When I was a grad student, my office mate worked on modeling of satellite data
for the Antarctic Ozone hole. He was annalyzing a sequence of annual
observations throughout which the hole unquestionably increased -- it's a very
real problem. NASA has an great ozone web page at:
http://spsogsfc.nasa.gov/NASA_FACTS/ozone/ozone.html
Global warming as a result of increased CO2 also appears to be substantiated
by measurements over the last century -- see the graph on the web page at:
http://members.aol.com/trajcom/private/broecker.htm
However, unknowns such as 1) the effect of clouds on albedo, 2) volcanic
ash production, and 3) the abilitiy of the oceans to absorb CO2 make this
less than straightforward. These factors should not give one confidence
in ignoring CO2 levels, however. For a good answer to Rush Limbaugh's nonsense
in this regard, see:
http://www.econet.apc.org/igc/rush.html
The growing consensus that warming is happening is chronicled on:
http://www.injersey.com/Media/IonSci/features/gwarm/gwarm.html
NASA has a very well-defined "Mission to Planet Earth" which will quantify
these issues much more in the coming decade. I predict that there will be
increasing consensus that Ozone depletion and Global Warming are problems.
For an amusing fictional view, see "The Arrival" where aliens speed the
global warming along to tailor the climate to their liking -- heh,heh.
I enjoyed this "B" movie mostly for its many shots of Owens Valley Radio
Observatory, where I spend a great deal of time.
Best Regards,
Dave