The Last Three Months Were the Hottest Quarter On Record 552
New submitter NatasRevol (731260) writes The last three months were collectively the warmest ever experienced since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. From the article: "Taken as a whole, the just-finished three-month period was about 0.68 degrees Celsius (1.22 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th-century average. That may not sound like much, but the added warmth has been enough to provide a nudge to a litany of weather and climate events worldwide. Arctic sea ice is trending near record lows for this time of year, abnormally warm ocean water helped spawn the earliest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in North Carolina, and a rash of heat waves have plagued cities from India to California to the Middle East." Also, it puts to bed the supposed 'fact' that there's been a pause in temperature increase the last 17 years. Raw data shows it's still increasing.
bizwriter also wrote in with some climate related news: A new report from libertarian think tank Heartland Institute claims that new government data debunks the concept of global climate change. However, an examination of the full data and some critical consideration shows that the organization, whether unintentionally or deliberately, has inaccurately characterized and misrepresented the information and what it shows.
The Heartland Institute skews the data by taking two points and ignoring all of the data in between, kind of like grabbing two zero points from sin(x) and claiming you're looking at a steady state function.
Re:let me solve this right now (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Try to burn less hydrocarbons
2. Be more energy efficient
The problem is that your "solutions" are wrong. CC is not a problem today, and will not be a problem tomorrow. But it will be a problem 30-100 years from now. In the long term the best way to reduce CC is population control ... and the best way to do that is third world education and poverty elimination ... and the best way to do that is to maximize economic growth ... and burning less hydrocarbons is NOT going to do that. A coal fired plant in Africa may emit more CO2 today, but it will improve people's lives, make them prosperous enough to educate their children, and lead to a lower population 50 years from now, this reducing CO2 emissions in the long run.
Re:For The Love of Glob! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't give a shit about C02 emissions. It's stupid to assume that the world would give a shit, even if some other countries managed to. Honestly, I'm more pissed off about the other effects of burning coal (have you checked your mercury levels lately?) and fracking.
I'm also not suggesting the earth dies. I'm suggesting we/our economy/culture very may well. The earth doesn't give a shit, it's seen plenty hotter and plenty colder. It's humans that are fucked, well, keeping our pop above 7 billion anyway.
In terms of being a 'far-left' radical...I've hung out with that crowd. They are just as dumb and backwards as the far-right (surprise!). Now, my political philosophies can certainly be considered radical, but I bet not in the way you think. In brief: Computational Socialism (gasp!! The S word!) made viable through modular GW-scale lead-cooled fast reactors.
If your philosophy doesn't involve trying to raise the whole world (countries/borders are inhumane and out of date) out of poverty with the end goal of a stabilized world population...well then...fuck you.
Absolutly-GISS temps heavily "adjusted" (Score:5, Interesting)
I see that the GISS temperature series is quoted to maintain the "hottest quarter" narrative.
See for example
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/hansens-nasa-giss-cooling-the-past-warming-the-present/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/24/unadjusted-data-of-long-period-stations-in-giss-show-a-virtually-flat-century-scale-trend/
Much of the data has been created by infilling gaps, homogenization, and other adjustments. They cool the past, add adjustments to the present, and drop stations out of the network creating a warming signal.
It is no coincidence that the cleanest most reliable temperature measurement system for the USA the CRN (climate reference network run by NOAA) shows NO warming over the last decade, confirming that there has been no warming as seen in other temperature records for 13-17 years. (The 17 year is a satellite record also without adjustments by the global warming partisans).
The CRN has triple redundant air aspirated sensors in pristine observation sites spread uniformly through out the USA, so no adjustments are needed. Despite CO2 rising. The computer models are broken. See...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/noaa-shows-the-pause-in-the-u-s-surface-temperature-record-over-nearly-a-decade/
The claim that the latest X period is the warmest is like a 30 year old man claiming that the last 5 years of his life have been the tallest in his entire record. Yet hes is not growing anymore !
Re:Its even worse than we thought (Score:5, Interesting)
If I raised your core body temperature by 2C indefinitely you would eventually keel over and die. Don't underestimate small changes when they act globally.