The Hottest Eight Years On Record Were the Last Eight Years (theguardian.com) 111
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The last eight years have been the eight hottest years on record, NASA and the National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) confirmed today. 2021 ranks as the sixth hottest year on record, the agencies said, as global average temperatures trend upward. Rankings aside, there were plenty of red flags throughout 2021 to show us how remarkable the year was for temperature extremes. "The fact is that we've now kind of moved into a new regime ... this is likely the warmest decade in many, many hundreds, maybe 1000s of years," says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "There's enough change that it's having impacts locally."
In North America, those local impacts included epically bad summer heat, even for typically cool regions. In late June and early July, the Pacific Northwestern US and Western Canada struggled with record-smashing temperatures that buckled roads and melted power cables. In the desert further south, California's Death Valley reached a blazing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) in July, potentially breaking the world record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet -- for the second year in a row. Across the Atlantic, Europe experienced sweltering heat, too. A reading of 119.8 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 degrees Celsius) in Sicily might have broken the European record for maximum temperature. (The World Meteorological Organization is still working to vet those records.) All told, July 2021 was the hottest month humans have ever recorded, according to NOAA.
Heat trapped in the world's oceans also reached record levels in 2021, according to research published this week. Ocean heatwaves are likely twice as common now as they were in the early 1980s, and they can be devastating for marine life and coastal communities. They kill coral, take a toll on fishing and crabbing industries, and can even make droughts worse onshore. Temperatures might have been even hotter in 2021, were it not for a La Nina event. La Nina is a recurring climate phenomenon defined by cooler-than-average waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, which has predictable effects on weather patterns worldwide.
In North America, those local impacts included epically bad summer heat, even for typically cool regions. In late June and early July, the Pacific Northwestern US and Western Canada struggled with record-smashing temperatures that buckled roads and melted power cables. In the desert further south, California's Death Valley reached a blazing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) in July, potentially breaking the world record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet -- for the second year in a row. Across the Atlantic, Europe experienced sweltering heat, too. A reading of 119.8 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 degrees Celsius) in Sicily might have broken the European record for maximum temperature. (The World Meteorological Organization is still working to vet those records.) All told, July 2021 was the hottest month humans have ever recorded, according to NOAA.
Heat trapped in the world's oceans also reached record levels in 2021, according to research published this week. Ocean heatwaves are likely twice as common now as they were in the early 1980s, and they can be devastating for marine life and coastal communities. They kill coral, take a toll on fishing and crabbing industries, and can even make droughts worse onshore. Temperatures might have been even hotter in 2021, were it not for a La Nina event. La Nina is a recurring climate phenomenon defined by cooler-than-average waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, which has predictable effects on weather patterns worldwide.
Don't Worry! (Score:3)
This is going to be the best year of the rest of our lives!
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What a bunch of horseshit. The industrial era started what, 200 years ago. 300 max? That's less than one percent of a 30,000 year cycle. "Oh its just natural ~science~ variation." Great then explain why it correlates with atmospheric CO2 so well?
Re: Don't Worry! (Score:2)
Because they feed a data set of Temperature vs CO2 into the model as a calibration point. Since when does correlation equal causation? Apparently only for climate science
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Nope, they don't do that. And the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been well understood for more than 100 years. It is even clearly visible by satellite. If you think there's some other reason for the rapid temperature increase you are welcome to show evidence.
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"the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been well understood for more than 100 years"
Yes, the absorption spectrum of CO2 has been well understood for 100 years, its basic physics.
What has not been understood and is still not known with certainty is the extent, if any, to which the forcing effect of increased CO2 is amplified by feedbacks.
We know for sure that doubling CO2 ppm will have a forcing effect which, if everything else remains the same, will raise global temps by a bit over 1C.
What
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Global temps have already increased by 1.19C compared to the the pre-industrial period (1880) and CO2 concentration has not yet doubled. I don't know where you got 4C from, but that much increase would be truly catastrophic. The Paris Agreement was an attempt to limit the increase to below 1.5C.
https://www.climate.gov/news-f [climate.gov]... [climate.gov]
"Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14 F (0.08 C) per decade since 1880, and the rate of warming over the past 40 years is more than twice that: 0.32 F (0.18 C) pe
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Never mod points when I need 'em.
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"effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been well understood for more than 100 years"
Has it now?
Can you cite the study? the steps and controls? Can you reproduce the original experiment? Can you link to it's existence or recent studies performed with modern equipment or is it all 'because someone told you so'?
It's not understood, it's widely accepted dogma. Scioence is about skeptisism and verification through experiement. Lets see the science you say you understand.
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Yes I can cite the study, and anyone could have looked this up so why didn't you? Here's a paper that describes the original work of Arrhenius and proposes an enhancement.
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/NS_2... [scirp.org]
"In 1896, Svante Arrhenius proposed a model predicting that increased concentration of
carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere would result in a warming of the planet"
Directly measurable by satellite;
https://www.sciencenews.org/ar... [sciencenews.org]
"Spectrometers showed that more of the infrared radiation emitted
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He is wrong and stupid anyway.
It is 4 or even 6 cycles that overlap.
And the one he claims to be 30,000 years long is in fact 25k years: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/... [nasa.gov]
The other cycles are explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And have obvioulsy nothing to do with man made CO2.
In fact, the last 10,000 years of relative stability are incredibly rare.
Complete nonsense. You can basically randomly pick a 10,000 period from whenever: and it is super stable inside of that period. Unstable was the end
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Maybe don't worry about 100000 year cycles... (Score:3)
Few know this outside of the astronomy community, but the earth's climate is not stable. It goes through a 30,000 year cycle dictated by variations in where the earth's axis is pointed and other orbital variations.
Well, cyclic variations can be stable. They are two different things. A repeatable cycle is still stable.
Second, not sure where you get the 30,000 year period. You may be thinking of the 26,000 year period of the precession of the equinoxes, but the main orbital driver of climate is the Milankovitch variations, which trigger the advance and retreat of the glaciers. In the current epoch these run more like 100,000 years.
In fact, the last 10,000 years of relative stability are incredibly rare.
No, not that rare. There are many periods much longer than this of relatively unchanging
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https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
Re: Don't Worry! (Score:2)
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do you think you can course correct the inertia of climate change that's been building for a 100 years?
Do you think we can afford to not even try? That we should keep right on doing exactly what we've been doing to cause it?
Re:Clockwork (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you expecting, that every year is hotter than the last? This year was the sixth hottest on record, and the last eight were the eight hottest. — That's certainly quite dramatic and more than I expected.
Every year being hotter than the last would be quite something.
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This year was the sixth hottest on record, and the last eight were the eight hottest.
And the BBC reported "The past seven years have been the hottest on record, according to new data from the EU’s satellite system." What NASA isn't saying is that 2021 was colder than all of the last eight years except 2015 and 2018, and while it was the 8th warmest year since 1979, it was actually a scorching 0.134C warmer than the 30-year average. But "Globally, 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record, but only marginally warmer than 2015 and 2018" (taken from the Copernicus Climate Change Service [copernicus.eu]
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Whatever news each years stats bring, you can be sure that media reporting about it will be a sensationalized fake.
Also not mention... what percent of the ~30k year cycle do we have this global sat data for? Are we still leaving the little ice age? Why do they need to start on an unusually cool year to compare from to get 'it's getting so much hotter' results. (they being media, though climate science funding is political now so you've got poli
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So, if i get you right, according to "your data" one of the warmes years in history, the resent 8 years actually was not, because of $REASON. And ... that is a conspiracy, right? So everything is wrong?
Hm ... I think i need a beer now and consider your point while nipping it.
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What are you expecting, that every year is hotter than the last?
Yes. If you're going to pitch the dire warning of exponential warming.
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And what part of this news has pitched that. Exponential warning, or even linear warning requires that, but that is not what either this article claims, or really much of anything. The common claim is that the average temperature is rising, and that the last eight years were the eight hottest in recorded history is quite frankly more dramatic than I thought it would be.
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2021 was New Zealand's hottest year on record: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/... [nzherald.co.nz]
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People say reality has a liberal bias. I don't think so. Instead I think the modern conservatives have a bias against reality.
The earth temperature on average is rising: No it's not.
Humans contribute to climage change: No they don't.
The pandemic is real: No it's not.
The vaccine is safe: No it's not.
Not last election was fair and legitimate: No it wasn't.
You can be a good conservative without likeing Trump: No you can't.
Have you taken your meds? No I haven't.
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Actual conservative views, not the childish parodies you propound: The earth is warming, some of it is caused by humans, we should fix it, and we can't starve the third world to fix it. The pandemic is real, as is the massive increase in deaths of people aged 18-40 due to the lockdown and loss of meaning. Safetyism killed almost as many people as covid. There is no free lunch. The vaccine is safe for almost everyone, and everyone
I know, let's change the subject! [Re: Clockwork] (Score:2)
Fascinating questions, actually, which deserve some thoughtful discussion... but anonymous cowards are never interested in any actual thought. You're just throwing them out for confusion, because they have nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation.
Nothing but whataboutism.
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Are you asking why people are no longer hiding something that used to lead to prison time if not outright execution, and social stigma even after it was decriminalized? When they freed concentration camp victims after WWII, they initially kept the ones with pink triangles imprisoned, for crying out loud. The last law in Europe making it illegal wasn't even repealed until 2014.
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You're kind of getting a bit off topic there. The topic is "climate change" not "gender change."
Climate may look like gender to you, but actually they are nothing alike. Not a common misconception.
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The planet will do just fine (Score:4, Funny)
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I do no care about a planet or what happens after I die, and I do not care about the human species either. I care about my own quality of life and it's clear to me that summers are becoming far too hot.
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I do no care about a planet or what happens after I die, and I do not care about the human species either. I care about my own quality of life and it's clear to me that summers are becoming far too hot.
Well, when even sociopaths think things are going to hell....
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Well, when even sociopaths think things are going to hell....
#MAGA
Ironically they generally don't believe in AGW
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Humans fundamentally do not care about other humans, nor about other intelligent life. History as much as how the current developed world treats the current developing world has shown this.
You cannot tell me that a species with a perpetual history of slavery and class differences cares so much for members of it's own. He who is on top cares not for those below him, and the revolutionaries that sought to change this have always only fought for themselves, and most became the new suppressor when they took pow
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Sociopaths fundamentally do not care about other humans, nor about other intelligent life. And will use anything they can think of to justify their sociopathy as "normal".
FTFY.
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And as usual, you have no counter argument and can't refute it.
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Read up on the scientific literature. _You_ are the one making claims that disagree with the established state-of-the-art. Do you have the extraordinary proof that requires? No?
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And I provided an argument, did I not? I showed that the historical and current evidence overwhelming shows that exploitation of humans is part of the normal human condition.
There is also much scientific literature that shows that human beings only care about others when they are being watched. Give a man a mask, and he will reveal his true nature.
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Incorrect. The human race has about 1% of psychopaths/sociopaths and _they_ are the ones that do not care about others. Slavery is a different case: It is the old mental trick of classifying some groups as sub-human/non-human/"Untermensch" and then having no inhibition exploiting them. That trick is available to a lot of the members of the human race.
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Oh, so the difference between a psychopath and a normal human being is simply that the latter plays semantics games to justify his not caring, — what an impressive difference.
Whether he admits to himself that they are humans makes no difference. Human beings do not care about each other and would not inconvenience themselves even for the slightest bit to save a poor village on the other side of the planet from starvation.
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I see you have no kids, and no concern for others' kids.
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For the sake of the children.
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It's obviously more complex than simply the heat. A change of climate changes the entire earth's cosystem and as a human being I am evolved to live in a certain one, and the global technology and conomy is reliant on the current state.
Moving to a colder place will not change the ice caps' melting, oceanic currents being affected which will impact fishing, sudden winds and deforrestation in places upon which the global market depends.
As such, I think it imperative, purely out of selfish rationalism, that glo
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"I don't want to live on this planet anymore." --Professor from Futurama.
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The planet will do just fine without us. Probably better actually.
This is why it is annoying when anyone frames the fight against climate change as "saving the planet". The planet will be just fine no matter what we do to it. We have had extinction events which have killed 90%+ of the planet's species before and the planet (and life itself) went right on going.
We are saving the planet for modern human civilization, not saving the planet.
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We have had extinction events which have killed 90%+ of the planet's species before and the planet (and life itself) went right on going.
There are a few things to consider:
a) an extinction event like a meteor hitting
b) an extinction event more or less deliberately done by mankind
c) and extinction event, that is knowing to go to happen: but you refuse to prevent it
Should I go on?
Habitable (Score:5, Insightful)
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In Houston, they're building houses with windows that don't open because you have to air condition 11 months of the year anyway. And they're building those new houses out of the fl
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In Houston, they're building houses with windows that don't open because you have to air condition 11 months of the year anyway. And they're building those new houses out of the flimsiest of materials because nobody expects to be able to live there in 15 years.
I hate to break it to you, but houses in California are built just as shit most of the time, except maybe with more metal tie plates for seismic tolerance. Almost all houses are now made out of shitty little 2x4s (not real ones, but the fake ones we have now) covered in OSB and tyvek on the outside and chinese sheet rock on the inside.
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The difference is that the climate in California is so good you could live in a tent. In Houston, you would cook to death in a tent.
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The difference is that the climate in California is so good you could live in a tent. In Houston, you would cook to death in a tent.
I tried out Texas and decided it wasn't for me due to weather. Most Texans seem to think that California is some kind of hellhole, and I want to encourage them to believe that...
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I know Houston isn't big on building codes and zoning, but I'm pretty sure residences have to have ventilation, and usually the cheapest ventilation is operable windows. OK, here [houstonper...center.org], they go by the 2012 International Residential Code. Too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that will require ventilation for houses.
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Heat: Houston weather is hugely affected by the location of the Jet Stream (esp in winter)/Pacific ocean currents. Winters can be extremely mild like this year (70s and 80s) or below freezing if the Jet Stream dips. Summers can be tropical rainforest like with 2pm daily thunderstorms 6 days a week (like Orlando) or be hotter with less freque
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The specific houses I'm referring to are the new 2 and 3-story boxy white McMansions going up everywhere in the district between the First Ward and the Museum District, bordered by Rice U to the South. Not only do the windows not open, but they're building balconies with no access because who is going to sit outside on a balcony in that weather? If you look closely at those balconies, you will see that they're just for show and not meant to bear th
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High temperatures can be mitigated with good house design, such as choosing roofing that reflects heat and making the building airtight with fairly small windows. You can put a reflective film on the windows too, I did that a few years ago and it works well.
The problem is you end up with a house that has potentially poor air quality due to lack of circulation, and you can't really go outside much.
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The problem is you end up with a house that has potentially poor air quality due to lack of circulation, and you can't really go outside much.
I live in a minimum-energy house (not experimental, a regular one) and the way they get around that is forced ventilation with heat-exchange in the air path. That works pretty well. The only downside I have found is that you need to use about 2x the humidifier capacity as air comes in at the outside humidity and that can be very low in winter.
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The issue is will the owner have the money to maintain or operate the ventilation. If I am feeling poor, I can always open doors and
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High temperatures can be mitigated with good house design, such as choosing roofing that reflects heat and making the building airtight with fairly small windows. You can put a reflective film on the windows too, I did that a few years ago and it works well.
Designs to keep the sun off the walls is also important.
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Which is why code is starting to mandate heat recovery ventilators [popularmechanics.com].
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In many "other parts of the world", people simply deal with the heat. No air con needed.
In various other parts, it is actually not as hot as the latitude implies to laymen.
Then again people have ways to stay cool, where westerners frown upon. E.g. in Asia you sit on the ground. Not on a chair. Because: the ground is cold.
In what is now Iran, they used to have Qanats. Underground water delivery systems. Most towns, and especially houses of the rich had not only a water access down to the Qanat, but obviously
Well, the engineer says... (Score:3)
...it could be that we've gotten better at measuring "hot"!
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The scientist says yes we did in fact think of that, we've been considering all possible explanations for the last 50 years, and we made sure to control for any measurement biases.
The other scientists agree, and say we found a heck of a lot of other corroborating evidence [www.ipcc.ch] too.
It's so hot (Score:2)
in our street, I saw 2 trees fighting over a dog.
The hottest! (Score:2)
Ocean is the warmest we've ever measured. Hottest year in New Zealand. Series of 8 hottest years!
Reminds me of last year. Also, next year's articles: Ocean is the warmest we've ever measured. Hottest year in Russia. Series of 9 hottest years.
I get it, the Earth is getting warmer, but that means we should get ready to get these records every year... and perhaps talk about whether the warming is slowing d
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While not trying to belittle global warming, are we going to get an endless stream of these articles?
Obviously. Until civilization collapses, then /. will go offline and this will stop. What do you expect?
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An excellent roundup of the facts about climate (Score:1)
Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters [amazon.com], by Steven Koonin. Do yourself a favor and read this book, especially if you are concerned about the deleterious effects of a changing climate.
Re:An excellent roundup of the facts about climate (Score:4, Informative)
Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters [amazon.com], by Steven Koonin. Do yourself a favor and read this book, especially if you are concerned about the deleterious effects of a changing climate.
Why would you do yourself a favour? Koonin has a couple of credentials, but not anything closely related to climate science. He has previously published proper scientific texts in his specialty, but this one comes from a mass market publisher with no scientific quality control. And he is a fellow of the AEI, a cesspool of organises liars, especially about climate change. The book has been ripped apart by qualified reviewers (e.g. https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com], https://yaleclimateconnections... [yaleclimat...ctions.org]).
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The beauty of the logic is this:
The book was ripped apart by people with climate research credentials because they have a vested interest in climate change being real. All you have to do is repeat this simple phrase whenever you see anyone saying that climate change is fake or overblown and someone tries to reply with a source debunking that assertion.
Or reduced to its essentials: Experts in a field can't be trusted because they are experts in that field.
Then we'd better get hot (Score:5, Informative)
Then we'd better get hot (badum ching) and go full nuclear. Oh, and figure out technological solutions like carbon sequestration.
We pretend to care about this, but we won't do what it takes to address it.
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"There are faster solutions & that's what most govts around the world appear to be going with"
No. Most governments, and particularly the highest and fastest growing emitters, are just growing their economies as fast as possible and are increasing emissions to match as a consequence.
The lesson of COP26 was that no-one outside some circles of the US and UK and maybe Germany is buying it. They are not going to reduce, not even make any efforts to reduce, their emissions.
Policy has to be based on the plai
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We pretend to care about this, but we won't do what it takes to address it.
And what do we need to do to address it? As you contemplate this question more deeply consider the timescale involved by which we need to reduce our carbon emissions, and consider every nuclear project started this side of the millennium and how long they took to finish. Trick question, none have finished. Even the ones which were "easy" regulatory wise as simple expansion of an existing nuclear plant have been ongoing for nearly 20 years with their dates perpetually kicked down the road.
You can put 100% of
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Stop fantasising and start becoming part of the solution.
ok, what is your solution if you don't like nuclear? It's not going to be solar and wind.
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ok, what is your solution if you don't like nuclear? It's not going to be solar and wind.
A big arse mix of technologies that don't involve betting the entire farm on start something that won't even begin making a dent until after it's already too late.
By all means build nuclear power, but do so with the reflection that it will have zero to do with our ability to reduce our carbon footprint in the timescales required.
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A big arse mix of technologies that don't involve betting the entire farm on start something that won't even begin making a dent until after it's already too late.
In other words, magic.
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Yeah at least magic is currently already reducing carbon emissions, which is far more than nuclear powered wishful thinking is. I'll take my sufficiently advanced technology that is already having an effect over nothing for the next 30 years any time.
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Yeah at least magic is currently already reducing carbon emissions
It's really not.
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It's really not.
Yeah you can say that, but unfortunately in the real world we have data showing you're wrong. Hint: Look at countries committed to decarbonising and look at the CO2 emissions per kwh generated by the power industry.
It may blow your little mind.
Soylent Green 1973 movie set in 2022 (Score:2)
Soylent Green, a 1973 movie based on a book, in which the movie takes place in Year 2022(!) ...correctly predicted hotter climate and food scarcity.
The movie has the famous quote "Soylent Green is People!", but it's not quite Today (yet?), so maybe it is accurate to say:
"Soylent Green will be People!"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
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Soylent Green, a 1973 movie based on a book, in which the movie takes place in Year 2022(!) ...correctly predicted hotter climate and food scarcity.
Wat? Look around, wise guy. WHAT food scarcity. My pantry is full. My freezer is full. Of good food made of wheat and rice and cow and pig and chicken, not people. The fuck out of here with your "food scarcity" bullshit....
The one thing you can be sure of, no government is going to allow food to get scarce. Which is why meat packing plants ran throughout the pandemic, worker safety be damned. When people actually, literally get hungry, governments fall. Being slightly inconvenienced because they ca
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Been to the store lately? In the Washington DC area most stores are bare. Usually just the milk racks remain. They're empty. Produce section is bare. Entire isles of stores are bare. Lots of pictures on facebook showing this and not just from the DC area. It's many places.
Biden is turning the country into a 3rd world country. Higher rents. Higher car prices. Higher grocery prices. His inflation is a terrible tax on everyone. It all started with the $15 "living" wage instead of minimum wage which is what it
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And I don't feel like shoveling snow in Southern California
Just think of it as an all-you-can-eat buffet but all they have are snow cones.
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Re: We are in a warming cycle. OF COURSE it's warm (Score:2)
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We are in the warming cycle of both a lesser and greater glaciation, so, OF COURSE it is warming. The thing to fear would be if it started cooling. Because, if you look at the cycles, once the warming ends, it gets cold real fast. And I don't feel like shoveling snow in Southern California. So, I'm praying the warming continues.
Praying for the extinction of homo sapiens seems rather morbid.
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And, as I recall we have already survived a few "ice ages".
Not even remotely true. Our species has never encountered an extinction event like this.
Re: We are in a warming cycle. OF COURSE it's warm (Score:1)
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Yet we weren't in it until fossil fuels started to be burned so aggressively.
This warming would not have occurred without releasing so many greenhouse gasses that were trapped for billions of years in fossil fuels. It's not convenient because modern human infrastructure relies on a colder climate. And indeed, cooling significantly would also not be good; the ideal is that the Earth's temperature remain consonant around the level at which human infrastructure is based.
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NOAA [google.com] disagrees with you:
. . . glacial–interglacial cycles last ~100,000 years (middle, black line) and consist of stepwise cooling events followed by rapid warmings, as seen in this time series inferred from hydrogen isotopes in the Dome Fuji ice core from Antarctica (Kawamura et al. 2007).
We just finished a warming cycle 10,000 years ago (Score:2)
We are in the warming cycle of both a lesser and greater glaciation, so, OF COURSE it is warming.
Turns out not to be the factor here. We are well after the warming cycle of the Last Glacial Period. The most recent glaciation ended about 10,000 years ago, with the sea-level rise associated with the glacial melt over about 7,000 years ago.
This is well established; the holocene glaciation is pretty well understood. (There's even a graph [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia.)
The thing to fear would be if it started cooling.
True enough, in fact. But this is not the problem we are currently facing.