Dawning of a new ice age? VIEWPOINTS.

MR Moore-Haines (Viewpoints, August 19) is probably right about global warming but for the wrong reason.

He says "our climate in controlled entirely by the Earth's proximity to or distance from the Sun". But it is a fact that the climate is influenced by a multiplicity of factors far too numerous to discuss in a letter.

However, recent research shows that it is the oceans that are heating up rather than the atmosphere. Ocean warming causes water vapour to enter the atmosphere, causing increased humidity and precipitation such as rain and snow. It also causes an increase in cloud cover.

An increase in snow cover in the Arctic and Antarctic would reflect sunlight, causing cooling, as would an increase in cloud cover. Thus paradoxically ocean warming can eventually lead to global cooling and ice ages. The heating of the oceans is believed to come from inside the earth, for example, volcanic eruptions.

The green lobby cannot explain the dramatic cooling in the Arctic in 2008, which has continued in 2009, causing unprecedented cold weather in North America: snowbound roads closed in California, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota in June! Similarly, increased rainfall is turning the Sahara Desert green, as described in National Geographic.

Global warming is based almost entirely on the record from meteorological stations. A survey of 1,221 weather stations is now 70% complete, and shows that an astonishing 69% of these stations are likely to have serious errors, due to their being located near heat sources such as asphalt roads, air conditioning vents and proximity to large cities.

Recent satellite data shows a significant warming of the oceans but not of the atmosphere. So instead of global warming, we may be entering yet another phase of global cooling and a new ice age.

Bryan Prescott Bronrhiw Fach, Caerphilly