atto-cosmology (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix for "atto")

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA): http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=505798

Global warming spirals upwards By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

28 March 2004

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of control.

Measurements by US government scientists show that concentrations of the gas, the main cause of the climate exchange, rose by a record amount over the past 12 months. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply, marking an unprecedented triennial surge.

Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear that it could show the first signs that global warming is feeding on itself, with rising temperatures causing increases in carbon dioxide, which then go on to drive the thermometer even higher. That would be a deeply alarming development, suggesting that this self-reinforcing heating could spiral upwards beyond the reach of any attempts to combat it.

In other words, we may have reached d(\Delta T)/dt \propto (\Delta T) in which case \Delta T \propto \exp(t) . Of course, negative feedbacks will have to happen sooner or later, but the stable point in N-parameter space could be quite different from the stable point where we have been during the previous 2000 years...

...

The carbon dioxide measurements have been taken from the 11,400ft summit of Hawaii's Mauna Loa, whose enormous dome makes it the most substantial mountain on earth, by scientists working for the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

...

The latest measurements, taken a week ago, showed that carbon dioxide had reached about 379 parts per million (ppm), up from about 376ppm the year before, from 373ppm in 2002 and about 371ppm in 2001. These represent three of the four biggest increases on record (the other was in 1998), creating an unprecedented sequence. They add up to a 64 per cent rise over the average rate of growth over the past decade, of 1.8ppm a year.

The US scientists have yet to analyse the figures and stress that they could be just a remarkable blip. Professor Ralph Keeling - whose father Charles Keeling first set up the measurements from Mauna Loa - said:"We are moving into a warmer world".

i highly recommend the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

For people sceptical about the sources of the data (as we all should be), at the bottom of the page there are external web links classified by the biases of the different organisations:

"Scientific" (NASA + NOAA) "United Nations" "Environmentalist" "Conservative-affiliated" "Industry-sponsored" "Independent (or receives too little support to constitute "sponsorship")" "Other"

Environmental scientists don't seem to publish on http://arxiv.org or the equivalent, unfortunately.

pozdr boud