2016 Will Be the Hottest Year On Record, UN Says (theguardian.com)

2016 will very likely be the hottest year on record and a new high for the third year in a row, according to the UN. It means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record will have been this century. From an article on The Guardian:The scorching temperatures around the world, and the extreme weather they drive, mean the impacts of climate change on people are coming sooner and with more ferocity than expected, according to scientists. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, published on Monday at the global climate summit in Morocco, found the global temperature in 2016 is running 1.2C above pre-industrial levels. This is perilously close to to the 1.5C target included as an aim of the Paris climate agreement last December. The El Nino weather phenomenon helped push temperatures even higher in early 2016 but the global warming caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities remains the strongest factor.

Comments

Re:How to prevent it? Raise taxes!

[JoeyRox]

Raising taxes doesn't make it colder out but the system of cap-and-trade (which most call taxes) does create financial incentives/disincentives to account for the environmental cost of using polluting sources of energy. Absent that system, power companies and manufacturers will use the cheapest source of energy they can find, which usually correlates to the most polluting source of energy. For those who think this interferes with the free market, Milton Friedman was a proponent of a cap-and-trade system and he was a staunch supporter of the free market with near-zero governmental interference.

Re:Is this from The Onion?

[rthille]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How to prevent it? Raise taxes!

[JoeyRox]

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/ghost-milton-friedman-endorses-price-carbon

And in case you don't believe what's written, here it is from Milton's own mouth - discussion at 2:08 into the video, and he comments on taxing pollution at 3:08:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH0O_JjH06k

Re:moderate warming is good for humans

[Layzej]

Do you really think going from 0.025% to 0.040% atmospheric CO2 is what's driving all temperature change?

A change from 0.025 to 0.04 would cause a direct impact of 2.5 Wm^-2 based on radiative transfer codes. Over the surface of the Earth that is equivalent to 1,600,000 Hiroshima bombs per day. Yes, this is certainly what is causing most (possibly more than all) of the warming over the last 60 years.

When you consider that warmer air holds more H2O (a far more potent heat trapping molecule) then you begin to see that the overall impact is even larger than the direct effect.

Re:Exactly the reverse is true

[Namarrgon]

Why do you claim the models ignore clouds? Of course they're included. The problem is their effect is difficult to predict precisely, as they trap heat as well as increase albedo, so the net contribution can vary significantly. There are a great many studies about their contribution though, and confidence is very high that the increasing humidity is a positive feedback even with the resulting extra clouds factored in.

I'm glad you agree that the climate is steadily warming. Obviously all record temperatures will be on El Niño years, just as La Niña contributes to the cooler periods between them (which some have mistakenly labelled a "pause"). The important part is that this El Niño year has been hotter than all the previous El Niño years - just like 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005 and 1998. Such a string of broken records can only be a sustained warming trend.

And may I suggest less complaining about others examples, and more looking for citations to back up your own claims.