Those who advocate that there is global warming caused by the activities of man are eager to find any measurement that gives them hope their ideas are correct. There were news reports that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere “surged” from 2011 to 2012. Carbon dioxide concentrations did increase 2.42 parts per million to just under 395 parts per million by the end of 2012/  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that increase was the highest since 1998, “…which saw a rise of 2.93 ppm.”

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/global-carbon-dioxide-levels-show-biggest-spike-15-131534825.html

The inference is that we are on a destructive path to global warming because of man’s insistence on burning fossil fuels. There are so many misleading aspects that it is difficult to know where to begin. Meteorologist Bill Collins warned against taking too much from the recent data. He gave some facts that would give hope to global warming advocates, such as his acknowledgment that 2012 was a “hot year.” He then observed that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly influenced by plant activity, since plants use carbon dioxide as a food. He wrote that “…year to year variability is often caused by uptake of plants and trees.”

What the meteorologist did not mention is that higher temperatures result in lower solubility of carbon dioxide in ocean water and higher atmospheric concentrations. Al Gore was filmed marching in front of a huge graph in the movie “Inconvenient Truth” that shows correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide emission. He then conveniently does not mention that the temperatures increase about three decades before carbon dioxide levels increase. Warming of oceans by the sun is the primary cause of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. It would be difficult to blame activity of the sun on man.

It is important to note that amounts of carbon dioxide created by man in the United States have plummeted in recent years. A 2012 report in The New York Times mentions “…Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States from January through March were the lowest of any recorded for the first quarter of the year since 1992.” Fracking has produced abundant amounts of natural gas which burns cleaner than coal. Energy production using natural gas is much less expensive than solar and wind, and of course that irritates those who advocate that “alternative energy” is the only acceptable answer.

I’ll close with a brief quiz. How much do you think the temperature of the earth has increased in the past century? Remember all those doomsday articles and reports you have read and seen about the calamitous move toward global warming. The answer is that “Since the mid-1800s, the global temperature has risen by 0.7 degrees Centigrade…”  January 2013 was the thirty ninth warmest on record. Those facts don’t come out very often because they don’t represent what would be judged by journalists as exciting information that would attract attention.