2015 Was Hottest Year In Historical Record, Scientists Say

[Flashermac]

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

 

In the contiguous United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed.

 

Scientists started predicting a global temperature record months ago, in part because an El Niño weather pattern, one of the largest in a century, is releasing an immense amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. But the bulk of the record-setting heat, they say, is a consequence of the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

 

“The whole system is warming up, relentlessly,†said Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

 

It will take a few more years to know for certain, but the back-to-back records of 2014 and 2015 may have put the world back onto a trajectory of rapid global warming, after a period of relatively slow warming dating to the last powerful El Niño, in 1998.

 

Politicians attempting to claim that greenhouse gases are not a problem seized on that slow period to argue that “global warming stopped in 1998,†with these claims and similar statements reappearing recently on the Republican presidential campaign trail.

 

Statistical analysis suggested all along that the claims were false, and that the slowdown was, at most, a minor blip in an inexorable trend, perhaps caused by a temporary increase in the absorption of heat by the Pacific Ocean.

 

“Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate?†said Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan. “The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.â€

 

...

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/earth/2015-hottest-year-global-warming.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-4&action=click&contentCollection=Science&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

[pasathai1]

people in NYC might dispute that about now

[Coss]

I was waiting for this to arrive.

 

So in 136 years,1880–2015 we have a peak. Well done. If it was the highest in 10,000 years I'd sit up and take notice. But they can't say that can they.

 

On a tangent, I was watching a David Attenborough docco on Australia's Great Barrier Reef yesterday. Science has noted that the reef sits on a very shallow continental shelf that approximately 10,000 years ago was dry land. This, interestingly is also what the Aborigines say in their oral history (they arrived in Oz about 50,000 years ago) and then all that land was lost to rising sea levels at a rate of several hundreds of lateral meters per annum, quite fast.

 

Now thats fact and is over a decent period of time, I can believe that.

[Coss]

3 C in Northern Laos and snow.

 

Pups are learning about fire...

 

 

 

[Guest]

16 C in Bangkok today, hey this is cold ...

[Specialist]

I have NEVER seen sweaters and jackets and blankets and mufflers and bunny-rabbit-style hoodies in Soi Cowboy before tonight.

 

NEVER.

 

The poor girls looked like they were FREEZING.

 

Heck, *I* wouldn't have minded a light jacket, myself!

 

I'm taking the camera with me tomorrow night, if I can, and document it for posterity. The album title will be "What's all this Global Warming stuff, anyhow?"

[baa99]

That is certainly solid proof.

[Coss]

 

 

Monkey in a blanket, clever monkey

 

 

 

 

 

Buffalo over fire, dinner.

 

All from northern Laos, very cold and snow etc

[Coss]

http://www.odt.co.nz...precedented-way

 

I taken no issue with the article's intent, it's a genuine attempt to report a possible path for the future, unlikely though it may be.

 

But:

 

In the photo caption the words, "such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, as pictured in this Nasa image.†are clearly erroneous.

 

The picture shows Arctic sea ice, present, not the loss thereof.

 

Perhaps such basic flaws in the use of the English language are the reason the Author remains an independent journalist.

 

Warming accelerates in unprecedented way

 

 

By Gwynne Dyer on Wed, 20 Apr 2016

 

 

 

The plus-two threshold for global warming is the point which will trigger natural feedbacks that humans cannot control, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, as pictured in this Nasa image. Image supplied by Reuters.

 

 

If you spend a lot of time talking to scientists about climate change, there's one word you'll hear time and time again, and yet it's hardly ever mentioned in the public discussion of climate change. The word is ‘‘non-linear''.

Most people think of global warming as an incremental thing. It may be inexorable, but it's also predictable. Alas, most people are wrong. The climate is a very complex system, ........

 

read more at the link above