Real Climate Records

By Steve Newman

Global Warming

A report issued by the U.S. space agency NASA concluded that there has been no sign that the greenhouse effect increased global temperatures during the 1980s. Based on satellite analysis of the atmosphere between 1,500 and 6,000 metres above sea level, the report said that the study found “a seemingly random pattern of change from year to year.” While several government and university meteorologists around the world have concluded that average surface temperatures have increased significantly in recent years, the report’s authors said that their satellite analysis of the upper atmosphere is more accurate, and should be adopted as the standard way to monitor global temperature change.

El Nino

Sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific rose by an average of two degrees Celsius each month since November, raising fears, and  hopes, that another episode of the El Nino wind reversal pattern may have started. In the mid-1980s, the last El Nino brought severe flooding to California, drought from Australia to  Thailand, and disruption of the south west monsoon in the Indian Ocean.

Suffering from its third consecutive year of drought, residents of California could benefit from the additional rainfall that El Nino might bring them next winter.