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Earth Hit Record Hot Year in 2016: NASA (news.com.au)
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.
Don't worry, deniers. With 2015's El Nino now over, you can look forward to cooler temperatures in 2017, and then when 2018 rolls around, you can declare that 2017's lower average global temperature proves that global warming has ended (again). Patience is key. Good luck!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I was disappointed that the article didn't provide links to NASA's and NOAA's findings.
The Goddard Institute for Space Science data is here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...
A press release from Columbia University about the findings is here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
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).
Show the raw temperature measurements NASA! We don't want to see those "corrected" data sets from James Hansen et al. anymore.
All of the data is available on the GISS site, which I assume you haven't bothered to look at: https://www.giss.nasa.gov/
The site includes the source code for the analysis and a discussion of what all the data corrections are, why they were done, and what the data looks like before and after corrections.
You might want to start with the FAQ on how the data analysis is done, here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...
If you don't like the way NASA does the data analysis, there's an independent analysis from Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, here: http://berkeleyearth.org/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Of course El Nino contributed. But it's still hotter than every other El Nino year we've ever seen.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
What Geoffrey said. It's easy enough to pull the instrumental record global average data into a spreadsheet and plot it; I've done it several times myself.
Also be aware of what error bars can and cannot tell you. You can't tell about the statistical significance of trends just by comparing adjacent years with error bars. It's the wrong statistical test to talk about decades-long tends. You might never ever see a year which is statistically significantly warmer than a prior year at some level of confidence, yet have a trend which over a decade or more hits that confidence level.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Click here to see the uncorrected data graphed alongside the main corrected analyses (source: Berkeley Earth via Ars Technica).
Hopefully this makes it abundantly clear that the raw data still shows an obvious warming trend even before known problems are removed. It also shows how little difference the corrections have actually made, particularly in the last 75 years.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
This afternoon, I watched clips on Youtube from the 1992 Presidential debate. It's not that far in the past, but there was a massive difference in the tone from 2016. The three candidates did go after each other, but were respectful and focused on the issues, mostly the economy. The debate had real substance and addressed the real issues rather than being characterized by personal attacks. All the AC comments at -1 on this story make me feel the same way about public discourse. Those comments are at -1 mostly because they are attempting to prevent rational discussion of the issues.
There are still uncertainties about global warming, notably the effects on certain types of extreme weather (such as cold air outbreaks), the role of positive feedbacks (like the release of methane) and mitigating factors (such as aerosols), and the societal impacts in the 21st century. Although computer models are continually improving, there are still significant limitations in what can be simulated in the configurations used for climate simulations. Specifically, the need to simulate longer periods of time comes at the expense of the resolution of the models, meaning that processes resolved in models used for weather prediction may not be resolved in global climate models. However, the idea that adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will cause warming really should be settled by now, as the greenhouse effect is a long-established matter of physics and chemistry. But it doesn't mean there's no room for rational discussion on a lot of issues. And certainly the solutions to our global warming problems should be up for debate, because it's not at all clear that carbon taxes and other proposed are good and effective solutions.
The problem is that we aren't discussing those issues. If every aspect of global warming was settled science, there would be no reason for any further research, yet there's a lot of funding going toward studying climate change. However, that there some topics that can be debated should not be considered a license to deny basic physics and chemistry. It seems like a deliberate attempt to prevent the discussion from ever reaching the real issues.
In many of these discussions, the credibility of the scientists is more on trial than the actual science. Much of it is based on statements that are misleading at best. For example, data sets and methodologies used by federal administrations like NOAA and NASA are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, along with other requirements for accountability and transparency. Data sets collected by researchers receiving NOAA funding are obligated to release those data sets to the public within two years and keep them archived. The claim that scientists are keeping data secret and cutting corners with their methodologies is almost completely invalid, yet the claim keeps being made.
I'm reminded that we once focused our discussions on actual issues and were capable of rational discourse despite our disagreements. That 1992 debate featured large disagreements on economic issues between Perot, Bush, and Clinton. Bush clearly lost the debate, but it was because the discussion was about the economic plans of the candidates, and Bush came across as very out of touch with the economic issues facing the middle class. He lost on the issues, which is incredibly refreshing compared to what we see in 2017. Unfortunately, the tone of the discussion on so many other topics, including climate change, has changed dramatically in the past 25 years, to the point that we never actually get to discussing the issues. That's a damn shame.
The reason why I ask this is when you peruse Figure 6.1 of the IPCC Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles report, the listed errors of natural carbon sources far exceed those of anthropogenic origin.
I think you're mis-reading the numbers on that figure. The numbers in red aren't error bars, that's the change since 1750. (each individual element is listed in the form "123= 108.9+14.1", where the first number is the total, the second number is the estimated value in 1750, and the third number is the change since 1750 (printed in red). Note that all that matters from photosynthesis is the difference between the input and output (labelled "net land flux"), which they point out is known to a better accuracy than the component parts.
A rain belt shift that sees the Midwest and the Plains become more and more drought prone is going to have a pretty major effect on a country of over 300 million people. This isn't just about having to build dikes in Florida or abandoning portions of its coastline, there are certain features of modern civilization that are built upon ready access to arable lands.
CO2 levels 80 million years ago are irrelevant to a feature of the planet that has only existed for the last 10,000 years; namely human civilization.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
(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."
Here's how 2012 ended up. Looks like he was not too far off!
If the recent warming trend is due to the El Nino:
1. Why is 2016 hotter than every other year in which there was an El Nino?
2. Why was the trough of the last La Nina hotter than every La Nina that came before it: and indeed, so hot that that trough was level with the El Nino that happened 10 years prior?
3. Why do you accept the concept of an El Nino at all? Surely if the concept of atmospheric composition impacting climate must be reject for [error! no reason supplied], then El Nino (ocean temperature driving climate) ought to be rejected as well? Explain the logic behind that.
You joke... but he basically did already. Trump has announced his intention to shut down NASA's earth sciences division.
Because apparently Earth is not a planet in space.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *