Generosity

Generosity


On Dec 31st, I went with my colleague Nuchi and her 8 years old son Pooh in the children amusement park in Chiang Rai. The Boy shot down three toys by pneumatic gun. He gave all of them to me for Happy New Year. I and his mother told him to give me only one. But he insisted until I accepted all three. These lovely creatures are supposed to do year 2010 happy for me. I hope, they do. The first one looks like Einstein :})

Parties, Christmas

December 27, 2009

Parties

Thai people love parties. Me too.
On Christmas Eve, the president of the university invited everyone to a big party with a lot of great food and drinks. There were a concert and dancing.  Today I am going to a wedding in Chiang Rai, and tomorrow one of our professors will have a barbecue party at a restaurant in Chiang Rai.

I was also invited to a Christmas party in Chiang Mai, a city of 300 thousand people at a 3-hour drive from Chiang Rai. The party was at the Christian Village, which happens to be in the central part of the city.

A street in the village at Christmas time.
I was frequently asked by Thai people and children how is the snow and how people feel it.

At the Christian Village live Christians, the majority of them Westerners or women married to Westerner Buddhists. They have two Christian churches. The professor who invited me is a Buddhist, but he graduated from a Catholic School. There are many Catholic Schools in Thailand. The schools are organized by the US missionaries and teaching is in English.

All the Village came to the party. The Christmas and New Year celebrations are organized by many families living in the village, one after another. So people keep partying for a few weeks.
Many villagers came to help to decorate and to organize the party.

The Christmas tree.

Here is written Happy New 2553 Year. The Thai calendar is calculating time from the Year of Buddha Birth.
But at the University, both calendars Thai and Christian (Gregorian) are used.

There was very tasty food as usual and karaoke. Everyone was singing. So the party ended late. I like karaoke very much. It is one of the greatest Thai traditions.

The next day in the morning all the villagers came to continue the party. At the beginning was Buddhist monks' service for the New Year. 

Monks before starting the service.

In the left corner of this picture is food prepared for the monks to take with them to the monastery..
After the monks' service, we continued our party.

 At Christmas, I invited instructors, professors, and students that I work with to my apartment.
For my party, I invited people to come at 5 pm. Around 8 pm, the majority left. Four instructors remained, all of them my neighbors. Three of them, all women, got their PhDs on our university’s money, two here in Thailand and one in the UK, while the man got his PhD on government money in the US, in Texas and Kansas. The law is that after graduation they have to work for their sponsors for twice as long as they spent studying. So the women have to work at our university for 7-8 years, and the man can work anywhere in Thailand since his money was from the government. All of them were in their middle twenties when they applied for the grants. It was a great opportunity, and in the first place, it meant job security and work at the Royal University, which is pretty selective. Now they are thirty-two or thirty-three. They have worked for the university for two years and have six years left. All three women had long-distance boyfriends. One’s is in Europe. She has visited him twice at his home, and he has come twice to Thailand. The rest is phone love. He does not want to come to Thailand, she cannot go to Europe for six more years. Will he wait for six years? The other two women’s boyfriends are here in Thailand, but also at a big distance and in the same situation. The boyfriends also got their PhDs on their universities’ money and have to work there. Phone love and big phone bills.

These three women, beautiful and smart, have a slim chance of getting married. Thailand is a male-dominated society, and a man will not marry a woman with a PhD, unless he also has a PhD. But the number of women with PhDs is larger than that of men. Here at the university, the number of female students is much larger than the number of male students, maybe because English is the language of the university. But I was told that at other universities the situation is the same. Another problem is that men in their thirties look for younger women in their twenties. So the train was lost.

After I remained with my neighbors, one of them brought a guitar, and all three young women sang Thai modern love songs. Maybe some of the songs were translated from English. The songs were beautiful. I remembered once again about the Russian custom of singing at parties and the Russian lack of fear of opening the soul. This I have seen only in Russia and Thailand.

At one of the parties, I met a retired American diplomat. He and his Thai wife live after retirement in Chiang Rai. The wife is a Chula University graduate. That means she is smart or rich or both. He worked for more than 20 years for the United Nations in a number of countries, typically for 5 years in each country. He told me: “In diplomacy and in politics, in general, it is not important what you do or what you do not do. What is important is how you dance, who your wife is, and how your wife dances. You know what dance I am talking about?” I think I understood. While he ate and talked, his wife “danced”. She went from one table to another to greet her friends, tell them sweet things and make new friends.

The diplomat's remark about dancing shed light for me on Obama's personality. Obama is a great dancer. He danced with us until he was elected. He promised to end war and restrict the power of lobbyists. He did nothing of that because he does not need us for his dance now. He employed a number of lobbyists for his office, because behind them are power and money. He started to dance with the American military establishment (the Pentagon and the military industry).

The American military establishment lived happily and spent up to 20% of taxpayers’ money during the Cold War. After the fall of the Communist world, there was no permanent enemy anymore, so the power and money of the American military started to decrease. Clinton reduced military spending by 5% per year. It permitted him to reduce the deficit. So the military needed a new permanent enemy to start to be sponsored again as in the time of the Cold War. Big dancers knew it. So W Bush declared before his election that he would be a war president. He was elected with the help of big money and great dancers. There was no communism anymore, but there are other religions. So Bush's rhetoric was religious at the beginning. Now America has a permanent enemy for many years ahead. The military establishment is strong and rich on taxpayers’ money and the growing deficit. And we have a great dancing president. I was ashamed of his dance at the Nobel Prize speech, ugly and cynical. I did not expect such a speech from him. My opinion about Obama was way to high before this speech. I predict that Obama will reduce troop levels before the 2010 elections, increase them after that, and reduce them once more before his re-election. He will not stop the war. Such a shame!

If you think that I am not right please write me your point of view. I would be happy to not be right.

My everyday life

Dec 20, 2009
My everyday life


Weather in Chiang Rai

Annual Low Temperature 20 C ( approximately 68 F)
Annual High Temperature 31 C ( approximately 86 F)

Precipitations (mm)/months

  J    F   M   A   M     J       J       A       S       O     N    D

12   8  19   90   204   211   308   385   268   142   61   25

 We are in the valley, approx 450 m above sea level.

Around are mountains. So it looks like we are in a cup. There was no drop of rain from Nov 1st.  There is no wind. No wind is literally. Sometimes I look at the trees and wonder if they are trees or statues, no leaf is moving. There is a problem because of that. All polluted air remains here for a long time, probably until rain will start. And the air is really polluted because of motorcycles which are the worst polluters. Sometimes I feel that I have no enough air to breathe.

 My apartment

My apartment has an air conditioner.
I have a furnished apartment with a living room approximately equal to my living room in Columbia. It has two chairs, sofa, coffee table, table with TV, dining table with 6 chairs, and a refrigerator. I also have 1 bedroom, 1 bath with shower and a kitchen. The house has 12 apartments. There are 6 such houses in which live guests and young professors. Some professors live in Chiang Rai. They have cars. All instructors and professors in the School are young, in their 30th with the exception of the Dean and me.

Transportation

I live 10 min walk distance from my office. We have open electric cars with 12 sits, which go over all campus from 6 am to 8 pm. We have only one store (7/11 - seven-eleven), selling cosmetics, junk food, and first necessity goods. For anything else, people go to Chang Rai. (10 mi). Chiang Rai is the capital of the province with the same name.

Students and young professors have motorcycles. Foreigners usually buy or rent motorcycles too. The inexpensive ones cost between $100 1nd $300. I was afraid of motorcycles all my life. Plus, here cars go on the wrong side of the road and Thai law requires driver licenses for driving motorcycles. Foreigners do not usually have a driver's license because police officers do not stop foreigners. But I don't like to drive motorcycle anyway, with or without a driver's license. There is no taxi here. I can order the University van (no charge) for shopping but I do not use this opportunity. So I am waiting until some sweet souls remember me when they go shopping and take me with them. There is plenty of sweet souls here. So there is no problem with shopping.

Prices

1 US$ = 33 baht.

A dish at the University canteen costs 20 baht. At the restaurants, food starts at 30 baht. I was at a very chic Japanese restaurant in Chiang Rai. We, three persons, spent 600 baht, ordering many different dishes and sharing them. It was a great dinner. A big plate of sushi at this restaurant cost $3-4. But American food at the supermarket cost as much as in America. I invited two professors from our University at the pizza restaurant in Chiang Rai. I paid for three small pizzas and three cokes 900 baht. 250 g of Kellagg's Corn Flakes cost 100 b at a supermarket. There are restaurants with American food. A dish with barbequed beef cost from 60 b to 110 b (file mignon), because meet is local. There is a barbeque buffet in Chiang Rai. At every table is a coal barbeque in the center. You can take different kinds of meat, fish, see food and vegetables, all you can eat, and barbeque it yourself. Plus there are many kinds of ice cream. All this cost 80b, $2.5.

A minimal month salary is 4000 or 5000 baht. A young University instructor 's monthly salary is 15,000 baht. You can not say that 15,000b =$500, because food and everything else produced in Thailand costs 5 to 7 times less than in America, so the buying power of 15000 b in Thailand may be equal to $2500 -3500 in America. But all Western goods cost more than in America. Therefore a car costs more than a house. The gasoline costs more than in America, 26 b/liter. At these prices, a car is a luxury. In Chiang Rai one can buy a modern four-bedroom home for $32,000, in Bangkok, it costs much more. Foreigners are not permitted to buy land in Thailand.

Thai Food

All of us know the phrase “We are what we eat” but I never took it literally. Until now. Here was a conference on apiculture. I went to a Japanese professor's presentation about the bee queen jelly. Japan produces large quantities of the bee queen jelly using it for cosmetics and medicines. How they do that? Bee larvas are only of one kind. If you feed a larva with honey a working bee will grow. If you feed a larva with bee queen jelly, a queen will grow, approximately 4-6 times larger than a working bee. The queen produces more than a million eggs for the new larvas. So one can quickly increase production. I saw it clearly that “We are what we eat” when I was at the birthday party of Thai rich people. I wrote about this party earlier. The host and all his family, about 30 people, were tall and slim. The farmer workers, about 50 people, who came to say “Happy Birthday” to their master were small, and some of them tiny.

Thai food is very tasty. It is based on sauces. The standard dish consists of rice, meat with vegetables and sauce. All kinds of meat, see food, fish, and vegetables are used. All that is prepared in a great tasting sauce. For each dish is a different sauce. All are tasty and some are very spicy. I hope to buy in Bangkok a cook book for sauces in English. Here such books exist only in the Thai language.
There are many fruits I have never seen before, some of them are very good, others acceptable. The fruits I knew like citric, pine-apple, bananas are tastier here. Apples, pears, grapes, and cherries do not grow here, so they are expensive. Thai fruits cost 20-30 b/kg, while imported fruits cost 80-90 b/kg.

There are tree places with food canteens at the University. They look like food markets in the US. Many kinds of food from different regions of Thailand. Thai eat the same food at breakfast, lunch, and dinner: a dish with rice, different meats or fish and vegetables or noodle soup with meat and vegetables. There is very little meat in a dish, typically a few cubic centimeters tiny chopped. In the restaurant (we have only one at campus) you can buy a dish with a piece of meat. One day I ordered rice with salmon. I haven't seen any salmon at the beginning. When I started to look more closely, I saw some pink points in the rice. It was salmon. Nanotechnology research. I told this story to one of my colleagues. She told me that all salmon is imported, i. e. very expensive.
A westerner told to me: “Thai eat a lot of insects.” I told to him: “I will never eat insects.” His response was: “You eat them all the time. Insects are added to main dishes and salads, but you don't know that”. May be he is right. I do not know. I hope he was joking. I do not prepare any food home. I did not buy any pots. I bought only a small electrical pot for boiling water. So I can prepare coffee or tee.

Coffee

Thai do not usually drink coffee or tea, only water. Coffee was not cultivated in Thai before. Now two companies started to grow coffee on Chang Rai province hills. It is a great coffee, but expensive. 250 g of such coffee cost 450 b. Fair Arabic coffee costs 150 b for 250 g.  At supermarkets and restaurants, only instant coffee is sold. It is usually sold as one in three: coffee + sugar + coffee mate. Something terrible. It is not possible to buy coffee beans or ground coffee at supermarkets. Coffee is sold at special cafes. Coffee sold under the name “cafe Americano” is great, costs 25 to 60 b and is expresso, very strong and tasty, and served in big cups. After drinking a cap of such coffee one may not sleep for 3 days and three nights :}).

Alcohol

Buddhist religion prohibits alcohol. But many people drink. They drink very little. Russians would die of a laugh seeing as Thai drink alcohol. Thailand produces whiskey only. All other drinks are imported and consequently are very expensive. Here alcohol is sold twice a day, from 11 to 2 and from 6 to 8 o'clock.

Whiskey is served in a huge glass filled with ice. At one of the parties, I was asked if I like to drink a whiskey. I agreed. I received a big glass filled with ice and something colored smelling whiskey. I remembered a scary story. It was in Romania, a short time after I came there. My husband and I went to a New Year party. I was served a big glass of cola containing some alcohol. Only later I found out that cola was half and half with vodka. I drank all the glass. After a short while, I felt drunk, sick and duped. I decided that I am a very unhappy person. I locked in the bathroom and started to weep. I continued until I wept out all liquids, alcohol included, of my body. When I came back in the room with a swelled face and red eyes, the New Year was a couple of hours old. I would not like to repeat such an experience once again. So I asked the host how much whiskey is in my big glass. I was assured that my glass contains only one or two spoons of whiskey. The remainder was a fruit juice. It was true. I have seen a number of times how “whiskey” was prepared and it really has a minute amount of whiskey.

Beer is the most popular drink. Beer is poured in a glass filled with ice. So one 0.5 liter bottle of beer is enough for four people.

Vine is very expensive and of poor quality. The grapes do not grow in Thailand. The vine is brought from Australia, California or France. The duty is very high. Many go to Burma (60 km from Chiang Rai) to buy alcohol. There it is much better and at least twice less expensive because the duty is small.

All alcohol that 15 Thai drink at a party would not be enough for one Russian average guy, not speaking of a real Russian drunkard.

Thai rich people

Dec 8, 2009

Thai rich people
Saturday was the King’s Birthday. We have three-day vacation, Sat, Sun, and Mon.
My friend Hansa took me to her friends. It was a 3 h drive from our University. We were invited to come Friday by lunch, but cannot. I had to present a seminar and Hansa had a meeting. We left at 4pm and came too late. We lost a part of the program: visiting the family farm.

I wrote about Hansa in my first letter. Then I went with her to the Chula University alumni party. As I wrote before, Chula University is similar to American Harvard. Harvard admits star students as well as children from the rich and famous families (example W. Bush). So do Chula.

Now I know much more about Chula.

The Chula graduates receive jobs at the highest levels of the Thai Establishment. They help and promote each other. Now you guessed that our host was a Chula graduate.

He is a doctor. After graduation from Chula, he continued his studies at Pennsylvania State and his residency at Yale. Now at 63, he occupies an important government position. His wife is also a doctor.
Now it was his birthday. All family, around 30 persons, and a few guests gathered at the host’s mountain residence. The residence consists of a big house and very modern bungalows. I numbered about 13 of them. All this is in a huge park with a mountain river running through. There are bridges, waterfalls, music and flowers, flowers, flowers as you go through the park.

There is also a farm with 50 employees. We did not see the farm, because we came late. The fruits, vegetables and flowers are grown there. All are organic.

In the evening we had dinner in a special building with a huge hall and a kitchen nearby. The next day we had breakfast at another hall by the river, and later a Buddhist service was performed by 9 Buddhist monks. It would take me too long to describe the service. Maybe I do it sometime later. Anyway, it was very impressive. In the evening we had a Birthday party, for the King and for the Doctor. King’s Birthday was shown on tv.

Chairs prepared for the monk service

Monk service

Before the party, the family gathered and sang. They know a lot of beautiful English and Thai songs. All this reminded me of our Belarusian and student parties (pirushki) at Leningrad with singing all night to the morning. After the dinner, the family sang and danced. Young people participated in karaoke. Later it was Birthday cake and fireworks.

The family lives in Bangkok and comes to the farm three times a year at the family's important days. Anyone of family and friends can come anytime during the year.
I asked Hansa why they do not do a resort here and rent the bungalows during the year when no one of the family is there. Hansa told me: “Why would they do that, they are rich”. That means that a person or a family may be rich enough. I think such an idea is not admitted in America. In America everyone should try to be richer and richer.
There were two generations: the Doctor, his brother, two sisters with their spouses and all their children. All family lives in Bangkok in a gated community which is a huge park. They call it compound. Everyone has his/her own house. All of them studied in the US and all speak English. No one of the family remained in the US.
I understood what good have the poor and the rich in common, and what I and maybe some of you did lose being not rich and not poor. The poor people have big families and live together, at least in one village as I lived as a child. There is a lot of love and attention for children, a lot of family gatherings with songs, dance and some time gossip. I and my siblings went to the Universities and were scattered over the word. No one of us was rich enough to build a compound.
Hansa and I left the farm after breakfast on Sunday and went to another party at the bank of the Mekong river on the border with Laos. There was a Hansa’s school mate A.
H and A know each other from the first grade of primary school. They went to an expensive girl school in Bangkok. They studied there to the 10th grade. After that, the girls moved to the Shula Preparatory school for two years. Hansa was admitted to Shula. A was not. So A went to study in a US college. Hansa studied in the US after graduation from Shula.
There was all the family, about 30 persons, three generations. All of them live in their compound in Bangkok, exactly like the first family. The whole family studied in the US and all speak English. They had not Thai, but European food. They come to the Mekong river residence quite frequently. At the residence in the Mekong, 20 women mates of Hansa and A  from the girl’s school gather frequently at birthdays and other occasions.

Mekong River

A's Mekong residence

Banana flower

Mae Fah Luang university, Thai names

Nov 22, 2009

Mae Fah Luang university
http://www.mfu.ac.th/en/royal/index.php
This University was open in memory of the Princess Mother (PM) after her death.

The PM was a great person, very loved. If you ask people about her, they say the same story.

She succeeded to eradicate drugs in Northern Thailand. Here in North lived tribes cultivating and selling drugs in all neighboring countries for centuries. They were buying fruits and vegetables from the neighbors. Many of them did not know the Thai language. They spoke their own languages. PM opened schools to teach these people the ordinary agriculture. She created a net for transporting and selling their crops in the mainland. The fruits and vegetables are organic and have a big market. Incredible but true. The drugs are not cultivated here anymore. Or maybe there are some, but much less than before.

The Thai monarchy is constitutional. Thailand has a Parliament. The royal family is doing mostly charities. The institution of monarchy is very respected.

The University is very well guarded, everywhere are policemen and they give you a card when you enter the University territory. You should give the card to the policeman when you leave. The University is totally safe.

Students come on motorcycles. Hundreds and hundreds of motorcycles are in the parking lots. All students put their helmets on the motorcycle handles. No one steals them.

The Names
If you looked at the web site of the University, you probably observed that the names are very long and for me it is impossible to learn. Fortunately, only the first name is used, Dr Galina, Prof  Darunee  and so on. It makes life easier. Some professors who studied abroad have also western names, Apple, Joy and so on.

 The family goes to an astrologist when a child is born. Astrologist selects good and bad sounds for the child’s time of birth.  Parents should not take bad sounds. Usually, they take good sounds and create a long name without any meaning. But now some people add neutral sounds to create meaningful words. The name of the Professor I work with can be translated as Philosopher.

Thailand 1

I came to Thailand Thursday, Oct 22, 2009. I came to work in the School of Science of Mae Fah Luang University as a visiting professor.
The University is in the North of Thailand, 10 miles North of the city Chiang Rai.


Time.
Thailand is GMT+ 7 h. Missouri is GMT – 6 h. So Thailand time is 13 h earlier than Missouri time and 15 h earlier CA time.
Wai
Wai is the Thai greeting. One put his/her hands together as in the prayer and bow. The older people and people higher in their status are waied. The response is a smile and slight head nodding. The greeting is a covenant between the strong and week. The wai is a gesture of obedience. In exchange for obedience, the strongest one should take care of the weakest one. That what I read on the Internet before the trip.
When I entered in Bangkok the plane of Thai Airlines, all passengers were waied by the flight attendants. I felt very uncomfortable, imagining how I will wai my superiors at the University.

In Chang Rai airport I was met by the Dean of our School. He took me to the University and introduced me to my future colleagues. After that, he drove me to the University Guesthouse. I will live here for one week, before moving to my permanent apartment. The Dean was leaving for an International Conference the next day. He introduced me to his friend Hansa who will take care of me in his absence and will take me to the Chula University Alumni party in Chiang Rai.
I was very happy about such good treatment and waied the Dean. He waied me in response. I thought that to do a wai may be really enjoyable.

S korablya na bal.

Fr Oct 24 is a National holiday. The University is closed.
In the morning Dean's friend Hansa took me to Chiang Rai. Hansa is a professor of biochemistry. She is younger than me.

We visited three Buddhist Temples, more than beautiful. I took many photographs, some are attached.

Hansa

Hansa

Chula university

In the evening we went to the Alumni party in Chiang Rai. It is organized once a year for all graduates of one of the Bangkok Universities which is Thailand Harvard. They have a strong Old Boys organization. I was told that at this party were all important people of the Chiang Rai Province. The President of our University waied me and other guests. Here every one waied every one. So all my fear disappeared. I started to think about how nice is this greeting. At the party was a lot of fun, good food, a lot of dance and music and it was a karaoke concert. The President of our University performed a few English soul lyrics. He has a rich and strong voice and probably has some formal musical training. I could not imagine any of American University presidents singing at the karaoke concert.

Is Global Warming Man-Made?

Introduction

The Earth receives 174 petawatts (1.74 ×10¹⁷  W) of incoming solar radiation.

The total worldwide energy (oil, coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable) consumption is 1.504×10¹³ W

That says that the rapport is 1/10 000.  Our participation in Earth energy balance is very small. We are too weak for the competition with Sun.
How have we succeeded to do global warming?  And have we done?

   In order to respond the question “Is Global Warming (GW) Man-Made?” I will discuss the following problems:

Experimental data on global warming

Reliability of data on global warming

Solar energy balance

Greenhouse effect                                                                       

Historical climate change

Processes stabilizing the Earth’s temperature

Experimental data on global warming

                                                 

(Fig. 1) represents the Earth surface temperature  anomaly measured by terrestrial climate stations as a function of time. [1]

Congratulations, You Just Survived The 5 Hottest Years on Record

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-planet-s-hottest-five-years-on-record-are-the-last-five-years

Zero anomaly (blue line ) represents the average temperature. The temperatures close to average temperature has been  from1940 to 1980.  From 1880 to 1940 the Earth temperature has been cooler and from 1980 to 2010 has been hotter than average.

These results are used by GW scientists to show that GW exists. 

Fig.1a  Earth temperature measured from the space (NASA).

 NASA states  : “Unlike the surface-based temperatures, 

global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually is mild cooling. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity but from the natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global warming  in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity." 

Global warming scientists claim that the GW is due to accumulation of carbon dioxide in Earth atmosphere, but there is no similarity between the curve of Earth temperature anomaly (Fig 1) and the content of carbon dioxide in Earth atmosphere  (Fig 2). 
Between 1940 and 1980, there is a small change in Earth temperature, while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases 6 times.

Fig. 2 Global fossil carbon emissions 1800–2007.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg)

Terestrial observations of temperature changes

The GW scientists claim that the Arctic ice is melting. That is true for some years and some parts of the Arctic ice. But  some times the ice surface coverage is increasing, as it is shown on the NASA photograph. Arctic sea ice up 60 percent in 2013

NASA satelite images show the changing Artic sea ice coverage from August 2012 (left) to August 2013 (right) -- a growth of about a million square miles. (NASA)
Ice melting may be due to other causes than GW.

Researchers discovered volcanic heat source under major Antarctic glacier

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-volcanic-source-major-antarctic-glacier.html

        Reliability of terrestrial measurements data on global warming

Are the data reliable? Not all of them.

Brooks investigated Historical Climate Network (USHCN) sites in Indiana, and assigned 16% of the sites an ‘excellent’ rating, 59% a ‘good’ rating, 12.5% a ‘fair’ rating, and 12.5% ‘poor’ rating.
(May 2007 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana)

On the site  http://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/Pielke-etal_BAMS_Jun07.pdf

there is a paper of American researchers “Documentation of Uncertainties and Biases Associated with Surface Temperature Measurement Sites for Climate Change Assessment.”
Authors: PIELKE—CIRES and ATOC, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado; NIELSEN-GAMMON—Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas; DAVEY— Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada; ANGEL— Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Natural Resources, Champaign, Illinois; BLISS AND DOESKEN— Atmospheric Science, Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, Colorado; CAI—Department of Meteorology,The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida; FALL AND NIYOGI—Departments of Agronomy and Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; GALLO—Center for Satellite Applications and Research, NOAA/NESDIS, Camp Springs, Maryland; HALE—CIRA, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado; HUBBARD AND LIN—School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska; LI—Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland; RAMAN—Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

The conclusion of the paper: “The use of temperature data from poorly sited stations can lead to a false sense of confidence in the robustness of multi-decadal surface air temperature trend assessments”

More serious problem is that data do not exist for all countries for all periods cited by GW scientists.

But the biggest problem with the US data is that the weather in US is influenced by El Nino and La Nina.

Such an influence exists for all Northern and Southern Americas and Australia, but much less for other countries. On the other hand, other countries may have their own influences (see Golf stream).

                                         
                                                  Energy balance of the Earth

Fig 3 shows incoming and outgoing radiation

Fig 4, Solar radiation spectrum shows water and  CO₂ absorptions bands. Water absorption bands are much stronger than that of  CO₂

Climat change
Radiative forcing 

In climate science, radiative forcing or climate forcing is defined as the difference of insolation (sunlight) absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space.^[1] Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units ofwatts per square meter of the Earth's surface. A positive forcing (more incoming energy) warms the system, while negative forcing (more outgoing energy) cools it. Causes of radiative forcing include changes in insolation and the concentrations of radiatively active gases, commonly known as greenhouse gases and aerosols.


Fig 5. The "radiative forcing" (that is the additional energy sent to the ground) for all the modifications induced by man that influence the energy exchanges in the atmosphere (in Watts per square meter). From IPCC, 2007

Two important causes of the Earth temperature change are Greenhouse Gases increasing the Earth temperature and Earth Albedo lowering it.

                                               Greenhouse effect (GHE)

Gas molecules absorb energy emitted by Sun or Earth and emit it. Part of emitted energy goes up to space, another part of energy goes down back to the Earth heating it. This effect presented  in the right low corner of figure 3  is named Greenhouse effect (GHE)

GHE gases content in atmosphere:

water vapor (H₂O), 0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface
carbon dioxide ( CO₂) 0.038%
 methane  CH₂) 0.000179%
 nitrous oxide ( N₂O) 2x10−6%
ozone ( O3) 0% to 7x10−6%

The distinction between the greenhouse effect and real greenhouses can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Excerpt
“The term "greenhouse effect" can be a source of confusion as actual greenhouses do not function in the same way as the atmospheric greenhouse effect does. A greenhouse is usually built of glass, plastic, or a plastic-type material. It heats up mainly because the sun warms the ground inside it, which then warms the air in the greenhouse. The air continues to heat because it is confined within the greenhouse, unlike the environment outside the greenhouse where warm air near the surface rises and mixes with cooler air aloft. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably Thus greenhouses work by a different mechanism, primarily by preventing convective cooling”.

There are many papers on GHE, pro and contra.
Pro paper: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm 
I found the following paper more reliable because it is written by a physicist and shows where physics laws were not respected in GHE discussions.
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html, its conclusion
• “Although carbon dioxide is capable of raising the Earth's overall temperature, the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predictions of catastrophic temperature increases produced by carbon dioxide have been challenged by many scientists. In particular, the importance of water vapor (see Fig.4) is frequently overlooked by environmental activists and by the media. The above discussion shows that the large temperature increases predicted by many computer models are unphysical and inconsistent with results obtained by basic measurements. Skepticism is warranted when considering computer-generated projections of global warming that cannot even predict existing observations.”

                                                 Earth Albedo

Albedo is the fraction of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected from the Earth back into space. Earth Albedo grew after 1998 showing cooling period. Change to the Earth's albedo is a powerful driver of climate. When the planet's reflectivity increases, more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space. This has a cooling effect on global temperatures. Conversely, a drop in albedo warms the planet.

Fig 6: Albedo anomalies reconstructed from ISCCP satellite data (black) and Earthshine-observed albedo anomalies (blue). The right hand vertical scale shows negative radiative forcing (eg - cooling). One of causes of the albedo rising is deforestation.
Albedo anomaly is changing strongly from one year to another (0 to 7W/sq m).
  

 The solar constant - the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area that would be incident on a plane perpendicular to the rays has a value 1361 W/m². The total net anthropogenic (man made) radiation forcing is 1,5 W/m² (Fig.5). The man-made radiation  [1,5 (W.m-²) /1361 (W.m-²) = 0.11% of solar constant] is very small compared to the Sun radiation.

Historic climate change

Fig 7. Historic climate change (millions of years ago)

The historic climate change shows that we are in a cool period and warming:

 today Earth temp ~14 oC


Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period
Thausands years ago
http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

• 18,000 years ago - The climate begins to warm
• 15,000 years ago - Advance of glaciers halts and sea levels begin to rise
• 10,000 years ago - Ice Age mega fauna goes extinct
•   8,000 years ago - Bering Strait land bridge becomes drowned, cutting of migration of men and animals.
•   6,000 years ago - The Holocene Maximum warm period

The basic processes that determine Earth climate 

1. Astronomical Earth parameters
2. Oceans
3. Greenhouse Effect
4. Earth black body radiation

Astronomical Earth parameters

Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958) http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4070studied the variations in the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis. He theorized that these cyclical changes and the interactions among them were responsible for long-term climate. His cycles of the climate change are roughly 100,000; 
26,000 and 11,000 years.

More recent evidence of climatic variations

The eruption of the Toba supervolcano on Sumatra (Indonesia), 70,000 to 75,000 years ago reduced the average global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius for several years and may have triggered an ice age. Simulation of this event showed that the climate recovered over a few decades.
 [ Robock, A., C.M. Ammann, L. Oman, D. Shindell, S. Levis, and G. Stenchikov (2009)]. [ "Did the Toba volcanic eruption of ~74k BP produce widespread glaciation?". Journal of Geophysical Research 114: D10107]

A much smaller but similar effect occurred after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, island between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia when global temperatures fell for about 5 years in a row. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.
Earth has recovered after these two catastrophes.

Processes stabilizing Earth’s temperature

The basic items that stabilize the Earth climate are:
1. Water (oceans, clouds, water vapors)
2. Earth blackbody radiation

An excellent paper “Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate “
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm
discusses the stabilizing effect of water on climate

Excerpt:“Water has a substantially higher heat capacity than rocks (by a factor of five), and therefore the oceans can store much more heat than the land surfaces of the planet. Because the oceans also cover about 70% of the Earth surface and are on average 3.8 km deep, they are the major heatsink of the planet and serve as temperature buffers for the ocean/atmosphere system. The bulk of the thermal energy at the Earth surface is stored in the oceans. The large thermal inertia of the oceans is a key factor in stabilizing Earth's climate.”

Earth radiation. The Stefan–Boltzmann law 

This law states that amount of thermal radiation emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. That is

W = σ x T4

 

where W is the total energy radiated per unit area per unit time, T is the temperature in Kelvin, and σ = 5.67×10^-8 W m^-2 K^-4 is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant.

If we suppose that the Earth temp T = 14 ^oC  = 287 K increases by 1^oC  to T=15 ^oC = 288 K, the increase in emitted energy will be 1.4%.

(W1-Wo)/Wo=1.4% is a big energetic change.

“Scientists and skeptics”

There is a site which considers that all scientists are for global warming, but in reality some of them are skeptics.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
There are 75 questions of skeptics and ‘science” response to them.
 I think if someone can put 75 questions to a problem, we can consider that the problem is too complex to be solved.

Some of these questions:

#5 "Models are unreliable"

Answer: While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have successfully predicted future climate change.

#12"Al Gore got it wrong“

Answer: While there are minor errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the main truths presented - evidence to show mankind is causing global warming and its various impacts is consistent with peer reviewed science

#74 "Global temperatures dropped sharply in 2007's “

Answer: 2007's dramatic cooling is driven by strong La Nina conditions which historically has caused similar drops in global temperature. It is also exacerbated by unusually low solar activity.

 31,000 American scientists signed the following petition:

http://www.petitionproject.org/

Global Warming Petition

This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists

• We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
 There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Conclusions

The surface temperature measurements showing rising of the Earth temperature may not be totally reliable. The satellite measurements of the Earth temperature and reflectivity shows a mild cooling. There are many natural influences on the Earth climate. However, Earth has temperature stabilizing factors by means of the water balance, the Earth radiation and others. 
  If the global warming exists, it is most probably due to natural fluctuations, it is not Man-made. We have to study more thoroughly the climate change in order to understand its causes and effects.

Addendum

 The most productive expedition of the ship "Academician Mstislav Keldysh" in recent years was that, despite the global warming, which scientists talk about,  since 2011 in the North Atlantic there has been steady cooling of surface waters, and intermittent water warming has ceased.
Translation from Russan text:

"Одним из главных выводов стало то, что, несмотря на глобальное потепление, про которое говорят ученые всего мира, в северной Атлантике с 2011 года наблюдается устойчивое охлаждение поверхностных вод, прекратилось потепление промежуточных вод".

http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2015/11/30_a_7921283.shtml