Time for me to weigh in here.
Hi, my names John, and while being a aquatic nut , I also happen to have my head in the clouds on a permanent basis: Yes thats right i am by training a Meteorologist. (BSci, University of Melbourne, Australia Majoring in Meteorology, and Paleoclimatology).
Now intially ill make the comment, that i sympathise with your heatwave woes: I encounter the same thing here: except on a far nastiers scale: Try 43 degree centigrade in the room where you keep you tank. (I do actually run the aircon on these super hot days to prevent deaths).
As for "Global Warming"
I really have to argue its existant due to HUMAN causes. I agree the planet is by trending data, generally heating up, however we have to remember that humans are a small blip on the earths surface. There have been times, particularly during the Mesozoic(esp Cretaceous) where the
AVERAGE temperature worldwide is estimated to have been
14 DEGREES CENTIGRADE higher than current levels. Recent evidence in soil samples suggest that the north sea, and in fact the artic were actually subtropical at this time, with creatures that are normally found in the subtropics, found far far north. Overall evidence suggests that this heat was far more significant that our trivial influence. Carbon Dioxide is an interesting point.... the current concerntration is in the range of 367ppm...(0.367% of atmospheric composition). There have been times when this has been
20%!! Did you also know that CO2 is not the main greenhouse gas.....in fact the most potent current greenhouse gas is Water, vapourised high up in the atmosphere.(Stratosphere)
The world itself has emerged from a recent period of ice ages: This warming trend has been constant since the little ice age(a time at which the Thames froze over). It is not unusual for the ice caps to melt, as populist ecologists and media seem to believe: For less than 1% of time ice has existed on the surface of the planet. (the assumed age of earth is around 4 billion years +-) There have been times such as the Siberian Eruptive mass exitinction(try 10000km^3 of silic lava ejected about 270mill years) where 80% of all species have been wiped off the planet: if you go back to 560mill years....try 98% of all species eradicated. In erupting volcanoes belch out large quantities of CO2 and SO4(2-): The siberian eruption increased the global composition of CO2 in the order of 5%. There is constant outgassing from volcanoes: just wait until Yellowstone Volcano erupts, that will change the worlds climate considerably. Tambora(18th century) erupted and dropped the climate of the planet by 1.5 degrees centigrade. This was a minute eruption, a mere ten thousandeth of an eruption in NZ(one of the larger). A massive Volcanic event is in the wings, and will have far more a profound effect than the little we produce.
The earth is a rapidly changing dynamic system, we are merely a speck on the timeframe of its existance, as sophisticated as we are our time will come. Diasters are not more common, they are just more noticable due to the populations in regions of disturbance. The Climate may continue to get warmer as we move out of our ice age, or it may lapse again. Either way we must adapt to our ruler the earth, or suffer the consequences. Just makes you realise how fragile we really are.
John