SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Satellites Find No Trend of Greenhouse Warming

Despite fears that the greenhouse effect is heating up the Earth’s atmosphere, measurements taken by satellites show the planet has not warmed over the past decade, scientists said last week.

Researchers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and University of Alabama in Huntsville said they found dramatic swings in monthly and yearly temperature patterns, but the average global temperature did not rise--or fall--in the 10-year period from 1979 through 1988.

“There is no obvious long-term trend, and anomalies during the first five years nearly balance those during the last five years,” researchers Roy Spencer and John Christy wrote in a study published in the journal Science.

The scientists emphasized their findings go back only as far as 1979, and cannot be used to determine whether Earth has actually warmed about 1 degree Farhenheit over the past century, as most ground-based records show.

“We may never show the climate is affected by man-made pollution. But we have no contention with the obvious facts--that the chemical composition of the atmosphere is affected, that deforestation is occurring, that water supplies are being degraded and that there is air pollution,” he said.