Why does no one ever talk about numbers in regard to global warming?

Any time I hear people advocating for global warming, they talk with words like ';more'; and ';less'; and ';drastic changes'; and other non-specific forms of measurement. Can someone please tell me the GLOBAL YEARLY AVERAGE temperature for any past year and also the GLOBAL YEARLY AVERAGE temperature for a recent year? I want to see some numbers!Why does no one ever talk about numbers in regard to global warming?
The temperature has gone up about one degree in the past 25 years, which may not sound like much... but it really truely is.Why does no one ever talk about numbers in regard to global warming?
It's funny. The ';skeptics'; are the ones who use arguments without numbers. Here are lots. Way too many to list here, you'll actually have to look at the links.





Global temperatures recently:





http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs…





A numerical (';quantitative';) analysis of the causes.





http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima…





Global temperatures for the last 2000 years, showing how unnatural the recent change is.





http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima…





Look at this graph.





http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gall…





The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using ';isotopic ratios'; to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.





Numerical comparison of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide:





http://environment.newscientist.com/chan…





All the numbers you cost possibly want here. Thousands of them.





http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.…


summarized at:


http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf





As I said ';skeptics'; make arguments without numbers. Note the mention of Watts above. All he has are a bunch of pictures. Scientists have data showing he's wrong, and the data is good. Which is why his ';work'; is going nowhere in the scientific community. They like data.





Global warming scientists have the data and QUANTITATIVE (numerical) analysis.





Which is what these guys are talking about:





';I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”





Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)


Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command





';There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, QUANTITATIVE arguments to make it go away.';





Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA





Ben O - Your interpretation of Truly is wrong. And your ridicule of him is poor behavior. Do some research. What he means by ';deep trouble'; is not water shortages in the Middle East. Proof (which was trivial to find):





'Truly added that “maybe more challenging is that climate change will affect every nation';'





Waiting 10 years will cost us a huge amount of money. This rock is rolling downhill and picking up speed. Really bad idea.
Have you seen Al Gore in front of a giant sized graph of the earths CO2 level in relative terms to what it was 150 years ago. There is a good reason he spent so much time dwelling on that number because, besides the particular statistic , there aren't many numbers that people are going to get excited about.





A lot of people on this forum like to think that this is a doomsday scenario and putting real numbers on it (from credible sources) puts it all in perspective.





If you want to see numbers, check out the latest IPCC report. They have boldly predicted that the earths temperature will increase by 0.2 degrees per decade for the next 20 years. They've given themselves some wiggle room with the wording of the prediction, so if it comes up way short, they can call it an anomaly. Anyway - maybe we should wait 10 years and see how good their prediction was. Sounds like a plan to me.





BTW Bob, Vc Adm Truly may be a good test pilot - but he doesn't know much about geography. The main point of his testomony seems to be that the middle east will become unstable because of reduced rainfall. If it does happens, it won't matter - The Persian Gulf Countries may be desert but they use more water per capita than anyone else in the world. Some Persian Gulf countries don't even have water meters - people can use as much as they want and it's free. Aparently nobody told Vce Adm Truly about desalination.
The global average does not allow for a specific view on how areas are affected. Some areas are affected by more rain, some by less rain. Water does not generate spontaneously; it is a constant number. The issue of where the water is or is not going that's at issue. Bangladesh and the Maldives will certainly be under water; other areas like Texas this year were overwhelmed with rain fall.
What good is the global average temperature for two years going to do you? What meaningful information do you expect to glean from them?





Anyway, the Hadley Center/Climate Research Unit (HADCRU) and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) both publish detailed and accurate teperature records. Check them out here:





http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/had… (HADCRU)





and here:





http://www.giss.nasa.gov/ (GISTEMP)
The IPCC uses data kept by CRU based on temperature anomalies. You can see the graph here.


http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warmin…





According to the IPCC, global temps have risen by .74C in the last century. But we do not really know this because of problems with the weather station network. Anthony Watts, a broadcast meteorologist, is currently leading an all-volunteer effort to photograph and document the quality of weather stations. So far, they have photographed about 1/3 of US stations and found that 85% of them have a warm bias due to being poorly sited.


http://surfacestations.org/





You can see the presentation he gave to scientists at UCAR here:


http://gallery.surfacestations.org/UCAR-…





Once Watts completes this work, scientists will be able to get a more accurate picture of recent warming.