Numbers are ominous on climate change

I found Wally Degner's May 24 letter in "Your Views" quite amusing. That 1.5 degree average temperature change is for the USA only and covers 139 years not 115. Other countries' numbers are not as reliable but some are higher, almost none are the same or lower.

The point being that globally, almost everywhere you look, the mean temperature has gone up.

The carbon dioxide numbers globally have just surpassed the 400 parts per million mark for the first time in 2 million years. And guess what rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes? Higher average air temperatures and shrinking polar ice fields.

Are the thermometers, laboratories, and the satellite optics all off and/or wrong?

Finally there are the rising sea levels. Guess what happens if you warm something up? It expands. I learned that in high school.

Unless those sea level rises are caused by bad rulers (pun intended).

David Filar

Arlington Heights