It's 11 AM in the cooler northwest suburbs of NY city and is already 93 (excuse the Fahrenheit). Yes, saying one heat wave is unusual is anecdotal, as was discussed for earthquakes here earlier, and does not mean much. But, I'll be surprised if July is not the hottest ever across the 48 states, and possibly Europe also. With all politeness and respect, Canie's post that I reproduce from an earlier thread, below, is...let's see...I said polite...how about "misinformed". Global sea levels were almost exactly the same as today's 6000 years ago, so from the point of view of ice-caps melting we were out of the last ice age 6000 years ago. It is simple fact that CO2 has been measured on Mauna Loa and other places for about 50 years, and the pre-industrial level was 280 (I forget units..parts per million?) and I think about 360 now. It is a simple fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (look at Venus...yes, it is closer to sun but that is not the full reason why it is hot enough at surface to melt tin or whatever (I forget if it is 700 deg F or C). It is known from ice bubbles in ice cores and other data that CO2 and methane track ice ages....increasing CO2 and methane helped bring us out of the last ice age. There was extreme global warming 50 million years ago.....and high levels of greenhouse gases. The worst case for CO2 levels is that within 100 years they will be the highest since 50 million years ago. The most likely case is not so pretty either.

In replies to this post, do my a favor and don't parrot politicians: use a little data and a little physics. Also, look up "principle of least astonishment" or "Occam's razor"

OK, think I'll run my air conditioner and drive my big car...then fly to Turkey and California, and drive to Missouri...
Chris

from Canie, below"
"Ahh, just what the world needs, another book on global warming..or is it riding on the coat tails of Al Gore? I'm pretty convinced the earth is warming (especially after last weekend), but I'm not convinced us humans are having much of an impact on the scene.. after all, we are still coming out of the last Ice Age just 10-12,000 years ago.. it's gonna get hotter before the next ice age hits..
Canie"