In the early 1970's a Midwest math post-graduate student got access to the universities mainframe computer. He input all the climate data for every U.S. weather station with at least 100 years of record. He ran a regression analysis to determine if there were significant Beta's.
He got a major hit. Nearly every station showed a statistically significant increase in temperature over time. His thesis paper on the regression did not speculate about why. It went on to discuss the statistical aspects of the regression analysis. Although not published in a journal, the result was widely circulated in academic circles.
A chemistry professor did get a short article published hypothesizing that automobiles were the cause. Grant request were awarded to several Universities to explore this hypothesis. Although none could show causal relationships, they did suggest other studies to narrow future studies to test the hypothesis.
The grant industry is the bread and butter of academia. Professors supplement their income through Grants. The Universities take a cut for using their facilities. Students, usually unpaid, get valuable learning experience in research methods. Since these studies never resulted in tangible results, the cycle of hypotheses continued jumping from the automobile to other subjects. To discover the real cause would stop the grant money.
The truth was heat domes. As cities grew, the weather station stayed near the city center. Heat from bodies, industrial activity, and unabsorbed heat due to loss of vegetation caused temperatures to increase within the city. The larger the city grew, the more heat generated. The center of the city would show the greatest temperature increase.
Just five miles outside the city in any direction the temperature was stable. This means the heat was dissipated straight up and into space. Man made actitivity the cause – yes. Global warming –no.
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