Denial and 'Alternative Facts' haven’t stopped the Earth from Warming to Record-shattering Levels

We’re now breaking global temperature records once every three years 

 

February 2016 was the warmest February in 136 years of Nasa’s modern temperature records. Global temperature records were broken throughout 2016. Photograph: GISS/NASA 

According to NASA, in 2016 the Earth’s surface temperature shattered the previous record for hottest year set in 2015, which broke the previous record set in 2014, which  in turn had broken the previous record set in 2005.

Global temperature wasn’t the only record-setter in 2016. Global warming causes climate change, and North America saw its highest number of storms and floods in over four decades. Globally, we saw over 1.5 times more extreme weather catastrophes in 2016 than the average over the past 30 years. Global sea ice cover plunged to a record low as well. California endured a fifth consecutive year of its worst drought in over a millennium. A drought also savaged the maize harvest in Southern Africa, causing a famine. The list of climate consequences goes on.

Read more at The Guardian

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Data:
2016 was the warmest year in the 137-year series compiled by NOAA (graph, below). Sixteen of the 17 warmest years on record occurred in the consecutive years 2001 through 2016. The five warmest years have all occurred since 2010. 

 

Elon Musk: What Will It Take to Address the Climate Crisis?

Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, breaks down climate change for students at The Sorbonne in Paris right before the historic Climate Change Conference in which over 190 nations agreed to reduce global warming emissions to keep the global average temperature increase below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) relative to pre-industrial temperatures.

What will it take to address the Climate Crisis? Watch the 12 minute video for Elon Musk's view:

It's been Cold Here, but the Planet is still Warming

By David Kowalski

The front-page illustration titled “The big chill” in The News on Feb. 20 was an eye-catching reminder of the extremely cold temperatures we experienced at the beginning of 2015. January’s high temperatures of all but seven of the days were below the long-term average, as were all but two of the 20 days in February thus far.

Some may interpret such extended cold spells as evidence against global warming. However, that view is incorrect.

Global warming is assessed by measuring temperatures at numerous locations on land around the world as well as in the oceans that make up more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface. Measurements are made over time and the global average temperature is determined.

The Buffalo area comprises only a tiny fraction of the surface of the globe, and so local temperatures make only a small contribution to the global average temperature.

Despite the local “big chill,” the planet continued to warm in January. In fact, the global average temperature was the second-highest since records began in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This finding follows in the wake of 2014 as the hottest year on record and the 38th consecutive year of above-average global temperatures.

NOAA displayed its global analysis of January temperatures on a world map showing that the New York State region, including Buffalo, was “cooler than average.” In contrast, however, the Western United States and even parts of Alaska showed above-average warming, as did most other regions on land and in oceans around the globe.

NOAA’s map is below.

[Click image to enlarge]

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This post originally appeared in The Buffalo News on March 1, 2015 as a letter to the editor. It can be viewed at BuffaloNews.com

Global Climate Change: 2014 Officially the Hottest Year on Record

Excerpts from a report at TheGuardian.com

The numbers are in. The year 2014 – after shattering temperature records that had stood for hundreds of years across virtually all of Europe, and roasting parts of South America, China and Russia – was the hottest on record, with global temperatures 1.24F (0.69C) higher than the 20th-century average, U.S. government scientists said on Friday.

In North America, California saw its hottest year, with annual average temperatures 4.1F (2.3C) higher than 20th century average, and scant relief for a punishing drought. Surprisingly, Alaska showed record warm temperatures as well. But for the remainder of North America, it was the opposite story [see Global Map and color Key, below].

 

The world was the hottest it has been since systematic records began in 1880, especially on the oceans, which the agency confirmed were the driver of 2014’s temperature rise.

The scientists said 2014 was the 38th consecutive year of above-average temperatures. That means nobody born since 1976 has experienced a colder-than-average year.

“Any one year being a record warm one is not in itself particularly significant, but this is one in a series of record warm years that are driven by the continuing underlying long-term global warming,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

Thirteen of the 15 hottest years have occurred since 2000.

“We expect that heat records will continue to get broken – not everywhere and not every year – but increasingly, and that does not bode well for a civilization that is continuing to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at an increasing rate.” “Nineteen eighty-eight was also a record warm year at the time. Now it doesn’t even rank in the top 20,” Schmidt said.

The last record cold year was more than a century ago in 1911.

“We can safely say it’s probably the warmest year in 1,700 and 2,000 years, and I think it’s probably safe to say 5,000 years,” said Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois who has worked on a number of IPCC reports. “You have a continuous upward trend over the last century and that is telling us something. We have a clear signal that our climate changing, and when you look at the evidence it’s because of human activities.”

“The evidence is so strong I don’t know why we are arguing any more,” Wuebbles said. “It’s just crazy.”

The odds of that temperature shift occurring because of natural climate variability were less than one in 27 million, according to the Climate Central research group.

“The data from NASA and NOAA is the latest scientific evidence that climate change is real, and we must act now to protect our families and future generations,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat and climate champion. “Deniers must stop ignoring these alarms if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

Campaign groups said the milestone ought to spur new efforts to fight climate change. “The Obama administration must back international efforts to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said Shaye Wolf, the climate science director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We need a global agreement that keeps most dirty fossil fuels in the ground and provides ample support for developing nations to leapfrog into clean energy economies.”

On the current emissions trajectory, the world will attain average warming of 7.2F or 9F [4C or 5C] by 2100, which climate scientists say would be catastrophic.

Read the full report at TheGuardian.com


VIDEO: Watch 135 Years of Global Warming in 30 Seconds.  This NASA video animation depicts how temperatures around the globe have warmed over the years from 1880 to 2014.

 

CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS

Rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change, UN IPCC Report says

Most important assessment of global warming yet warns carbon emissions must be cut sharply and soon -- Report says solutions are available and affordable.

Climate change is set to inflict “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” on people and the natural world unless carbon emissions are cut sharply and rapidly, according to the most important assessment of global warming yet published.

The stark report states that climate change has already increased the risk of severe heatwaves and other extreme weather and warns of worse to come, including food shortages and violent conflicts. But it also found that ways to avoid dangerous global warming are both available and affordable.

“Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in the message,” said the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, attending what he described as the “historic” report launch. “Leaders must act. Time is not on our side.” He said that quick, decisive action would build a better and sustainable future, while inaction would be costly.

Ban added a message to investors, such as pension fund managers: “Please reduce your investments in the coal- and fossil fuel-based economy and [move] to renewable energy.”

The report, released in Copenhagen on Sunday by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is the work of thousands of scientists and was agreed after negotiations by the world’s governments. 

It is the first IPCC report since 2007 to bring together all aspects of tackling climate change and for the first time states: that it is economically affordable; that carbon emissions will ultimately have to fall to zero; and that global poverty can only be reduced by halting global warming. The report also makes clear that carbon emissions, mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, are currently rising to record levels, not falling.

Read more at the The Guardian.
The IPCC's Summary Report intended for policymakers is Here.

The Military Takes on Climate Change Deniers

The idea that climate change poses serious risks to U.S. national security, long contested in conservative circles, is now an integral part of Pentagon planning. 

On Oct. 13, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made it official with the release of the Pentagon’s 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, a 16-page document that lays out the effects of extreme weather events and rising temperatures on military training, operations, acquisitions, and infrastructure.

Two previous editions, issued in 2012 and 2013, treated climate change as a future threat, but this year’s cast it as a reality that must be dealt with quickly. “Climate change will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the Nation and poses immediate risks,” the document begins.

The Pentagon’s move sets up a showdown between the military, a cautious institution run by some of the most conservative people in the U.S. government, and congressional Republicans, who continue to deny that climate change is real, let alone that it requires action.

Read more at BusinessWeek.com
The Pentagon's 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap is Here.

The IPCC is stern on climate change – but it still underestimates the situation

By Bill McKibben
 
UN body’s warning on carbon emissions is hard to ignore, but breaking the power of the fossil fuel industry won’t be easy.

At this point, the scientists who run the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change must feel like it’s time to trade their satellites, their carefully calibrated thermometers and spectrometers, their finely tuned computer models – all of them for a thesaurus. Surely, somewhere, there must be words that will prompt the world’s leaders to act.

This week, with the release of their new synthesis report, they are trying the words “severe, widespread, and irreversible” to describe the effects of climate change – which for scientists, conservative by nature, falls just short of announcing that climate change will produce a zombie apocalypse plus random beheadings plus Ebola. It’s hard to imagine how they will up the language in time for the next big global confab in Paris.

But even with all that, this new document – actually a synthesis of three big working group reports released over the last year – almost certainly underestimates the actual severity of the situation. As the Washington Post pointed out this week, past reports have always tried to err on the side of understatement; it’s a particular problem with sea level rise, since the current IPCC document does not even include the finding in May that the great Antarctic ice sheets have begun to melt. (The studies were published after the IPCC’s cutoff date.)

But when you get right down to it, who cares? The scientists have done their job; no sentient person, including Republican Senate candidates, can any longer believe in their heart of hearts that there’s not a problem here. The scientific method has triumphed: over a quarter of a century, researchers have reached astonishing consensus on a basic problem in chemistry and physics.

And the engineers have done just as well. The price of a solar panel has dropped by more than 90% over the last 25 years, and continues to plummet. In the few places they have actually been deployed at scale, the results are astonishing: there were days this summer when Germany generated 75% of its power from the wind and the sun.

Read more at The Guardian.



Giving Up Fossil Fuels to Save the Climate: The $28 Trillion Writedown  

“We’re not going to be able to burn it all.” With those 10 words, Barack Obama uttered one of the most stunning, far-reaching statements ever made by a U.S. president. He also completely contradicted his own energy policy. Yet no one seemed to notice. 

Obama was asked about the international goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 deg.F) since the start of the industrial era. Going past 2 degrees, noted the interviewer, NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, would “cross into some really dangerous, unstable territory: Arctic melting, massive sea-level rise, disruptive storms.” 

The International Energy Agency has concluded that meeting the 2 deg.C target will require leaving two-thirds of the earth’s known reserves of oil, gas, and coal underground, unburned, Friedman said. Did Obama agree with that conclusion?

“Well, science is science,” the president replied. “And there is no doubt that if we burned all the fossil fuel that’s in the ground right now, that the planet’s going to get too hot and the consequences could be dire.”

This new scientific imperative—to leave the bulk of earth’s fossil fuels in the ground—has not yet penetrated most government or private-sector policy discussions, much less mainstream media coverage or public awareness. Its political and economic implications, however, are huge.

Read more at BusinessWeek.com


'This Changes Everything,’ by Naomi Klein: Book Review

Naomi Klein’s latest book may be the manifesto that the climate movement — and the planet — needs right now. Mainstream environmental groups and politicians alike support the notion of “green growth,” in which the world can continue with largely unfettered markets and still manage to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions. Klein argues that this is a fallacy, that capitalism and the climate are fundamentally at odds.

Because of its focus on the economic system, “This Changes Everything” stands

out from most books on climate change. Klein has spent the past couple of decades steeped in the fight against corporate power and free-market ideology, writing two best-selling books, “No Logo” and “The Shock Doctrine.” She shows how free-market, growth-above-all ideology has been built around World Trade Organization deals that stymie local action on cutting emissions, and into laws and norms that make corporations obligated to continue extracting more fossil fuels, as long as there’s profit in it. “The bottom line,” Klein writes, is that “our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. … Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”

Those who deny the existence of climate change grasp this better than most liberals, Klein argues. The battle over climate change cuts to the heart of “the central ideological battle of our time — whether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market.” Deniers have to reject climate action — otherwise they’d lose this ideological battle.

Read more at SFGate