The greenhouse effect and global change: review and reappraisal

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Abstract
The Popular Vision of the world influenced by increasing concentrations of infrared‐absorbing trace gases is one of ecological disaster brought about by rapidly rising temperatures, sea level, and evaporation rates. This Vision developed from a penultimate suite of climatic models, which have since drastically reduced their estimates of prospective warming. Further, temperature histories suggest that considerably more warming should have taken place in the Northern Hemisphere than has been observed, and that nighttime, rather than daytime temperatures show relative warming. A nighttime warming may be benign and perhaps beneficial because evaporation rates do not change appreciably. The recalcitrance of the Northern Hemisphere to go along with the premature “carbon dioxide in/disasterous warming out” scenario may be explained by compensating sulfate emissions, which also cause acid rain. Finally, in the absence of a world catastrophe or a major energy breakthrough, it is doubtful that we can even hope to stabilize the concentrations of the most important greenhouse gases over the next thirty years. Will elected officials that have become so highly sensitized to the Popular Vision be able to accommodate these new findings?