I’ll just drop this here:
Marking another milestone for a changing planet, scientists reported on Wednesday that the Earth reached its highest temperature on record in 2016 — trouncing a record set only a year earlier, which beat one set in 2014. It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row.
The findings come two days before the inauguration of an American president who has called global warming a Chinese plot and vowed to roll back his predecessor’s efforts to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases.
The data show that politicians cannot wish the problem away. The Earth is heating up, a point long beyond serious scientific dispute, but one becoming more evident as the records keep falling. Temperatures are heading toward levels that many experts believe will pose a profound threat to both the natural world and to human civilization.
Here’s what’s going on in certain areas:
- The heat extremes were especially pervasive in the Arctic, with temperatures in the fall running 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal across large stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Sea ice in that region has been in precipitous decline for years, and Arctic communities are already wrestling with enormous problems, such as rapid coastal erosion, caused by the changing climate.
- Drought and starvation afflicted Africa. On May 19, the people in the town of Phalodi lived through the hottest day in the recorded history of India, 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Even at current temperatures, billions of tons of land ice are melting or sliding into the ocean. The sea is also absorbing most of the heat trapped by human emissions. Those factors are causing the ocean to rise at what appears to be an accelerating pace, and coastal communities in the United States are spending billions of dollars to fight increased tidal flooding. Their pleas for help from Congress have largely been ignored.
Well, that’s depressing. Sorry.
And if there are any climate change deniers lurking, here are the sources from the linked article.
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Goddard Institute for Space Studies
- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project
- NOAA
- NASA
So… if you want to debate this, bring your sources.
Meh! All but the Berkeley project will be defunded in a year. Then the deniers can call Berkeley an outlier.
That’s so scary and so true.
Personally I yearn to appear on the floor of the senate with a snowball in my hand and ask the following question: “How God Damn Stupid Is This? How pathetic is it to deny science and act like you know?”.
Science is hard. That’s why they don’t use it.