Greenhouse Warming still Coming

The growing store of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation is a far larger and more pervasive problem than acid rain. The predictions of the latest models that have been applied to the problem, called GCM-mixed-layer ocean models, predict a global temperature increase between 3.5 and 4.2 degrees Celsius. They predict that the warming will be larger near the poles than near the equator. They also predict increases and decreases in precipitation depending on location, the largest changes being between 30/sup 0/N and 30/sup 0/S. If CO/sub 2/ and trace gas concentrations continue to rise as projected and model calculations are essentially correct, the increasing global scale warming should become much more evident over the next few decades. 1 figure.