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'Extreme and Unusual' Climate Trends Continue After Record 2016 (bbc.com)

From a report on BBC: In the atmosphere, the seas and around the poles, climate change is reaching disturbing new levels across the Earth. That's according to a detailed global analysis from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It says that 2016 was not only the warmest year on record, but it saw atmospheric CO2 rise to a new high, while Arctic sea ice recorded a new winter low. The "extreme and unusual" conditions have continued in 2017, it says. Reports earlier this year from major scientific bodies - including the UK's Met Office, Nasa and NOAA -- indicated that 2016 was the warmest year on record. The WMO's State of the Global Climate 2016 report builds on this research with information from 80 national weather services to provide a deeper and more complete picture of the year's climate data.

10 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. This will be denied by all the idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you visit 99 doctors who say you have cancer and one who says your lump is natural, and besides you just don't believe in medical science be cause religion/ideology/economics... whatever. That's pretty much the situation were in with climate science and climate change deniers. WAKE UP! Start treatment!

    1. Re: This will be denied by all the idiots by Altus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nobody is getting rich of government grants. Nobody. Maybe you should break out of your news bubble and stop listening to the people shoveling this crap at you.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    2. Re: This will be denied by all the idiots by Altus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, lots of people like building up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of student debt just so they can barely scrape by on that sweet sweet government grant money.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    3. Re:This will be denied by all the idiots by Immerman · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, you weren't. There was a *very* small fringe of the scientific community that ever believed in global cooling - that the media chose to latch onto it is irrelevant.

      Also only a very small fringe warned of ice caps melting by 2000 - but again, sensationalism sells news, so that's what the media latched onto.

      Early on the vast bulk of scientists said "we're not really sure just how fast things will get bad, but we should probably start mitigating the risk while we collect more data". Then, about 50 years ago they had enough data to start making predictions - and those predictions have been proving accurate to within the margins of error ever since. Basically for the last several decades of the science has just been a matter of dialing in the decimal points and discovering knock-on effects.

      And most importantly, NOBODY has come up with *any* alternate explanations for the warming we're experiencing that actually matches the data. Data which "coincidentally" is exactly what you'd predict from the well-known thermal retention effects of CO2. And that CO2 can be clearly laid at human's feet because it's accumulating in the atmosphere at a rate *slower* than what we know human fossil fuel consumption is producing.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. Junk Science by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Until they can show peer reviewed research showing climate change, I'm not believing it.

    It's a Chinese hoax.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:No complaints here by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All that matters is short term success. Fuck the future, fuck the brown people, fuck everything but the next six minutes.

    We're dealing with a generation of navel-gazing halfwits whose entire life can be described in 140 characters. And of course, because any aspect of US monitoring of climate is going to be defunded, for the next five to ten years the virginal unwashed basement dwellers and all the angry Rust Belters can continue to pretend that a lack of solid action on CO2 emissions isn't going to cause any problems whatsoever.

    Well, at least the Kochs will keep making money, and after all, that's all that really counts.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. Re: No complaints here by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because that's not what they're asking for. Even your "unmodified data" statement demonstrates that you're just aping a talking point.

    I will fucking repeat, because you appear to be either a fucking moron or out and out malicious. The radiation absorption properties of CO2 have been known for over a century. There is ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING, let me repeat that, because you appear to be a fucking idiot, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOT ONE FUCKING THING controversial about increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gas amounts in the atmosphere that will lead to increase trapping of energy,

    For fuck's sake, the Arctic was some thirty degrees above normal seasonal temperatures for most of this winter. Most of the last twenty years have been the hottest on record. Increased absorption of CO2 in the world's oceans is changing ocean pH levels. Do you think making spurious demands based largely on bullshit you read on denier sites somehow overrides the laws of physics? Are you really that fucking stupid? Were you dropped on your head as a child?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  5. Skepticism and denial by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, I've never seen such outright hatred displayed by the skeptics.

    Yes, I've never before seen such outright hatred as that displayed by the "skeptics", either. It's pretty frightening. But the thing of it is, they're not skeptics: they claim that they're skeptics, but this is a peculiar one-sided "skepticism": no matter how much evidence you show them that the scientists know what they're doing, or how patiently you answer their arguments, they ignore it, but even the most absurd attacks on the science they jump on and believe absolutely, saying "look! It's all a hoax! It's a fraud! Lock them up!"

    They're usually just asking for evidence and unmodified data, like good scientists strive to do.

    That would be science. But when they then don't pay the slightest attention to the reply-- because they're trying to spread doubt, not actually asking for answers-- that's not skepticism: that's denial.

  6. Methane [Re: No complaints here] by XXongo · · Score: 5, Informative
    [ in reply to the question "Name one other factor in climate change that's even close to CO2."]:

    Source Not sure if source is valid, but numbers are close to what I have seen before.

    Equal to CO2? No
    Methane 25x
    N2O 298x

    Yes, but that's the effect per unit mass emitted. The effect on climate change will be the warming potential multiplied by the amount emitted, and in that respect, carbon dioxide-- from fuel burned in billion ton quantities-- is the clear leader. Amounts emitted are there a different tab on the site you linked as your source: https://climatechangeconnectio...
    Or, look here: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio...

    But you can't tax cows,

    Sure you could.

    and farmers are a big lobby for Congress, so you ignore the methane. If you really cared you would be working on methane more than CO2.

    methane emissions are also important, and people looking at responses to greenhouse emissions do, in fact, also look at how to reduce methane emissions.

    The fact that you go after CO2 gives away your political agenda and shows that you don't really care about the science.

    No it doesn't. It shows that people are looking most closely at the largest effect.

    In fact I bet you didn't even know about methane. Gotta wonder when a "denier" knows more about the science than you do. According to you all I haven't ever looked at the science even half as much as you, but here I am giving facts you didn't know about.

    Wrong on all counts. If you would actually read some of the literature, you'd see methane discussed in great detail. Including in the sites you list.

  7. Re: No complaints here by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, deserts heat up and expand, and you have hundreds of millions of people trying to move into your back yard, meaning you have to pay a fuck ton more in taxes to support border patrols, armies, all the while you're facing food and water supply problems because your bread basket regions suddenly are less productive, and you become more reliant on foreign sources of agriculture. Meanwhile many other costs, like insurance, start skyrocketing, or many climate-related problems simply aren't covered. Oh yes, and as mentioned elsewhere collapse of many major fisheries, which will lead to huge pressures on coastal populations in many parts of the world where those fisheries are a significant, if not primary source of protein.

    Will it happen in your lifetime? If you're under thirty, very likely yes. I'm in my mid-40s, so hopefully I'll miss some of the nastier effects. My kids and grandchldren won't, sadly. But the West is pretty wealthy, so doubtless will pull through relatively alright, though tens of millions of refugees fleeing regions far more vulnerable and far less economically capable of weathering the worst of it, will start showing up, as I mention above, and the costs of keeping them out or integrating them will be huge. Some areas will simply become unlivable by even the hardier animals, and people have this habit of not just sitting down and dying when survival where they are becomes impossible.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.