Global Warming Meltdown?

The answer to the pop quiz is NASA. NASA scientists studying the "rise" in sea level have discovered an error in the software aboard TOPEX/POSEIDON, the U.S.-French satellite that is supposed to be measuring sea-level change. The error has produced a severe exaggeration in NASA's estimates of sea-level change.

Climatologists have theorized that global warming will cause sea level to rise because of thermal expansion of water and melting glaciers.

In December 1994, TOPEX/POSEIDON reported a sea level rise of about 0.12 inches annually for two years. As more data were collected the published estimate rose to 0.2 inches of rise per year.

But NASA discovered that the satellite's altimeter had a mathematical error in its data-processing software that causes it to inflate the rise in sea level.

The actual rise may be as low as 0.04 to 0.12 inches per year.

Interestingly enough, a week earlier, The Washington Post ran an editorial titled How to Cool the Earth in which the editors wrote:

The great majority of the world's scientific experts have come to a consensus that human activity is contributing to a measurable warming of the atmosphere. [emphasis added]

Maybe The Post is partially right. "Human activity" is causing global warming. But maybe that activity is bad NASA computer programming, not manmade emissions of greenhouse gases!

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Copyright © 1996 Steven J. Milloy. All rights reserved. Site developed and hosted by WestLake Solutions, Inc.