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NASA Earth Science

2017 Among Warmest Years On Record (npr.org) 187

2017 was among the warmest years on record, according to new data released by NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. From a report: The planet's global surface temperature last year was second warmest since 1880, NASA says. NOAA calls it the third warmest year on record, due to slight variation in the ways that they analyze temperatures. Both put 2017 behind 2016's record temperatures. And "both analyses show that the five warmest years on record have all taken place since 2010," NASA said in a press release. The trend is seen most dramatically in the Arctic, NASA says, as sea ice continues to melt.
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2017 Among Warmest Years On Record

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  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:08PM (#55954091) Journal

    The planet's global surface temperature last year was second warmest since 1880

    This is #fakenews. Everybody is saying that my first year as president is the warmest on record, and next year will be even warmer! The failing NASA and NOAA are way down in the ratings!

    • by VitrosChemistryAnaly ( 616952 ) on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:46PM (#55954417) Journal
      Spoken to an Australian recently? I think they'd argue about 2018 being one of the coldest on record. I assume you meant to include "so far" and "here".

      http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/... [cnn.com]
      • Spoken to an Australian recently? I think they'd argue about 2018 being one of the coldest on record. I assume you meant to include "so far" and "here".

        http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/... [cnn.com]

        Spoken to an Australian recently... because they'd tell you about the number of cities in the country with water restrictions from ongoing droughts that are nearing a decade long in some parts as well as consecutive record high summers. In fact they'd be sweltering in one right now.

        How do I know... because you're speaking to an Australian right now.

        You're not only speaking to an Australian, but one who understands the climate of Australia. Right now we're getting a La Nina event, which is a sub surfac

    • Not even in the vicinity of close.

    • It most definitely has not been the coldest on record. I've had about 2 days this year when I can wear a hoodie without sweating.

      That's the only thing that matters, right? The temperature where I am. It doesn't matter what's going on in the rest of the world. It's about 70F here, which means it's 70F everywhere, right? I'm pretty sure that's how these things work.

  • I see some contradiction in this article.

    • Meanwhile, The Guardian is reporting [theguardian.com] a Nature study that states that the most dire predictions of global warming are unlikely.

      Being, the prediction that the Earth will warm 4-5 degrees C by 2100 is not credible.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        So you're good with it all if it warms 3.5 degrees?

        If someone told you to jump and pointed out that you wouldn't likely die and your hospital stay wouldn't be more than 6 months, would you figure that's OK then?

      • by tbannist ( 230135 ) on Thursday January 18, 2018 @03:57PM (#55955065)

        Meanwhile, The Guardian is reporting [theguardian.com] a Nature study that states that the most dire predictions of global warming are unlikely.

        Being, the prediction that the Earth will warm 4-5 degrees C by 2100 is not credible.

        You forgot the other part of the story, which is that predictions that the earth is going to warm by less than 2 degrees C are also "not credible", according to this particular study. This study indicates the most likely climate sensitivity value is approximately 2.8 C which is slightly lower that the AR4 most likely estimate of 3.0 C. This is a bit of good news - bad news, because it rules out some the worst and some of the best case scenarios. Overall, it's slightly positive because a slightly lower sensitivity value means we have slightly more flexibility to deal with global warming.

        In case anyone is wondering what climate sensitivity is, it's how much warming results from a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

    • Not sure what your point is. Is it sensationalist? Yes. Is it untrue? No.
      • Sensationalist was the point.

  • by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:32PM (#55954305)
    Climate change is real and nuclear power is the only option we have to mitigate it. There is no viable path forward that does not include the expansion of new nuclear reactors. So stop opposing the development of 4th generation reactors you fossil fuel lackeys.
    • I've thought this for a while, but it seems the nuke plants keep getting shut down and not replaced... is it just that the nuke risks are relatively known and the risks from fossil fuels are less obvious?
      • I think the fossil fuel industry has spent billions of dollars convincing people to be afraid of nuclear power. It has been a very successful multi decade effort. Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth were founded and funded by the fossil fuel industry. Groups such as the Sierra Club (which was initially in favor of nuclear) have taken money from the fossil fuel industry to protest nuclear.

        The US has had 4th generation reactors since the 1980's (See Experimental Breeder Reactor II). Unfor

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        It's a lot of FUD and some older reactors. The older, less safe reactors running beyond their design lifetime get shut down and FUD keeps the new much safer reactors from being built.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It's two things. 1) Someone here mentioned the relative cost. It's cheap right now to burn natural gas. 2) It's not that the risks are unknown, but rather it's a difference between acute risks and long-term risks. Humans are really good at fighting really hard to try to avoid things that are immediately big and very scary. We're terrible at mitigating slowly increasing risks, and probabilities.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Plague works too you know.

  • No data, not statistics, nothing. A simple claim with a single measurement (2.36 deg F). What is the tolerance of that measurement? Is it accurate within 0.01 deg F? There's nothing at the source link to give any data - or even a link to data. This is just a PR release. I guess that passes for "science" these days...
    • To learn how raw data is collected and processed into a global surface temperature, go to http://www.realclimate.org/ind... [realclimate.org].

      WARNING: Understanding will require work on your part.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 )
        That page is great, but there are no error bars on that page, either.

        Another thing to note: scientists won't tell you what percentage of the warming is caused from AGW, and what percentage is from natural cycles (and if they do, it'll be a vague unsupported number, like "most:" again, presented without error bars).

        Doing statistics without error bars is a sign of poorly done statistics.
        • by hawkfish ( 8978 )

          That page is great, but there are no error bars on that page, either.

          Another thing to note: scientists won't tell you what percentage of the warming is caused from AGW, and what percentage is from natural cycles (and if they do, it'll be a vague unsupported number, like "most:" again, presented without error bars).

          Doing statistics without error bars is a sign of poorly done statistics.

          No error bars (I would check the original papers) but here is the IPCC 2007 breakdown [wikipedia.org].

        • Hmm. According to this article [theguardian.com] in the Guardian, it's 100% over the period of 1951 to 2010. Why 100%? Because over that period non-anthropogenic climate factors had a net cooling effect, reducing the impact of anthropogenic warming factors. So the net effect of anthropogenic climate factors was larger than the observed warming trend.

          Their source for those figures was the IPCC AR5 report [climatechange2013.org].

          So, at least some of the time scientists are willing to give a specific answer to the question of "How much of the warm

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        I never see tolerances or error bars, just high-levels of precision stated. So are we to assume that all measurements ever taken with regards to global temperatures are accurate to better than 0.005 deg F? That it is of spatial coverage and consistency so as to be reliable, consistent and wholly representative of the trend? Yes, I've done actual environmental science (specifically marine and fisheries research via SONAR) and know all about the need for accuracy in measurements, tolerancing, and spatial r
        • If you read the peer-reviewed literature on climate science, then you'll realize that climate scientists care greatly about uncertainty.

          If you disagree, then please provide a reference to the peer-reviewed scientific literature indicating otherwise.

        • If you've done that environmental science work then you should be skilled enough to dig into the literature and discover the answers to your questions. Are you just too lazy to do that? I would suggest you take a look at the GISTEMP [nasa.gov]. It includes links to papers that talk about the error, spatial coverage, etc.

          As far as being accurate to 0.005 degrees F it's not necessary for the individual measurements to be that precise. When you combine a lot of measurements into and average it's reasonable to express

    • by hondo77 ( 324058 )
      Because going to nasa.gov and looking on the front page is too much effort for you: https://www.nasa.gov/press-rel... [nasa.gov]
  • President Trump will make sure that we have the hottest years on record during his presidency. ("We'll have the hottest weather; the best weather.") Imagine, every US citizen will be able to enjoy Mar-a-Lago-like weather. Let's democratize Floridian sunshine for all!

  • Always wondered why. Does it touch a nerve that forces an emotional kneejerk response?

    Over time I know moderation will kick in to adjust such posts (which typically are a minority) vs logically reasoned and interesting content that will eventually surface. But I think it is interesting to reflect on the psychological basis for the need to respond immediately by someone holding a specific viewpoint vs rest of us.
    • >Over time I know moderation will kick in to adjust such posts

      So far, you have not 'called' this one and we're what, about 4 hours in? Obviously, science and evidence must be censored if they contradict what we want to be true!

      Honestly, this happens with both the far left and the far right, but it ALSO happens to be the case that it's the far right that's taken up the position of willful ignorance on this one.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Keep crap articles like this off this site. Go moderate Mother Jones.

  • Here we go again (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Oh, yay! Another CC story, which means we're all treated to the Dunning-Kruger Effect all-stars on this site with their blistering hot takes on why there's so much doubt about the fundamental points of CC (it's real, it's caused by humans, it's here now, and it's a hell of a big problem).

    Dear morons: Get a clue, and understand the following points:

    1. Our understanding of the basic mechanism of CC, the greenhouse effect, goes back well over a century, e.g. Google Svante Arrhenius and see his work from the 18

  • Would it kill them to give the measured temperature value, or the error bars? This is a pattern I've noticed in these "hottest year ever" articles. They never actually tell you the data. Instead we get this: "According to NOAA, 2017 average land surface temperatures were 2.36 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the 20th century average." Well, thanks for the unnecessary homework. Why don't they mention the actual temperature?

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