Here’s proof of global warming

Dear editor: Re: Show us proof of global warming, Herald, Letters, April 3

A climate change doubter, I wouldn’t call him a climate change denier, wrote to the Herald suggesting that it was warmer in the 1920’s when he was born in Penticton than it is now.

Here are some temperature data provided by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), based in New York City:

“The earth's average temperature rose by 0.8 C (1.5 F) during the last century.

“During the 1920s to 1940s, temperatures climbed about 0.1 C (0.18 F) each decade. Mean global temperatures then stabilized at roughly 14 C (57.2 F) until the 1980s.

“The world has mainly grown hotter since 1980, at a rate of nearly 0.2 C (0.36 F) per decade.

“The Northern Hemisphere has warmed faster than the Southern Hemisphere, and the entire Arctic has warmed faster than anywhere else in the world.

“If the current rate of increase continues, the world will warm by 2 C (3.6 F) in the next century.”

I think the last part of the quotation is the most significant, because if any human is still alive at the end of this century, given the politics of our generation, they will have a very difficult time in an era of drought, food shortages, and a population of more than 11 billion by the year 2100.

Frank Martens Summerland