In the 1890s, long before Obama was born, science had achieved the capability to measure the flux of solar energy reaching planet Earth and determine that the rate of energy loss from a solid surface is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. These conceptual advances make it possible to calculate what the temperature of Earth would be now, if all outgoing radiation were free to escape into space. The planet would be significantly colder.

Why is the planet warmer? Swedish Nobel Prize winner, Arrhenius, reasoned that the planet was warmer because carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere blocked radiation diffusion. Subsequently, scientists have determined a deeper understanding of how radiation is blocked and absorbed. Computer models, not one but many, indicate how these processes effect climate, both past and present. Such models also offer a variety of predictions about the future. (As a former staff member of Los Alamos National Lab, I can tell you both liberals and conservatives have worked on these models, political persuasions notwithstanding.)

That there are political “intellectual blank cartridges” and politicians who want to politicize scientific study is one of the many serious problems our country faces. Barack Obama’s statement that global temperatures are rising is predicated on much more pervasive scientific study than merely reporting seasonal temperatures in the Dakotas, Texas and the East Coast. Temperature variations are expected, and do not impugn the veracity of extant scientific models I’ve mentioned. This may come as a shock to Beck, Hanity, et al; but shocked they will be if scientific findings are not implemented to the extent that they must be for the planet to survive.

The real problems facing us are thirst for political office, ignorance and paranoia focusing on a black man.

Frank Tikalsky

Bayfield