by Robert Griffith

Created on: February 13, 2009

No matter where you live on the earth your weather will change significantly in the next five years. You will see a wider range of variability in your normal climatic conditions. It will be hotter, it will be colder, it will be drier, it will be wetter than usual. Air turbulence will increase, storms will be more powerful, barometric pressure and humidity ranges will fluctuate more broadly. Food crops will experience at least a short term drop in productivity levels. More shelter energy will be used to counteract heat and cold fluctuations. Fragile ecosystems will deteriorate and disappear.

The coldest, hardest fact about global warming is we don't know enough about it yet to make an accurate long term prediction about it. We need a comprehensive model of all the complex mechanisms which affect global warming, one that reconciles them into an accurate, verifiable prediction. We need a full understanding of the problems involved and the solutions available. We don't have that yet. The order of complexity is too high, our information too sparse. But on a simpler and more immediate level, based on what we do know and are experiencing now, the above scenario for our near future is accurate.

Here's a basic overview of what we know so far.

We have observed the following developments: (1) The planet is getting warmer; (2) Ice caps and glaciers around the world are melting; (3) CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are rising; (4) There's a short term historical record of cyclical fluctuations in global weather; and (5) There's a long term geological record of radical fluctuations in global temperature.

We know that atmospheric temperature variability is influenced by: (1) Solar radiation; (2) The orientation of the earth's rotational axis; (3) Deep and upper ocean currents; (4) Atmospheric composition ratios and atmospheric particulate concentrations; (5) Human and geological thermal sources; and (6) Ecological sources.

We have an extensive knowledge of thermodynamics: (1) Heat is measureable; (2) Heat is radiant, absorbable, and transferable between materials; (3) Different materials store and release different amounts of heat; (4) Materials at phase change points (gas to liquid, liquid to solid) absorb or release larger amounts of heat energy relative to the amount of heat energy they require to heat up or cool down in their gas, liquid or solid phases; and (5) Heat is dynamically conveyed by oceanic and atmospheric currents.

No single one of these known facts nor any

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