Nasa study on Global Warming

[petek]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

well, yeah - but doesnt that tell you the temp of the area where the core sample was taken from?

Yes - at the time that point in the core was the surface of the area in question. These gas bubbles are snapshots of the atmosphere at the time they became entrapped by snowfall.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

I just find it hard to believe you can extrapolate the average temperature of the entire earth from ice core samples taken from several locations, over a period of millions of years

Ain't science wonderful? The mind-boggling intuition, effort and discoveries of scientists have amazed me just about every day since I was a kid.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

esp when our state of the art weathermen cannot tell me what the weather is going to be next week?

The point is, we are discussing climate, not weather. Weather is short-term, chaotic and still largely beyond our ability to model. Climate is, in effect, the integral of weather - it is the long term averaged effect of weather, the activities of the sun, plants, animals and everything. It can be modeled with some degree of accuracy and testability.