Slashdot Mirror


Warmest March In Global Recordkeeping (wunderground.com)

Layzej quotes a report from Weather Underground: March 2016 was by far the planet's warmest March since record keeping began in 1880. In the NOAA database, March 2016 came in a full 1.22C (2.20F) warmer than the 20th-century average for March, as well as 0.32C (0.58F) above the previous record for March, set in 2010. This is a huge margin for breaking a monthly global temperature record, as they are typically broken by just a few hundredths of a degree. Global satellite-measured temperatures also found this March to be the warmest -- the sixth consecutive monthly record in the UAH satellite data set. Gavin Schmidt, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies has estimated that 2016 already has over a 99% chance of being the hottest year on record, based on the first three months alone.

23 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. Satellite data in 1880? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe those 1880 satellites weren't calibrated as good as they are now?

    I hear it's a little cool in the midwest this April.

  2. Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Honest question.

    I ride my bike to work. My house is powered by a solar panel installation. I recycle everything I can, compost a lot of the rest, and generate very little actual garbage. I do have a car but it's rare I actually need to use it.

    What exactly am I supposed to do about global warming? Yell at my neighbours because their piece of shit 1970s automobile spews a cloud of toxic black crap every time they pull out of the driveway? Make funny faces at the moron down the street who insists on driving a hummer every time he passes my house? Stand on the side of the road with a sign over my shoulders that says "REPENT, THE END IS NEIGH"?

    I'm just one person. Most of my close friends and family are mindful about their impact on the planet just as much as I am. I don't know what we're supposed to do beyond that, though. When I hear shit about the crap places like India and China are pumping into the air, I wonder why the hell I'm bothering in the first place. I suppose 'cause it's the right thing to do, but I don't know how much of a difference a dozen of people could possibly make.

    1. Re:Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What exactly am I supposed to do about global warming?

      Birth control.
      When you cut through all the environmentalism BS, you see that the real underlying problem is obviously overpopulation.

      --
      "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    2. Re:Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Funny

      Birth control.
      When you cut through all the environmentalism BS, you see that the real underlying problem is obviously overpopulation.

      Thankfully for most Slashdotters, involuntary abstinence is a very good form of birth control.

    3. Re:Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by Captain+Kirk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I suggest you download and watch Idiocracy: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

      Birth control by smart intelligent people who care about the planet is just a way of handing it over to stupid uneducated people who don't use birth control and don't care about the planet.

      If you wouldn't vote for people like that in an election, why on earth would you hand the future of the planet over to them and their descendants?

    4. Re:Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yell at my neighbours because their piece of shit 1970s automobile spews a cloud of toxic black crap every time they pull out of the driveway?

      Maybe. In the Europe even old cars have to meet emissions standards, even old ones. So we don't really have a problem with people running broken cars belching out smog, because they are required not to.

      Why should you accept someone polluting the shared air that you both have to breathe?

      I don't know what we're supposed to do beyond that, though.

      You already did a lot, and you should be commended for that. Beyond that the best thing now is probably to keep pressure on politicians to address the issue. The US has a huge problem with denialists in government. Get them to follow the lead of those countries that are making a big effort to address the issue, like Germany.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Okay... so what am I supposed to do about it? by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 3, Funny

      Or are you saying that the liberals just say whatever they want as long as it moves their agenda forward?

      Yes, that's what liberals do. They sit at large conference tables, discussing how to destroy western culture, commit white genocide, and turn the world into a vegan-only communist dictatorship. When someone comes up with a particularly brilliant idea, such as designating Whole Foods the People's Grocery Store, they all rap their knuckles and shout "BWAHAHA!!!" in unison. The FEMA camps are only the beginning. Expect the massive die-offs to begin soon!

      Seriously, though, have you considered asking your psychiatrist for new meds? The ones you are on are obviously not working.

  3. Hypotheticals by Empiric · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. March was the highest average on record by 2F, all of which was anthropogenic in origin.

    2. March was the highest average on record by 2F, 1F of which was anthropogenic, and 1F was caused by long-standing historical temperature cycles.

    3. March was the highest average on record by 2F, all of which was caused by long-standing historical temperature cycles.

    What modifications of human industrial/consumption/energy behavior would you recommend for each of these cases, given that which is actually the case is not determinable? Implicit in this is the question of what the "right temperature" would be.

    --
    ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    1. Re:Hypotheticals by KeensMustard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, if number 3 is true, it's probably time to consider killing yourself.

      That scenario suggests firstly that some undetectable phenomena is driving climate change, and also that some undetectable phenomena is preventing the warming that should have occurred from rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, there is a century long conspiracy plot, possibly the moon landings were faked to keep this plot secret, and presumably the entire scientific community is in on it. The level of power and authority and basic competence need to sustain such a secret over such a length of time is indicative that the power structures we thought governed the world are not actually effective, we live in a state of absolute servitude and what we think is real is probably not real. It's hard to believe that humans could achieve such a thing, implying an outside influence - supernatural, or possibly alien in nature.

      Given that you are powerless, and have no ability to change that situation, I suggest in this circumstance that your best course is to top yourself, and let the blissful kiss of death ease you.

      Alternatively, you could consider asking yourself "What framework or philosophy might guide our collective actions in this circumstance, and what methods can we use to help us understand the situation better?" Let me suggest that rather than making shit up as a method or listening to mouth breathing liars as a strategy to understand the situation better, that we could employ science. And lo and behold! Science has already told us what has caused the problem and given us at least a rough outline of how to make things better.

      Maybe you don't need to kill yourself after all.

    2. Re:Hypotheticals by x0ra · · Score: 3, Informative

      Existing models have failed to correctly predict "the pause", so why should we continue to trust them blindly ? They are obviously missing something...

    3. Re:Hypotheticals by Alioth · · Score: 4, Informative

      There has been no pause. It only looks like "a pause" if you cherry pick an outlier warm year and ignore the trend.

  4. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by KeensMustard · · Score: 5, Funny
    I had no idea that you had been appointed "the guy who speaks for everybody" Did you get a hat or sash to go with the responsibility?

    Now that we know who you are, can I ask you a question about emacs and vi?

  5. Re:some questions by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Informative

    why is the temperature record significant?

    It's just one of many data points, but many people still think "global warming" rather than the more accurate "climate change" so pointing out that it's getting warmer and warmer is a way of getting across the view that things are getting worse and that the rate of change is accellerating.

    are the specific causes known and how exactly?

    Known, not really. Lots of theories, many with quite a lot of supporting evidence, but nothing that can be pointed at and said "this is the way this is" with a degree of certainly like you can apply to a proven physical law. Welcome to much of science; that's just the way it is - a series of ever more accurate models that hopefully get close enough to the reality to be "good enough" for what you need to do, but quite often never actually getting there in a manner similar to Xeno's Paradox.

    if the causes are known was the temperature with accuracy predicted by models when those causes were included? why not?

    The current models are often insanely complex and even then simplify the reality down considerably to enable computation to occur in a reasonable timeframe; e.g. data points for a given model might now be collected and calculated on a 1km grid instead of a 10km grid a few years ago - an order of magnitude more accurate, but still with enough margin of error to miss something important, or have nature throw a curve ball through that would have needed 100m resolution for the model to catch. See above about Xeno's Paradox.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  6. Actually it doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's say that it is all natural --- now what? We still don't want all the ice to melt.

    Let's say it is "all human". Now what? The governments don't actually do anything.

    Why not do something concrete like ban all non-emergency air travel? NO NOES THE INCONVENIENCE!!! Why not ban all government use of jets? Why not ban the use of corporate cars that aren't electric? Why not ban air conditioning?

    It isn't really about whether or not something is happening but rather governments never follow through, making the alarmism itself rather pointless.

    No one is willing to live up any luxuries, especially the big shots jetting around to these conferences.

    1. Re:Actually it doesn't matter by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We need to stop pitching it as giving up luxuries, because that isn't what's needed. We need to pitch it as making your life better.

      A better insulated home saves you money on HVAC and maintains a more pleasant environment (no more air-con chills or huddling around the radiators). An electric car is smooth and quiet and powerful and charging at home is much more convenient than regular trips to fill up on petrol, so the sooner the prices come down and we can all have one the better. Plus any reduction in the pollution entering your lungs improves your health and reduces healthcare costs (how much do you spend on allergy meds and inhalers?), and reduces the time and money you spend cleaning your home.

      Don't say it's not possible. People in Europe and Japan have similar or better standards of living than people in the US do, and use a fraction of the energy.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look at the first graph. Notice how the climate is basically identical to the second graph.

    Maybe you could explain why the charts are mostly blue in 1921 and mostly red in 2013? Furthemore, despite the fact that the difference in the first chart should be only two Fahrenheits, I think I do see the 2013 being slightly higher on average. If by "basically identical", you mean that it's two Fahrenheits out of a fifty Fahrenheit annual amplitude, then yes, it's "basically identical". But most people wouldn't call, say, a seasonal ten Kelvin difference in outside temperature during their year as "basically identical" even though 290K and 300K is "basically identical" from a certain point of view.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not cherry picking these

    Yes you are. You are trying to disprove that global warming - and that the average of all the temperature stations are wrong - because one single station doesn't show the same increase as the entire globe.

    And surely you should not be looking at the first graph. It only shows the minimum and maximum temperatures and not how long it spends are the top end of the range throughout the day compared to the minimum. If in 1921 it peaked at the maximum only briefly compared to later years (when it might spend many hours more at the peak) then the average temperature for the day would be lower.

    The better graphs to look at are the ones below the min/max temps graph on the links that you provided. Compare the temperature departures from those two links and you see a lot more red (above the 0) on the more recent year. That shows the real temperature difference; that the average temperature over the year has indeed risen since 1921.

    How embarrassing it must be for you to have thought that you were smarter than all the climate scientists in the world who do actually know how to read the data. And how arrogant are you to to claim that to disagree with you means that they are all shills. The only one here spewing misinformation is you. I suggest that it is far more likely that it is you who are the shill.

  9. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nobody gives a shit. Not even the people who pretend to.

    If nobody gives a shit, then why do stories on climate change generate so many comments? And why did you bother coming here to post about it if you don't care? I suggest that you do actually care.

    I'm sure that you cared when you undoubtedly said that global warming was a myth because it was getting cooler since 1998. You probably also cared when you claimed that it was a myth because of the hiatus once it became obvious that the cooling was just the result of 1998 being an outlier year. And I'm sure that you care now when the records are being consistently broken, but this time all you can do is try to distract us from the facts by claiming that nobody actually gives a shit now.

    Sorry, we do give a shit, even if you like to pretend that we don't.

  10. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by dave420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm still trying to figure out what your point is. So far you've just cherry-picked some data after saying you're not cherry-picking, made some wild claims without supporting evidence, and then told everyone to stop discussing minima and maxima because you've had enough of it.

    It seems your grasp of the topic is somewhat tenuous and flavoured more by anger than intellectual curiosity.

  11. Re:Nobody Gives A Shit by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, I'm showing that it isn't noticeable as a person.

    No, it is noticeable as a person. Not only can you feel just one degree centigrade difference without any trouble, but the number of places not experiencing a notable change are outnumbered by the number of places which are. The average person can notice a change, if they do not have their head jammed straight up their arsehole.

    But the man on the street walking about... the point of the graph I showed was to make it clear that it is so subtle that you don't see it for feel with your own eyes and skin.

    Right, and you're wrong.

    So explaining why people might not care is really pretty self evident.

    Yes. They think it can't happen to them, and they don't care about anyone else. Quite self-evident.

    Anyway... if you want to discuss this civilly you'll find me a genial fellow. If you instead want to trade barbs you'll find I know how to draw blood as well as any.

    [citation needed]

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  12. The sun is measured. by XXongo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The flux from the sun is continuously measured by satellites.

    One thing that we know quite well is that changes in solar output is not the cause of present-day warming.

    It could be a factor in past climate variations-- we can't measure solar output very well millions of years ago, or even for that matter hundreds of years ago. But it is measured now, and it's not the cause of warming.

  13. Leave us alone by tom229 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have a car, because I have to drive to work. It's expensive to own a car and I'd rather not, but it's much more expensive to live in the downtown core where my office is, and to have my wife stay home with the kids. Therefore we both work, we live in the burbs, and we drive to work and daycare... like everyone else. Not because we want to, but because we have to.

    I heat my house with natural gas and power it from whatever power is on the grid because it's my only option as well. I live in a townhouse and don't think I'd have much success convincing everybody to upgrade their furnace and install solar panels above their unit. I'd love to live in my own detached house with infinite money to customise it for the planet, I simply can't afford to do so.

    I recycle as much as I can, even though there's evidence that for many products it costs more energy to recycle than make new, such as with plastic.

    This movement wonders why nobody seems to care? We've been berated and guilted with this shit for decades. We are all concerned, but most us are running the hamster wheel, working the wage slave gig, hoping like hell to be able to send our kids to college and scrap together enough money we'll be able to relax a little before we die. So I'm not really surprised when people get a little tired of hearing this shit and make up excuses why not to believe it. You're preaching to the wrong people. Take it to congress, to industry, and to other world leaders... leave us alone.

    --
    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  14. Re: Nobody Gives A Shit by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can picture the climate scientist somewhere in the world reading this and exclaiming, "Anonymous Coward has saved us all! We forgot to consider the sun!"

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.