Warming up despite pitch

Several recent letters have referenced websites calling global warming a fraud because temperatures rose less than predicted over the last 15 years.

Fifteen years.

Consider this name: Philip Humber, who in 2012 pitched a perfect baseball game, which had happened only 21 times before. Is Humber a great pitcher? No. He’s on his third team since then, with a career record of 16-23.

Declaring global warming a hoax based on a 15-year slowdown is like a baseball team risking millions of dollars to sign Humber to a long-term contract because of that perfect game.

Over the last 150 years, the planet’s measured temperature looks like a ski jump. The steepness of this curve lessened slightly since 1998. Similar pauses also happened from 1880-1910 and 1945-75. Solar cycles, aerosols or ocean currents explain much of the pause. But the temperature didn’t suddenly start reversing. It just didn’t go up as fast as we thought it might.

Don’t be fooled. The amount of carbon dioxide we put in the air has, and will, significantly increase global temperature because, you know, physics.

Humber isn’t going to Cooperstown, perfect game or not. Global warming isn’t going away, temporary pause or not.

Keith Bromley

Moscow, Idaho