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39.95
Tue Mar 04, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Does this number mean anything to you, 39.95? Well, that's the averaged temperature in the
U.S. between November, 2001 and January, 2002. It's the warmest recorded average in those
three months since surface records began in 1895. Since 1976, the average temps during those
months has increased 1.2 degrees each decade.
Is it because of global climate change?
The short answer? Maybe.
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Today, we begin a special weekly series on
global climate change. It is one of the most passionately debated issues on our planet.
Let's start with this question: is there really global climate change?
Cameron Wake, an assistant research professor at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans
and Space at the University of New Hampshire, responds this way:
CW: One thing you need to understand is that climate is changing, climate has always changed
and it will always be changing. So global climate change is something that has been with us
since the beginning of time and will always be with us.
So what's all this fuss about global climate change if it's always changing?
CW: Over the last several thousand years we have lots of data that tell us that the Earth's
average global temperature was relatively constant.
George Hurtt, an assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of Earth Oceans and
Space.
GH: And now we have lots of data from different methods that the average global temperature is
increasing. Some based on satellites and ground measurements. Some from proxy measures like
glacial ice extent which is decreasing in most places in the world.
But why is this happening? Many scientists believe that it's due to the growing concentration
of greenhouse gases which trap heat in the atmosphere. More on that next week.
The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Our global climate
change series is underwritten by the New England Science Center Collaborative and Roy A. Hunt
Foundation.
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