Clyde Burnett, Boulder County.  The recent hullabaloo about global temperature predictions fails to credit the global temperature measurements displayed in the NASA vital signs of the planet as the bottom line of climate facts. There is no question of the trend of temperature increase of more than 1oC since the early 1900s.

The assumption by the media that temperature is the only reliable science information that has meaning for the voting public distracts from the fact that observations of melting Arctic and glacier ice require very large amounts of energy increase. You can find NASA’s Operation Icebridge series of videos at www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/arctic-wintertime-sea-ice-extent-is-among-lowest-on-record (see photo).

More than 90% of the trapped heat is absorbed in the oceans. The NASA satellites display of sea level rise shows a nearly steady increase of 90 mm in the last 20 years, due to ice melt and thermal expansion.

We fail to appreciate that the atmospheric greenhouse effect has given us the additional warm 60°F surface temperature and that this is due largely to water vapor in the 10-day cycle of evaporation of large amounts of water vapor from the warmed oceans followed by the recent heavy precipitation and flooding. And we need to understand that it is the increasing control of the water vapor thermal trapping by trace species like CO2.

Finally, we should know that the centuries long atmospheric cycles of CO2 mean that there is no return to normal climate in our lifetime.

Clive Hamilton’s 2010 book “Requiem for a Species” devotes a study of humanity’s response to the science of climate change with concerns about our future care for humanity and our planet. The problem has arisen due to our failure to recognize our increased role in Nature due to population increase. Our response to the science of global warming and Earth’s response has received little guidance from US media, possibly caused by science ignorance of news and weather personnel, with primary emphasis on consumerism.

Hamilton assumes the position that our near future will involve a global temperature of 4°C; he sees no way that we will stop at 2°C. Media is largely to blame. CO2 is now up to 410 ppm; most reporters explain incorrectly that it is greenhouse gas because it traps solar radiation with no mention of trapping of Earth’s infrared.

There have been recent advances in dependence on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, but this is due not so much to environmental concerns as to predictable profits from production scale. The leadership in decreased costs of equipment and availability of jobs is largely due to this recognition and action by China, but this movement is far too slow to avoid Hamilton’s 4°C scenario.

Hamilton imagined a possible leadership ranging from international intelligence to business influence but did not foresee the extreme response of our democracy to an administration that ignores Science in destroying every move made to protect our planet and its human civilization. Hamilton’s concern about lack of constructive climate response suggests a radical departure from our sluggish democratic process. I would like to hope that it is not too late to correct our political response to the problem.

But we must first fix the situation of an informed electorate. We need to appreciate the benign laws of Nature to which humans and our supporting plants and animals have evolved. Every public school student and every voting adult should know that water vapor is the absorbing blanket of earth’s infrared, that carbon dioxide is its control, and too much of this good thing is dangerous to life on Earth.