Letters to the Editor

摘要

I just read the article "Impacts of Climate Change on Infrastructure Planning and Design," which was published in the June issue. Although I was impressed by the thoroughness of the article, I cannot agree with the conclusion by the authors that "Recent climate trends for the United States indicate that the average atmospheric temperature has increased." I have looked at the temperature trends for about the past 20 years from 15 randomly chosen sites around the world and have discovered that 11 of these sites have descending temperature trends. (I used data taken from a respected weather website and applied linear regression analysis to the data set.) Not one of the US cities that I examined showed any evidence of a positive temperature trend. It would appear to me that utilities need to assess their needs based on accurate climate trend data.