Re: 2007 the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

Simple question. There are many who believe that man is contributing to Global Warming. A number of scientist hammered out a Kyoto Accord way back when to address the problem. That Accord went nowhere (why is that if they are right?). They are in the midst of coming up with yet another agreement, is this agreement going to be any more successful that the last one? "If" it is not, what does that say about the worlds concern about the issue? We are in the midst of another Presidential election. What has the various candidates for office said about what they would do to address the issue? Have ANY of them said that WE have to make significant sacrifices to avoid the event from happening, or have those who have even mentioned the issue told us we can solve the problem with little or not pain? "If" they have not put this issue on the top of their list of problems we need to address, what does that say about how important an issue this is in their minds? What has the two parties platforms said about Global Warming and what they would do about it?

"Borked Pseudo Mailed" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:92d35e71dc34c20df7d4af4fe3d1cb06@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

2007 a year of weather records in U.S.
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Sat Dec 29, 12:15 PM ET
WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on record worldwide - 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.


And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year
on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature
records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data.
England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there,
shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather
events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the
tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

In the Middle East, an equally rare cyclone spun up in June, hitting
Oman and Iran. Major U.S. lakes shrank; Atlanta had to worry about
its drinking water supply. South Africa got its first significant
snowfall in 25 years. And on Reunion Island, 400 miles east of
Africa, nearly 155 inches of rain fell in three days - a world record
for the most rain in 72 hours.

Individual weather extremes can't be attributed to global warming,
scientists always say. However, "it's the run of them and the different
locations" that have the mark of man-made climate change, said top
European climate expert Phil Jones, director of the climate research
unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

Worst of all - at least according to climate scientists - the Arctic,
which serves as the world's refrigerator, dramatically warmed in
2007, shattering records for the amount of melting ice.

2007 seemed to be the year that climate change shook the
thermometers, and those who warned that it was beginning
to happen were suddenly honored. Former Vice President
Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar
and he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, an international group of thousands
of scientists. The climate panel, organized by the United Nations,
released four major reports in 2007 saying man-made global
warming was incontrovertible and an urgent threat to millions of lives.

Through the first 10 months, it was the hottest year recorded on
land and the third hottest when ocean temperatures are included.

Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S.
weather stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or
tied for specific August dates.

More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time
temperature records were tied or broken - regardless of the date
- either for the highest reading or the warmest low temperature
at night. By comparison only 14 all-time low temperatures were
set or tied all year long, as of early December, according to records
kept by the National Climatic Data Center.

For example, on Aug. 10, the town of Portland, Tenn., reached
102 degrees, tying a record for the hottest it ever had been.
On Aug. 16, it hit 103 and Portland had a new all-time record.
But that record was broken again the next day when the
mercury reached 105.

Daily triple-digit temperatures took a toll on everybody, public
safety director George West recalled. The state had 15 heat-related
deaths in August.

Portland was far from alone. In Idaho, Chilly Barton Flat wasn't
living up to its name. The weather station in central Idaho tied
an all-time high of 100 on July 26, Aug. 7, 14 and 19. During
2007, weather stations in 35 states, from Washington to Florida,
set or tied all-time heat records in 2007.

Across Europe this past summer, extreme heat waves killed
dozens of people.

And it wasn't just the heat. It was the rain. There was either too
little or too much.

More than 60 percent of the United States was either abnormally
dry or suffering from drought at one point in August. In November,
Atlanta's main water source, Lake Lanier, shrank to an all-time
low. Lake Okeechobee, crucial to south Florida, hit its lowest level
in recorded history in May, exposing muck and debris not seen
for decades. Lake Superior, the biggest and deepest of the
Great Lakes, dropped to its lowest August and September levels in history.

Los Angeles hit its driest year on record. Lakes fed by the
Colorado River and which help supply water for more than 20
million Westerners, were only half full.

Australia, already a dry continent, suffered its worst drought in a century, making global warming an election issue. On the other extreme, record rains fell in China, England and Wales.

Minnesota got the worst of everything: a devastating June and
July drought followed by record August rainfall. In one March day,
Southern California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and f
ierce winds. Then in the fall came devastating fires driven by
Santa Ana winds.

And yet none of those events worried scientists as much as what was going on in the Arctic in the summer. Sea ice melted not just to record levels, but far beyond the previous melt record. The Northwest Passage was the most navigable it had been in modern times. Russia planted a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, claiming sovereignty.

The ice sheets that cover a portion of Greenland retreated to
an all-time low and permafrost in Alaska warmed to record levels.

Meteorologists have chronicled strange weather years for more
than a decade, but nothing like 2007. It was such an extreme
weather year that the World Meteorological Organization put out
a news release chronicling all the records and unusual developments.
That was in August with more than 145 sizzling days to go.

Get used to it, scientists said. As man-made climate change
continues, the world will experience more extreme weather,
bursts of heat, torrential rain and prolonged drought, they said.

"We're having an increasing trend of odd years," said Michael
MacCracken, a former top federal climate scientist, now chief
scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington. "Pretty soon
odd years are going to become the norm."

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