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Last January Was the Hottest Global Temperature Anomaly In Recorded History

Posted by timothy on from the ok-but-who's-counting dept.

merbs writes: NASA has released its global temperature data for January 2016, and, once again, the record for the hottest month in recorded history has been shattered. At a time when these kinds of records are broken with some regularity, it takes a particularly scorching month to raise eyebrows in the climate science community. It has to be the hottest hottest month by a pretty hot margin. Sure enough, last January did the trick: It was 1.13 C warmer than the global average of 1951-1980 (the benchmark NASA uses to measure warming trends)—in other words, a full 2F warmer than pre-1980 levels.

5 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. YAA (Yet Another Anomaly) by chrism238 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many near consecutive broken records does it take for weather extremes to no longer be called 'anomalies'?

    1. Re:YAA (Yet Another Anomaly) by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny how when its extra cold (snow storms, record cold winters, etc) all we hear is 'weather is not climate'.
      However when its extra hot, is seems weather is climate?

      No.

      One exceptionally warm month, or even one warm winter, is not climate. (Nor one exceptionally cold one). Climate is long term,.

      What is noteworthy is how frequently records are being set. If the temperatures were random, and not rising, you would expect records to be set only on rare occasions.

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      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  2. Re:So? by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just out of curiosity, where precisely do you believe it say recorded history began in 1951?

    In particular, the charts and graphs linked in the article shows January temperatures going back to 1880. (And yes, this January was warmer than all of them.) I think you may be conflating different statements into a single assumption?

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  3. And yet by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ppl will continue to scream that America with less than 15% of total emissions, and dropping, is responsible, while china with more than 33% ( mid 40s% according to oco2 ) is OK to continue growing it. Far better to die, than to break political correctness and survive.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  4. Re:icehouse earth by AlterEager · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Correct... the fallacy that our climate is static is the number 1 reason I dont believe much of this debate

    1. There is no "debate"

    2. No scientist has ever claimed the climate is static.

    the tempa go up, the temps go down, constituent ingredients that make up our atmosphere change,

    No. The temperatures change for reasons. The constituent gases of the atmosphere change for reasons.

    yet Earth keeps on ticking, there is NOTHING we can do for this,

    Well, you are of course totally wrong. We not only can change the climate, we have.

    we ride on the Earth, hang on tight and make whatever adjustments you need to to survive.

    And, in order to survive the adjustment we will have to make is to stop emitting fossil CO2.