Slashdot Mirror
2018 Was Earth's Fourth-Hottest Year on Record: NOAA and NASA Report (cnbc.com)
The string of hotter-than-average annual temperatures continued in 2018, as Earth experienced its fourth-hottest year on record, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [PDF]. From a report: Also in 2018, the United States suffered 14 weather and climate disasters with costs surpassing $1 billion during a warmer- and wetter-than-average year, NOAA reports. Global temperatures across land and sea were 1.42 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, making 2018 the fourth-warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880, NOAA said in a report Thursday. In a separate report, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said global temperatures were 1.5 degrees above the 1951 to 1980 mean, also the fourth highest going back to 1880.
The 2-degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures since the late 19th century has been driven largely by growing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, said the institute's director, Gavin Schmidt. The conclusion reaffirms NASA's long-established finding that man-made emissions are driving climate change, which President Donald Trump and some senior administration officials frequently challenge. By both agencies' measures, Earth has now recorded its five hottest annual average temperatures in the past five years. "2018 is yet again an extremely warm year on top of a long-term global warming trend," Schmidt said in a press release.
The 2-degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures since the late 19th century has been driven largely by growing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, said the institute's director, Gavin Schmidt. The conclusion reaffirms NASA's long-established finding that man-made emissions are driving climate change, which President Donald Trump and some senior administration officials frequently challenge. By both agencies' measures, Earth has now recorded its five hottest annual average temperatures in the past five years. "2018 is yet again an extremely warm year on top of a long-term global warming trend," Schmidt said in a press release.
The summary points out that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record, but neglects to mention that the three hotter years were all this decade, with 2016 being the hottest since records began.
Of course, nothing with stop the global warming deniers...
NASA does not have a long-standing finding that Mankind is driving climate change; they have a long-standing belief, and have made statements, but still no scientific proof.
They have a hypothesis, which is incorporated into a model, and the model is compared to measurements.
That's the way science is done.
So far, the model is supported by the evidence, and the null hypothesis-- that climate is not being influenced by human emissions of greenhouse gasses-- is very strongly ruled out by the evidence.
If you want to not believe the model, what you do is need to find an alternative model that is not contradicted by the evidence-- one that fits the measurements better than the standard model. So far, such an alternate model has not been put forth.
This is how science is done. "Scientific proof" really is a word used by popularizers; it's not used by scientists. Scientists talk about whether a model is supported by the evidence or not. So far, the models are.
Yes, the sun heats the Earth, but CO2 slows the rate at which that heat escapes.
"As for the 420ppm is nothing" B.S. - The atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen(~78%), oxygen(~21%), and argon(~0.9%), all of which are transparent to infrared radiation, and thus irrelevant to the greenhouse effect that keeps our planet from being a frozen ball of ice. That leaves the last 0.1% of trace gasses for greenhouse warming - and over 93% of that is CO2. (There's also water, but that varies wildly and self-regulates through evaporation and precipitaion)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The amount of non-fossil fuels burned 200 years ago was not negligible. The fuel for steam engines may have been renewable, but it was not renewed. The vegetation removed in cropland conversion wasn't all used as building materials either. Fossil fuel consumption was dwarfed by land use emissions until the second half of the 20th century, while the latter started adding appreciable CO2 to the atmosphere in the second half of the 19th century.