On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:12:33 GMT, "BillC"
wrote:


"Roger Coppock" wrote in message
roups.com...
These globally averaged temperature data come from NASA:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/GLB.Ts.txt
They represent the results of tens of millions of readings
taken at thousands of stations covering all the lands of the
Earth over the last 125 years. Yes, the data are corrected
for the urban heat island effect. Unlike other weather and

This type of data and its comparisons are pretty inconclusive. However,
paleotemperature data show things don't stay the same for very long, and
it's better if things are getting warmer than if they were getting colder.

The observation from the data is accurate. The data makes itself
makes no conclusion so it's nonconlusive not inconclusive.

To jump from there to a reliance on paleotemperature data is fiction.
There is no such thing as paleotemperature data - there are indirect
interpretations that relate to climate and change.

The same paleo data and strata has, over the years, been borrowed for
a variety, and sometimes contradictory, conlcusions:- extinctions,
ice-ages, extra-terrestrial impacts, and atmospheric poison
catastrophes.

It's interesting and useful to see if interpreted paleo data can offer
additional possibilities, but it is dangerous science to say
fragmented pieces of the earth's jigsaw puzzle represent detailed
weather measurement or conclusive evidence of global environmental
conditions.