and years of global data.

Tom Carter, Ph.D.

Geneva