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Earth Hit Record Hot Year in 2016: NASA (news.com.au)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Earth sizzled to a third-straight record hot year in 2016, government scientists have said. They mostly blame man-made global warming with help from a natural El Nino, which has since disappeared. From a report: Measuring global temperatures in slightly different ways, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that last year passed 2015 as the hottest year on record. NOAA calculated that the average 2016 global temperature was 14.84 degrees Celsius (58.69 degrees Fahrenheit) -- beating the previous year by 0.04 Celsius (0.07 degrees F). NASA's figures, which include more of the Arctic, are higher at 0.22 degrees (0.12 Celsius) warmer than 2015. The Arctic "was enormously warm, like totally off the charts compared to everything else," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, where the space agency monitors global temperatures. Records go back to 1880. This is the fifth time in a dozen years that the globe has set a new annual heat record. Records have been set in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2010 and 2005.

4 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:At this rate... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    WE'RE ALL GONNA BE DEAD IN 10 YEARS! Isn't that the oft-repeated timeline?

    No.

    This is a long term effect. The timeline is many decades.

    We're all going to be slightly warmer in 10 years.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  2. No references? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I was disappointed that the article didn't provide links to NASA's and NOAA's findings.

  3. Re:0.00000333% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not overly to be sure, but only an idiot would think that pumping around 40 GIGATONS of CO2 per year isn't going to have a significant effect on the environment. I think the entire atmospheric CO2 cycle is only around 700 gigatons. That represents around 5% increase each year. Imagine if you increased the salinity of your blood, the temperature of a pond, or practically aspect of anything by 5% a year, it wouldn't take long for disaster to ensue. Luckily the planet can generally take quite a beating, and has done so many times before, but the puny lifeforms clinging its habitable margin between being cooked alive/crushed (about 10 miles down) and freezing/suffocating (5 or so miles up) don't tend to fare so well (see the couple dozen ELE in the past 500 million years).

  4. Re:At this rate... by bigwheel · · Score: 1, Interesting

    (Dec 2007) This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

    http://news.nationalgeographic...

    I suppose you can argue that that since he used the word "could" rather than "shall", it make his statements null and void. But they sure sounded scary at the time.