Etheridge, D. M., et al.

Natural and anthropogenic changes in atmospheric CO2 over the last 1000 years from air in Antarctic ice and firn. Journal of Geophysical Research 101 (1996): 411528
Looks like, uh, a third of a degree. A third of a degree Celsius in a hundred and twenty years. Not very dramatic. She pointed to the graph. And what was the warmest year of the last century? Looks like 1934. Does this graph indicate to you that global warming is occurring? Well. The temperature is going up. For the last thirty years, yes. But it went down for the previous thirty years. And current temperatures in the US are roughly the same as they were in the 1930s. So: Does this graph argue for global warming? Yes, Evans said. Its just not as dramatic in the US as it is in the rest of the world, but its still happening. Does it trouble you that the most accurate temperature record shows the least warming? No. Because global warming is a global phenomenon. Its not just the US. If you had to defend these graphs in a court of law, do you think you could persuade a jury of your position? Or would a jury look at the graph and say, this global warming stuff is nothing serious? Leading the witness, he said, laughing. In fact, Evans was feeling slightly uneasy. But only slightly. Hed heard such claims before, at environmental conferences. Industry hacks could slap together data that they had massaged and twisted, and give a convincing, well-prepared speech, and before Evans knew it, hed start to doubt what he knew. As if she were reading his mind, Jennifer said, These graphs show solid data, Peter. Temperature records from Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University. Carbon dioxide levels from Mauna Loa and the Law Dome ice cores in Antarctica.*All generated by researchers who believe firmly in global warming. Yes, he said. Because the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world is that global warming is happening and it is a major worldwide threat.

Culver City:
And we know that carbon dioxidethe gas we all worry abouthas increased the same amount everywhere in the world She pulled out another graph:

Yes And its effect is presumably the same everywhere in the world. Thats why its called global warming. Yes But New York and Albany are only a hundred forty miles apart. You can drive between them in three hours. Their carbon dioxide levels are identical. Yet one got a lot warmer and the other got slightly colder. Is that evidence for global warming?

* South Pole, Mauna Loa: C. D. Keeling, T. P. Whorf, and the Carbon Dioxide Research Group, Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO), University of California, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A.; Seychelles: Thomas J. Conway, Pieter Tans, Lee S. Waterman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder CO 80303. See http:// cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm