ARTICLE SUMMARIES:

In the Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change, the most recent report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, edited by J.T. Houghton, L.G. Meira Filho, B.A. Callander, N.Harris, A. Kattenberg and K. Maskell.

Graph on Page 155 shows a general decline in global average precipitation since 1955, a result that is contrary to greenhouse theory. The IPCC report concludes: "Overall, there is no evidence that extreme weather events, or climate variability, has increased in a global sense, through the 20th century, although data and analyses are poor and not comprehensive."

In Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 23(13), PP1697-1700, "Downward Trends in the Frequency of Intense Atlantic Hurricanes During the Past Five Decades," by C.W. Landsea, N. Nichols, W. M. Gray, and L.A. Avila.

Shows North Atlantic hurricanes have diminished in both frequency and severity in the last 50 years.

In Nature, May 28, 1998, page 319: "Global Warming Intensifying El Nino?" Technical comment by Richard H. Grove, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

It has been suggested that "global warming" has caused El Nino to become more frequent and more intense. But Dr. Grove points to several El Nino events occurring before 1880 that "had effects at least as intense and wide-ranging as those associated with the current event," including the years 1685-88, 1789-93, and 1877-79.

In the British medical journal The Lancet, "Global warming and vector-borne disease in temperate regions and at high altitude," P. Reiter, vol. 351. 1998

Citing historical data, Paul Reiter, chief scientist of the Dengue Fever branch of the Centers for Disease Control, notes that malaria is not really a tropical disease, since it has occurred north of the Arctic circle as well as in Holland, Poland, and Finland prior to 1950. Reiter points out that high-altitude malaria cases were common prior to the widespread use of DDT. Recently, high- altitude malaria epidemics in Madagascar have been blamed on global warming, despite similar epidemics in the same regions in 1878 and 1895.

Reiter concludes: "The distortion of science to make predictions of unlikely public-health disasters diverts attention from the true reasons for the recrudescence of vector-borne diseases. These include large-scale resettlement of people, rampant urbanisition without adequate infrastructure, high mobility through air travel, resistance to antimalarial drugs, insecticide resistance, and the deterioration of vector-control operations and other public-health practices."

In the Washington Post, "Horizons" section, August 13, 1997, "The Little Ice Age: When Global Cooling Gripped the World," by Dr. Alan Cutler, visiting scientist at the National Museum of Natural History.

Graph accompanying the article shows global climate variations over the past 18,000 years. It makes it clear why Dr. Michael Mann's recent statement that the Earth is now experiencing the "warmest weather in 600 years" is true but simply a factor of his starting date. Temperatures were warmer than today 1000 years ago, and considerably warmer (2 degrees F) 6,000 years ago.

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