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Originally Posted by Martin
Maybe it isnt greenhouse gases after all.
Im curious if there were ever any studies done from physical heat sources themselves. Including us humans. I have no clue how the study would be conducted.. It would probably be very difficult to do...But is it only me thats thinking about this? Im talkin strictly heat here.. No gases.
We have had a population explosion over the last 30 years.. Each living being on this earth produces body heat. Factories and buildings produce heat.. Our OWN homes produce heat..Especially in the winter when the heat is on. Yeah, it may seem like a very minor amount...But when combined with millions of homes and billions of people, the heat has to go somewhere.
I guess if they were to do studies, they could compare mean temperatures in locations that used to be deserted (empty), compared to how they are now. Remember those days earlier in the century when New York City would frequently dip below 0 Faurunheit in the winter? I dont recall them doing this once within the last 10 years. Im not looking at history charts, so i may need to be corrected here. But looking at records way back..I remember seeing NYC going below 0 frequently. I believe this is referred to as "heat island" effect. Maybe a much larger scale "heat earth" effect is occuring and we just dont know it due to a lack of studies.
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It is an interesting concept. Could give a whole new meeting to the term "heat island". I too have thought about this many times. I don't know of any areas that were close to being deserted that are now so full of people that it would make a difference. As the population increases in those areas, the people tend to live as far a part as possible. Any ASOS station would probably be in an isolated place anyway. As far as New York City, I lived in that area in the 60's and part of the 70's and I actually only remember the temperature dipping below zero twice at my house (on consecitive days in the early to middle part of the decade when it was 3 and 4 degrees below zero respecitvely at my house). I also remember lots of cars not starting. A far cry from the 15 below zero at my Wisconsin home a few months ago when my pipes froze. Anyway, the heat island is real. No doubt it has caused increased temperatures in urban areas. Having said that, the 30's were a very hot decade (especially 1934 and 1936) and there were probably more record highs from that decade then any other. I wonder what they did then to explain all that heat. If that happened today we would probably hear that it is the end of the world. So to sum it up, (although global warming is real), I have no doubt the urban heat island effect has had a pronounced affect in skewing our temperature records.