Global warming is real, but the headline and lede characterize the data in the graph in an eyebrow-raising way. (The headline in the print edition, even worse, is "2018 Continues Warming Trend.") Yes, there is an unmistakable upwards trend over the last century, and the current data do nothing to change that assessment, but it's a stretch to describe two straight declines as "continuing" the trend. It's like saying, "The Yankees back-to-back losses continued their .631 winning percentage." How much of a drop in temperature would there have to have been in order for the Times not to call this a "continuation"?
I wonder if the very noticiple upward tic around the early 1940s was due to WWII, and if true, if it would provide insight into the causes of global warming.
who do you think was minding the store? Did Churchill say,
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and we will always collect the temperature data accurately?
I don't think so. I think everyone put down their thermometers and picked up their guns. And the temperature record for that period is probably about as accurate as for any other portion of the global temp record 1880-2018, i.e. -- not very accurate.
I get the paper delivered so I found this instantly above the fold, front page,
especially the graph. Even if someone was in a rush, they would get the message. Went to the website to email it to my family and couldn't find it! Other stories were featured--no wonder millenials and others think earth warming is a side issue. Please, NYT, stop manipulating the news this way.
Socialism. That's the latest concept that has penetrated into Trump's brain. That's what he's going to propose for the rich friends and family who are in the immediate path of global warming and whose precious seaside real estate is threatened. Socialism meaning the massive revenue of the little taxpaying people, not those big players who brag about paying little to no tax... Socialism will rescue Mar-a-Lago and other such properties. Then it'll have a different name.
2
I'd get more excited about this being the warmest year on record -- if there were a decent temp record that went back to 1880, but we don't. I'll use Africa as an example, but this applies to all the major land masses except the contiguous US and parts of Europe.
In 1900 Africa had about 40 temp collection stations. Almost all were on the coasts. They weren't put in place to measure the global temp, but to help local ag. There was no consistent methodology or instrumentation. Today Africa has about 500+ stations (compared to the contiguous US with 9k), again, most on the coast and methodology -- who knows.
In an article a few days ago in the Times re Himalayan glaciers, if you read the referenced article, you'll see that the climate scientists there lamented the poor state of the historic temp record.
In short, when you don't a decent temp record, then statements like -- this was the 4th hottest year -- are baloney. The global temp record is based on adjusted estimates.
For the contig US (which probably has the most complete temp record) -- 2018 was the 14th warmest on record -- but that was driven by higher avg minimum temps. The max temps were the 27th warmest on record -- and 5 years in the 1930's had higher avg max temps. The US temps -- as the graph shows -- are cyclical -- we've had long term cooling and warming trends.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series/110/tmax/12/12/1895-2018?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000
For the readers - please click on Ralphie's link of the lower 48 states of the USA (less than 2% of global area). Then click on the "Display trend" button that will show warming at a rate of 0.14°F per decade. That's warming. Then, in the Display Trend section, change the start year to 1953 - the halfway mark. It will show the more recent warming trend is 0.28°F per decade as CO2 concentrations accelerated - twice as fast as the overall trend. Then ask Ralphie what his mumbling does to explain away the warming - or ask him to provide specific critiques of the methods that NOAA and NASA and all the rest publish for people to see. --- Use the following link to see the global annual average temperatures since 1880. Then display trend (it's 0.07°C per decade). Then display the trend since 1949 to see the second half trend (it's increasing 0.14°C per decade). Twice as fast as the overall trend, again.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2018
1
Where have you been, Ralphie? You're backing a horse that's already lost the race! Remember when Anthony Watts went on and on about the temperature record, and loudly cheered when physicist Richard Muller launched a project to clean it up? Watts withdrew his support when Muller's team reported there were no serious problems with the record, and Muller himself declared he no longer doubted the consensus of working climate scientists (nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html)! You need to catch up - we don't hear much from high-profile global warming deniers about the flawed temperature record anymore.
1
The most useful thing that most of us can do to fight global warming is to vote Democrat. Without the political will to do things, nothing will be done.
2
Wow! According to your graph, the earth experienced dramatic warming during the eight years of the Obama administration and dramatic cooling in the first two years of the Trump administration.
Thanks, Trump. God bless you. God bless America. Keep up the good work!
Why is the phrase "climate change is caused by human activity" used to attribute the cause to the effect. Why not call a spade a spade and just say that the warming is caused by humans, too many of us that grew too quickly to keep the earth's climate in balance? Can we have a chart that shows Earth's population versus the rise in global average temperature? Enlightening, even if very uncomfortable as it would point to our very existence as the main culprit, just by being here...
1
There is at least one piece of good news about global warming that seems worth sharing. I hope folks won't feel obliged to rebut with anger because it is true and no one is saying it is earth shaking. Let's see if we can present a mitigating factor without stirring up the masses.
Virtually all scientists studying global warming believe that carbon levels are highest during the winter and that, as a result, the warming of the earth is greater during the winter months than the summer. It isn't a huge difference, but it is significant.
Obviously, as the weather warms up, most everybody (other than minter sports enthusiasts) would be happier if temperature increases were concentrated during the winter. That sure is true for me, in Phoenix
Bottom line, global warming will probably not create as much physical discomfort as is commonly suggested. And the notion that hot places will soon become inhabitable may have been exaggerated. Extreme weather and sea level rising are still going to get you. But you probably will be less uncomfortable as disaster hits.
Or maybe just perhaps the sixth mass extinction on record.
No biggy.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions
4
If Phoenix is nice in the future, people will move there from places that aren't so nice. And then Phoenix, too, will not be so nice.
2
There is a steady increase in CO2 in the atmosphere during the winter months (in the Northern Hemisphere) due to the demposition of leaves and other biomatter that fell in Fall. In the spring, leaves return to the trees in the Northern Hemisphere (which has far more arable land than the Southern Hemisphere) and photosynthesis increases dramatically, drawing down the CO2 in the atmosphere. Note, however, that despite seasonal fluctuations, overall carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise year after year.
5
"It appears highly likely, at least from today’s perspective, that that line will be crossed"
This is critical. It is too late for a fix just by limiting the increase of CO2. We are past that.
That does no mean we should give up. It does not mean we should just let go and dump anything and everything into the atmosphere.
It means we need to think bigger. Right now our politics is focused on something that is not enough to fix the problem. Of course we are not doing even that. My concern is that the fight about something that isn't enough prevents even discussion of what more is needed, what would be enough.
We will now need some form of geoengineering to undo what we've done. Many things might be done, and likely we'll need to do many of them for the combined effect. We won't get there by perseverating about whose fault it is and about how we should have limited CO2 a long time ago.
2
The recourse by mostly politically-conservative observers is to state that because the earth has had many instances of substantial climate change, then the present several decades of climate warming could be nothing more than natural processes, and not a result of human activity.
This know-nothing attitude defies earth scientists' vigorous efforts to trace sources for climate changes. Had there been scientists at the last major climate upheaval, they would have been on top of it. But a lot of uncertainty of prehistoric climate changes remains because of incomplete evidence.
Now we have organized scientific study. Greenhouse gases continually build up from industrialization processes, in parallel with a steady escalation of air and sea temperatures (absent minor variations), without recurrent worldwide volcanic eruptions or steady onslaught of solar storms. (They are called greenhouse gases for good reason.)
Correlation not being causation? Sure. But looking at the evidence (including a convenient natural lab, the atmosphere of the planet Venus), it would be sensible to peg the current, unprecedented rapid rate of atmospheric and sea warming on industrialization. Are there alternate, better explanations? Possibly. Then why not have the Trump administration back vigorous climate research? Or is it because that they do not want to know?
4
This is not a blip. This is not a stuck gauge. This is not sunspots, or chemtrails or wishful thinking or fudged data. This is real, peer-reviewed, empirical data and resulting statistics, which follows a trend, which links to human activity, which has links to real consequences. Superstorm Sandy would not have done the damage it did if it were a hundred years earlier than it was. The amount of water in (pick your last tropical storm event in the past decade) is more than it would have been a hundred years ago. You can snort derisively, you can claim political agenda, you can denigrate people who are concerned about this. None of that will change the reality.
9
Well, I'm sure that people in coastal cities can just accept that change is coming, accept that progress is causing change, stop trying to turn the trend around, get some job retraining, and just move themselves and their families somewhere higher or colder and away from their ancestral homes, accept that some communities are going to have to die, there's no saving those neighborhoods from the rising waters, and stop being such crybabies about the inevitable.
You know, the way the people in the Rust Belt were told to behave when THEIR worlds changed when "inevitable" economic changes happened.
Climate change is happening. Why aren't you adapting? Stop being such crybabies. Grow, change, adapt, never look back.
3
How depressing. Now the human race gets to watch their extinction in slow motion.
3
Trump failed to address the existential threat Climate Change poses to our nation and world in his SOTU speech. This was grossly negligent. Trump needs pictures to help him form accurate concepts. A new documentary film, The Human Element, may help him and others gain a better understanding. Perhaps the DNI can give Trump a Diet Coke, invite Trump and his staff to sit down in the White House theater, show the film, and give a briefing afterwards.
https://thehumanelementmovie.com/
Okay - so realistically, what can be dome. Controlling the use of fossil fuels has been a failure. Let's work, instead, innovative ideas like on carbon eating algae.
Amy,
Controlling the use of fossil fuels isn't a failure, because it hasn't seriously been tried!
Anthropogenic global warming is what economists call a "Tragedy of the Commons": we burn fossil fuels for energy because they're 'cheaper' than carbon-neutral alternatives, but they're only cheaper because their price at the pump socializes the climate-change cost of our CO2 emissions. Those are instead paid, in money and tragedy, by involuntary 3rd parties around the world. US residents are, so far, mostly paying when our taxes go for disaster relief, but that could change with the next hurricane to hit our shores.
The solution is to internalize some fraction of our private marginal climate-change costs in the price of fuel, thereby harnessing consumer thrift and the profit motive to drive build-out of the carbon-neutral economy. That requires collective (i.e. government) intervention in the 'free' market. Recently, 45 of the world's most distinguished economic experts called for the US to tax fossil carbon (washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/17/this-is-not-controversial-bipartisan-group-economists-calls-carbon-tax), as "by far the best way for the nation to address climate change." The carbon tax proposal that's now gaining bipartisan support is for a revenue-neutral US Carbon Fee and Dividend with Border Adjustment Tariff: Please see citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend for more information.
1
"While this planet has seen hotter days, and colder ones, what sets recent warming apart in the sweep of history is the relative suddenness of the rise in temperatures and its clear correlation with increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane produced by human activity over the same period."
For most of the past 10,000 years, global average temperature has remained relatively stable and low compared to earlier hothouse conditions in our planet's history. Now, temperature is among the highest experienced not only in the “recent” past—the past 11,000 years or so, during which modern human civilization developed—but also probably for a much longer period.
Carrie Morrill of the National Climatic Data Center explains, "You'd have to go back to the last interglacial [warm period between ice ages] about 125,000 years ago to find temperatures significantly higher than temperatures of today." https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what%E2%80%99s-hottest-earth-has-been-%E2%80%9Clately%E2%80%9D
1
Let's think about the big picture. Trump wants $5 billion for a wall, meanwhile 2018 was the fourth most costly for natural disasters ($91 billion) with 2017 being the number one most costly ($306 billion). A huge tax break was given to corporations while our middle class is shrinking and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. College education costs are skyrocketing, so say goodbye to upward mobility. Oh, and global warming is a real threat to our beloved planet and way of life.
With all that in mind, how in the tarnation are we supposed to sustain hit after hit of heart wrenching disasters, financially or physically?
Signed, a terrified Millennial.
5
Keep in mind that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Geologically speaking, a 140-year-old trend is an insignificant blip. Also keep in mind that our ancestors, armed only with spears and animal skins, survived an actual ice age. We moderns, with all we know, can do a warm-up standing on one foot.
1
Keep in mind that virtually everything you have, occupy and, maybe, do in circa 2019 has a scientific foundation, the same science that you may, (or may not), have read in this article.
Granted, the "140 yrs" of which you cite is far less than a nano-second in terms of geologic history but the catch is the pace at which change is occurring; we can virtually observe it in our extremely short lifetimes, so that "blip" of which you write represents far more than you realize.
There-in lies the paradox.
I could go on but it's difficult to sway the ideology of those who don't really comprehend or appreciate science. . .
4
Let's hope that our food chain can survive an ice age.
2
Sure, but there are 8 billion of us now. Not much room to migrate when some regions became uninhabitable.
4
My quality of life is better than that of people born 50, 100 and 200 years before me. I can only conclude that climate change is beneficial.
2
So is capitalism. There are still many places on earth where things haven't improved for millennia. Why? Because they have never discovered individualism.
No, it's because they have not discovered cooperation.
It looks like the standard deviation is increasing relative to the mean (i.e. greater variance). Could we get graphs of the coefficient of variation?
I think this would better communicate to people who say "Chicago was colder than ever" that climate change is more than just incremental warming. Variation is a serious threat to flowering plants and insects - specifically, agriculture and the food supply. Uncertainty in weather conditions year over year threatens many sectors of the economy. Lets start communicating data in a way that actually informs decision making on the small scale.
This is terribly depressing. On one hand, we get regular updates on how the world is warming much too fast, the present and future consequences of this warming, and why human activity is responsible. On the other hand we get essentially nothing. Sure there are international conferences on climate change that set goals, but these goals won't really stop what is happening and regardless they are mostly unmet. It no longer matters whether there is time to fix what is happening because we won't. That's as clear as a melting glacier.
4
...looks like the start of a cooling trend to me.
1
@russell - sure, like the one after the big El Niño that ended in 1998 made that year (briefly) the warmest year in records. How'd that cooling trend work out? Look at the chart. Or look here at the rankings according to NOAA data that shows 10 years this century have been hotter than former-record-hot 1998. How? Because of the trend of greenhouse warming. It's real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_years
1
The graph accompanying this article shows ZERO net change in temperature from 1944 through 1992 (a period of 48 years)..................................During that 48-year period, carbon emissions tripled from less than 2000 million metric tons/year in 1950 to over 6000 million metric tons/year in 1990.........https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/images/global_fossil_carbon_emissions_google_chart.jpg Considering the entire global warming theory is tied to increased carbon emissions, how do the proponents of the theory explain the ZERO net change in temperature over a 48-year period in which carbon emissions tripled?
2
Do you want an explanation or are you convinced by your bias that there has been no change? I can give you a mathematical explanation: you chose a pair of values that fit the response you want to have. Why do you chose 1944 and 1992? because the former is a local-in-time high temperature anomaly and the later is a local-in-time low temperature anomaly so you chose the 2 points that fit the conclusion you want to communicate. I could have chosen 1950 and 1998 for example, with the same time interval you used (a period of 48 years) and yet the answer would have been "temperature has increased 0.8°C in 48 years". The important point is to see the mathematical tendency: you can mathematically determine the curve that best fit ALL data and clearly see the upward tendency in temperature despite the cyclic variability the data shows around the best fit. There is an unequivocal tendency towards temperature rising from 1964 to the present. One could also argue that such a tendency is probably counteracting a tendency towards lower temperatures that the planet exhibited from 1880 to 1918 (in other worlds, who knows if without Industrial Revolution the planet right now would be at -0.8° C extrapolating the first tendency and not + 1.1°C).
3
rfmd1 - don't confuse single points with "net change". By your reckoning, Chicago faced global warming of terrifying scope by moving from -20°F a week ago to nearly 50°F days later. --- Our habit mid-last century of burning oil and coal with no regard for pollutants meant aerosols were reflecting the sun's heat to a considerable extent.
--- It might also help if you think about standing up to your neck in the ocean. Individual waves will move the water level up and down, but the "net change" that will get you is the rising tide. Trend is what matters, not very short-term differences. Here's your time period showing the trend between 1944 and 1992 - http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1944/to:1992/trend/plot/gistemp The rising trend in temperatures is how the 1980s beat the 1940s as the warmest decade in the instrument record. Then each decade since broke the "warmest" record again.
1
"...the average temperature of the late 19th century..."?
What *was* the temperature of the late 19th century?
Those of you who are too warm, feel free to peel a layer or two of clothes (work-appropriate, please). Al Gore and I were going to go back in time and bring y'all back some ice, but someone beat us to it and brought us back enough for a couple of years. Whoever you are, thank ye! Use it wisely, everyone.
Do everything you can to make yourselves comfortable. Kick back with a cool drink (no plastic straws, please). Hair-dryers on cool; easy on the Paul Mitchell.
Alternate-side air conditioning will be instituted in Manhattan starting April 20, the Monday after Easter (unless Jesus comes back before then). Watch the signs; air conditioners are prohibit on the West Side Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays; and on the East Side Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. New Yorkers are encourage to spend Sundays out of doors. If Jesus comes back after April 20, and you're still here, all of our empty apartments are up for grabs, help yourselves.
This comment is brought to you today by Soylent Red, and Soylent Yellow. And, new, delicious, Soylent Green. (Due to its enormous popularity, Soylent Green is in short supply, so remember—Tuesday is Soylent Green day. Line up early at your neighborhood PP office, and no shoving, or we'll send in the scoops.)
1
Paul:
You could have saved some time and just written, "I have no idea what I'm talking about."
Consider the amount of energy being pumped into the biosphere instead of the callous assumption that tee-shirt sales will increase in the next decade.
3
Destruction of forests ain't helping.
1
To really appreciate the severity of global warming one needs too look at the extra heat absorbed by earth as a result of the historic increases in green house gases since mid-20th century. The vast majority, some 92%, of this heat is stored in the oceans, some 5% on land and the remainder in the world's atmosphere. The drastic increase in extra heat absorbed from a baseline of zero in the 1980s is shown in fig. 2 of https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/, reaching a present value of 250 zetta (1 followed by 21 zeros) joules. On that scale the heat content in the atmosphere is a mere 8 zetta joules, yet causes the discomforts and environmental damage most of us experience. The reason for this is the physical fact that for each degree of temperature rise in a unit of volume (gallon, liter, etc.) of water or air, the required heat energy input is over 3000 times larger for water than that required for the same volume of air at sea level. To say it in other words, if it were not for the volume and areal dominance of the oceans we would have been fried a long time ago. But on the other hand, even if we were able to completely reverse the accumulated content of green house gases to mid 19th century levels, it would take more than a century to again reach a tolerable and non-threatening equilibrium. There is just too much extra heat already stored in the oceans.
3
The article is interesting but troubling. We did not have the ability to measure global temperatures in 1880 and if we did the volcano at Krakatoa had just erupted causing a global winter that lasted over a decade causing cold temperatures. Why would they use a period for a base measurement when they know it was not normal. Maybe the period between 1870 and 1880 was warmer than the last four years. The graphs and pictures in the article are meant to cause an emotional response from readers. This kind of article creates doubt. When we measure global temperature do we do the whole world each day including all the water in the oceans and the atmosphere?
1
Temperatures were back to normal before 1890, it's possible what you see from 1884-1888 on the graph is attributable to Krakatoa causing reflective matter in clouds. This does not explain the rest of the definitive trend of an increase in global temperature specifically starting in the late 1930s. To discount this as inability to properly record temperatures is somewhat short-sighted.
4
We’ve had accurate thermometers for centuries, and people have been diligently measuring temperature all over the world since well before 1880. Climate scientists use 1880, however, because earlier available climate data doesn’t cover enough of the planet to get an accurate reading. While temperature data exists before then, the level of uncertainty goes up. In relatively recent years, we have added temperature data measured by satellites.
2
You have in my view raised a very valid point. Many will remember the dramatic opening scenes in " The day after tomorrow" when the oceanographic buoys in the North Atlantic recorded a sudden spike in ocean temperatures. Yet we have only been able to measure ocean temperatures since the late 1800's -when the first oceanographic research ships were designed.
We accept scientists have developed reliable methods of estimating air temperatures above landmasses going back over the millennia-pollen counts, tree ring growth etc from ice core samples. What,however, can be said of ocean temperature in these distant epochs? Average global temperature is, I understand, an amalgam of countless readings of air temperature at various points of the globe. We can correlate air temperature above the oceans with ACTUAL water temperatures nowadays but what do we know of ocean temperatures before reliable scientific measurement became possible and is not nearly 2/3 of the planet's surface not water?
A new global accord is needed. One that slams on the brakes of fossil fuel production / consumption as well as agro-business. We are watching a virtual certitude of mass death, species extinction and environmental devastation play out --- and we're fiddling.
Arrogance and ignorance will be the end of us all.
1
The evidence and science is clear, yet most Americans keep on buying larger and larger vehicles..... :-(
3
Which pollute less and less.
Less than their own previous models. Large cars as a class pollute more than small cars as a class.
1
Dear NYT,
As far as I know, there is one issue that tops all other issues that the US and the world is dealing with, and it is global warming. It has an influence on all parts of society, causes increased natural disasters and will cause coastal cities to flood. But the official report that 2018 is the fourth-warmest on record is not today's headline! NYT, why is this? Nor is the headline that the President in his Sate of the Union didn't even mention climate change. NYT, why is this? Nor does today's editorial mention this oversight from the president. NYT, why is this?
The big news is unfortunately the silence and inaction from policymakers. This needs to be reported.
In general the NYT is underreporting on climate change, causes, scientific research, solutions, proposed policies. Climate change needs its own tab, not hidden under Science.
NYT, please provide the readers with news about the most important event that is shaping today and tomorrows society and world.
2
would a wall help...?
1
Now, just wait for the presentation of alternative facts by the White House.
And the goats still believe there is no global warming
No wonder the who west on the decline.
because demagogues and fear mongers are in the White House
No wonder fascism on the rise world wide especially here in the West.
This diagram says it all. But morons will dispute it
1
I'm wondering how scientists measured the average surface of the globe 140 years ago. I don't think the satellites back then were as sophisticated as they are now. And even so...we're no talking about more than one degree.
This is the largest instance of mass hysteria and scientific fraud in the history of the world. There has to be a more reliable way for Progressives to get their hands on global wealth for the purposes of redistribution.
But the one question that needs to be answered--because Liberals ask it whenever skeptics point to non-supportive studies: "Who is financing this research"? Government scientists? Yeah..thought so.
2
Jesse - First, 1°C = 1.8°F. Second, land warms much faster than the ocean so increases will be greater for land (where we live). Third, the scientists (including Exxon employees paid by Exxon to do research in the 1970s and 80s), find that science proves again and again that greenhouse gases affect the planet's temperature and climate whether they were released by volcanoes or by SUVs. Reality is not a liberal plot, so please stop pretending it is - it might comfort you to imagine we don't need to responsibly face facts, but as your parents might have told you once, it's not the adult thing to do. --- By the way, Exxon's scientists weren't liberal, neither were the researchers who compiled greenhouse emissions data for the Air Force back in the 1950s when they needed accurate understanding of what CO2 in the air did to their guidance systems for heat-seeking missiles. Are you suggesting heat-seeking missiles are a liberal plot, too? Or to suit you, should we willingly decrease their accuracy by removing the bits of reality you have trouble with?
4
Global warming is primarily a result of emissions and pollution occurring for the past 100 years. The next 100 years could be even worse if the most populated and industrialized nations don't get their act together in protecting our air and drastically reducing our carbon foot print. Every individual has to become conscious that global warming is real and could have disastrous consequences and should ask the question to themselves. What can I do individually and as a environmentally conscious group to reduce my own carbon foot print and boycott products of polluters.
2
Factoring in the widespread subzero temperatures recently experienced as a result of the Polar Vortex to offset the blistering summer heat we had to endure in many places last year as well, what if annual average temperatures start to go down? On paper it appears that Nature may be correcting the carbon dioxide problem for us since we now live in a world where data is all that matters.
1
@John Doe
A bit of wishful thinking, but a lower temperature trend in coming years- your self correction- will not happen on its own. Global warming has affected the circumpolar flow that has kept it in the artic. This flow, the polar vortex, in combination of a weakening jet stream has caused portion of the vortex to split off and meander south. The cold air is replaced by warm air moving towards the pole, which causes it to be warmed to unprecedented temperatures resulting in a thinner sea ice. This, in turn, results in a quicker summer melting and allowing more solar energy heating, In fact the global warming in the Artic region, and to a lesser extend in Antarctica, is the highest on the globe, and constitutes the biggest threat to sea level rise as glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica melt (sea ice or floating ice do not affect sea level as it melts). The process is not steady, as global temperatures are also affected by ocean current fluctuations, such as El Nino and La Nina cycles, the latter causing global wide lows, as seen for 2018, and El Nino highs as shown in 1998 and 2016. These highs are briefly followed by a few years of lower temperatures. But the overall trends is relentlessly to higher temperatures when averaged over multi year segments.
3
The brand-new book "The End of Ice" by Dahr Jamail provides vivid examples of global warming cited by scientists from the Brazilian rainforest to the highest point in North America and elsewhere, too (be sure to read the chapters on Florida and the Great Barrier Reef). Ranking temperature data doesn't say much to many, but those interviewed in this book explain in graphic detail why we should care and prepare.
3
The cause of climate change is global warming. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. Greenhouse gas production has increased because of human activity.
Human activity is the net effect of the human global population, which currently is about 7.7 billion, predicted to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050.
Solar panels and wind farms woop not suffice; they are not going to stop global warming. More efficient cars will make merely a dent. Switching from coal to natural gas will help little.
To slow down then reverse global warming, more drastic measures are needed. We need to switch to nuclear fission. We need to slow down and reverse the human global population.
If we can get our global population back down to one billion, then and only then we won't need to destroy rainforest, we won't be driving up global temperature due to greenhouse gases, we won't have millions of humans on the move, desperately fleeing rising sea levels, the inundation of coastal communities, and pastures turning to desert.
4
What do you suggest we do with the other 6.7 billion people?
1
During the period between 1880 and 1890 the earth was experiencing a global winter caused by the eruption of Krakatoa and should not be used as a base temperature, in fact the period before could have been much warmer. The article is no very well done
tom - Not sure where you feel 1880-1889 is being used as a baseline, but let me point out two things: 1) choice of baseline just moves the entire graph up or down, it doesn't affect the trends. 2) The decade 1880-1889, which you call a global winter, was the warmest decade in the period from 1880 to 1929. Check it yourself, I used NOAA's data which you can get at this page: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2018
If you want folks in the U.S. to understand the trends in global warming I suggest you use fahrenheit instead of celsius for your graphics and charts. It's hard enough for the majority of the population to grasp what a 2 degree difference in average global temperature will do, but using a scale that is misunderstood and labels it a 1 degree difference is counter productive at best.
2
Absolutely correct. You need make it as easy as possible for people to understand... This doesn't help. Most educated people could not tell you the conversion equation between F and C.
1
Please send a hyperlink of this NY Times article to your representatives in Congress and to the White House for the sake of our children, grandchildren, their children and all future generations.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/06/climate/fourth-hottest-year.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
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Everybody who follows this debate closely will be utterly skeptical of a graph that under-plays the 1998 Super El Nino. If 1998 does not stick out like a sore thumb, then the data are bogus.
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Look again. The 1998 warming peak is labeled in the graph at the beginning of the article.
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1998 does stick out like a sore thumb, in relation to the 1980s-1990s. I hate to break it to you, but that wild and crazy year has been topped, and topped, and topped, again and again, by wilder and crazier years, most of them NOT El Ninos, over the past two decades. 1998 has dropped to #10 in the rankings.
Here's hoping that reality will improve your understanding of what's happening.
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1998 stood out from prior years but not later years.
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I've come to realize that a distinguishing characteristic of Trump voters is that --like their political hero-- they are pathologically self-centered. No social issue or challenge resonates with, or is even real to, them unless they are affected personally in some obvious and irrefutable manner.
In the case of climate change, it's hard for Trumpers to perceive and accept the empirical evidence around them because (a) their singular news source Fox News shows only misleading, if any, information about climate change and (b) Trumpers have a knee-jerk tendency to see other people as at fault for any problem or challenge they themselves are facing. As for the scientific evidence, they reject it because they don't understand it and don't want it to be true.
Trump voter self-centeredness is particularly horrible and irrational because it is their own children and grandchildren that will bear the brunt of the weather extremes and other climate-linked catastrophes we are increasingly bound to experience over the rest of this century.
Hopefully, decent and rational Americans will more fully exercise their civic duties in 2020, as they did in 2018, and vote out all the "leaders" from the GOP who are forcing the world toward a bleak future.
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Attention climate change deniers: look at the graph. Note that it is not a straight line.
I'll go against the currency of our times here - it's global warming, not "climate change." Climate change encompasses global warming, but we should not cede ground to ignorance-promoters who scream "no global warming" every time there's a polar vortex. Like the ignorance-promoter-in-chief did last week.
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I agree. Climate change is too vague to describe the problem. It's really anthropogenic global warming. According to models of Milankovich Cycles which model the changes in Earth's orbit and how much sun the continents of the northern hemisphere receive, we should be going into a cooling climate change. Recent research indicates that instead of beginning to cool about 5000 years ago, as predicted by similar Milankovich Cycles such as the MIS 19 Interglacial Period, the temperature of the planet remained warm, due to humans beginning slash and burn agriculture which released carbon dioxide from the forests that were cut down and burned to create arable land, rice paddy farming which releases a lot of methane, and the domestication of ungulate livestock like cows which also release methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. See: Late Holocene climate: Natural or anthropogenic? W. F. Ruddiman, et al. (2016). Rev. Geophys., 54, 93–118, doi:10.1002/2015RG000503.
Fossil fuel burning during the Industrial Age has only made global warming accelerate. We have the data. Experts know how to interpret it. We are responsible, and we need to do something about it now. Global warming is already driving many plant and animal species to extinction, disrupting food webs that cannot evolve fast enough to cope with the change.
Solving climate change isn't just going to be costly, however. It represents enormous business opportunities. Solutions will create wealth and jobs.
maybe you are right but the period from 1880 on was unusually cold due to the eruption of Krakatoa and the resulting global winter. There was world wide starvation and winter in summer in many countries. Why not use the period before 1880 as a base
When polling fails to prove Trump's claim that he is the most popular and most effective president ever, he declares the polls to be rigged. Faced with these temperature records,it isn't unreasonable for us to expect him to declare that the thermometers are rigged. And VOILA! Problem solved.
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It may have been the fourth warmest year ever, but it was the hottest year ever. We have elected to measure warmth where we live, about a meter or two above the ground. But 93% of the excess heat created by our energy imbalance goes into the ocean, which is where it is measured. Our warmed atmosphere is light as a feather and easily pushed around by natural cycles like the El Nino/La Nina oscillation. The ocean, in comparison, is like a ton of bricks, and is currently heating by the equivalent of five Hiroshima-class atom bombs exploding each second.
Imagine you're in a vehicle going 70 mph in the desert Southwest. The map says there's a canyon up ahead: if you don't start braking now you'll go over the cliff. But Big Fossils, riding shotgun, says the mapmakers are left-leaning hoaxers who just want your money; you should trust your gut, and your gut says its a flat as a pancake. Eventually you see the cliff, you apply the brakes. Will you avoid the cliff? Well, it turns out you're driving an 18-wheeler loaded top to bottom with, you guessed it, a ton of bricks. And that is when the ocean is going to matter: when we're finally trying to stop this tragedy from happening. When the time comes, it'll be the only thing that matters.
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Said it before, but it needs to be said again. What are the climate change believers willing to give up in their own comfortable lifestyles in order to lower global temperatures. Will you stop driving? And don't give me the usual bunk about electric cars because electricity is produced by burning coal and oil and natural gas. What are going to do to cut your own greenhouse gas footprint? Or are you going to pin this responsibility on the other guy, as usual?
Electric cars use the economy of scale to generate thermal derived heat more efficiently than individual ICEs. Internal friction and moving parts, surface area, etc. all figure in. And their power sources will increasingly be from renewables and decreasingly from coal then oil then gas. Follow what all the climate-concerned are doing. Buy local food cutting down on transportation. Shop locally. You know, like our founding fathers did. Tend towards more plant-based foods, less meats. You can see market trends already reflecting these choices. Actual people are actually doing these actual things. Or simply follow what the economics tells you - buy a more efficient car, if only to save some money (you'll save energy too). Optimize fuel amounts on aircraft (saves money by saving fuel by not carrying too much on the plane). On and on... being done by actual concerned people.
So. What's your plan?
Also, it's not belief, it's science. Science is the thing that works whether you believe in it or not.
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I think you are missing the forest for the trees. No one is pinning the responsibility on "the other guy". We're pinning the responsibility on ourselves, our governments, our fellow human beings. We will not reach meaningful and sustainable change if only 10, 100, 1000 or even 1,000,000 people take these steps. As stated in the article, the effort to change and be more environmentally mindful needs to come from all of us. It is incredibly misguided to think that it falls on a singular individual, company or country.
In response to the content of your comment - We are not just pushing for electric cars. We are pushing for renewable sources of energy generation, which significantly reduce our greenhouse footprint. We are pushing for modern recycling methods; we are pushing for environmental regulations; we are pushing for anything that we can push for. We aren't pidgeon-holed into just riding bikes to work, as a solution.
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Climate change is happening, and we don't have to believe in it or not for anthropogenic global warming to be true. We have objective evidence it's happening, and has been happening for a long time, though warming accelerated only recently. Data from NASA. Data from ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic and from ocean sediments going back 800,000 years which give us a record of greenhouse gasses and temperatures 4x longer than the human species has existed.
The problem is vast and will require worldwide, economy-changing solutions. Paul and the climate change denialists are very wrong to think of these solutions only in terms of costs. Solutions to climate change also represent a huge business opportunity, and far sighted companies will make lots of money and employ millions of workers across the globe transitioning us to green energy and nuclear power, and figuring out how to sequester excess greenhouse gasses that we have injected into the atmosphere.
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It's literally the end of the world as we know it, and everybody seems to feel fine.
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Ooooo, look, no global warming since 2016! Get that coal burning, boys! (Snark.)
It's interesting to think back now on the fossil fuel shills' talking point "no global warming after 1998" in light of the chart in the article. After the super-duper outlier El Nino of '98, global temps continued to rise ... and the "outlier" back then is far, far, far behind in the hottest-year sweepstakes now.
No doubt the know-nothings will exclaim, "Look, the annual average temperature has been going down for the past two years! Explain that!" Such is their willful ignorance.
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But Trump, fossil fuel execs and Christian fundamentalists say there is no man-made climate change. Don't they know more than the hundreds of scientific experts who have conclusive evidence of climate change linked to massive human destruction of forests and endless contamination of the atmosphere?
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These insubordinate agencies have got to stop contradicting Mr. Trump. First the Intelligence Chiefs on North Korea and Iran, then the Army Commander on Syria pull-out, now NASA on climate change. Don’t they realize the President is our all-knowing Leader? Science and facts are beyond his comprehension. Off with their heads!
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Now that you mention it. he does kinda look like Carroll & Tenniel's Red Queen...
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The best warming comparison is for a single placeover time, hopefully with a stable human population within 50km around the measurement site. This "warmest-year-on-record" headline getter is based on some sort of undisclosed aggregation algorithm ... which can be adjusted to move the number up or down somewhat. I wonder if this over-weights metro-areas that have a real heat island effect that continues to climb. That said ... if this aggregation is accurate ... note the quick drop in the last couple years. Statistically the trend is up over 10 years, but down over 2. Could easily be noise. Also might be the Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) that is now taking hold. If this temperature number falls for a couple more years we might find that the GSM will take the heat off for 10-20 years. But if the green house gas theory of global warming is true, it will really spike in the 2030s.
Undisclosed? Ask. This is publicly available stuff mostly paid for by your tax dollars. It will take mere minutes to find.
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You didn’t read the article, especially the part about: “The warmest year was 2016, its record-setting temperature amplified by the Pacific Ocean phenomenon known as El Niño. In 2018, the world experienced the opposite phenomenon, a cooling La Niña, with a weak El Niño toward the end of the year.”
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Jeff, a "quick drop in the last couple years" was exceeded in other places in the chart, which still shows an upward trend. "Undisclosed aggregation algorithm"? How about "NASA's full 2018 surface temperature data set — and the complete methodology used to make the temperature calculation — are available at data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp"
What scientific basis do you have for your very specific criteria for "best place"? High mountains don't have large populations and their ice is melting worldwide. The Arctic has a fairly stable low population without any "urban" to influence things, and the Arctic is heating faster than areas farther towards the equator. The oceans are without urban populations across their surface and the oceans have been heating steadily.
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(Intended Audience: The wives and daughters of the carbon barons & the carbon-sponsored politicians)
I truly fear for the future safety of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the owners, board members and executives of the oil, natural gas, coal and pipeline companies and their sponsored political “leaders.”
As living conditions on our planet become unbearable due to the severe, relentless impacts of Climate Change, generations of devastated citizens around the world will ask: “Who is most directly responsible for this existential catastrophe?”
When these citizens look around, they will find many of the culpable carbon barons and carbon-sponsored politicians have already passed on to whatever afterlife awaits them. But the direct descendants of the carbon barons and the carbon-sponsored politicians will still be here. And there will be no escape – not even behind their gated communities – from the wrath of billions of incensed citizens on every continent.
For the carbon barons, it all comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: harvest their carbon assets and sacrifice their descendants – or – strand their carbon assets and save their descendants?
For the carbon-sponsored politicians, it also comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: continue to dither on Climate Change legislation and sacrifice their descendants – or – pass sweeping and meaningful Climate Change mitigation legislation and save their descendants?
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Year: 6853.
Archeological Student Smith - "So, you're telling me they knew they were at the point of no return with climate change. That what they were doing would probably lead to extinction level events for large swaths of the planet. That they were putting the fate of the human race at stake?"
Archeologist Watkins - "Yeah, exactly. They had all the knowledge, all the evidence. They knew. We're lucky to be here. They waited until it was too late to avert much of the damage."
Smith - "So what was the Great North American wall for?"
Archeologist Watkins - "We can't determine a logical reason for it."
Smith - "So do we have any idea why they waited so long?"
Watkins - "We aren't sure, but we have some evidence that most of the populace wasn't really aware of the dangers or what they could do to stop it."
Smith - "How is that possible?"
Watkins - "We have some vague links to a political and economic system based on divisive practices that put monetary gains over the welfare of people and without much regard for the future. It's probably much more complex than that, but it seems the governments of the time came to an almost complete standstill. Social unrest grew at alarming rates right before the climate catastrophe and it seems the political system of the time actually encouraged it, becoming more extreme itself."
Smith "So what could they have done differently?"
Watkins - "Lots of things, but it starts with what we do now, make education both free & compulsory."
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One problem with your novella - it's assuming that there will be humans 4,000 years from now. Or are you postulating that a different species evolves? But good work otherwise.
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The Times should overlay a chart of solar output on top of this data. Then include an accompanying tutorial for our friends that don't know how to read a graph. You will find many of them in Washington.
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So it looks like the last two consecutive data points point to a cooling trend, let's see where the next data point lands. Place your bets folks.
In the meantime it's kind of lame to add pictures of the fires in California as it most likely that the fires were so damaging because of the amount of fuel (tinder) available due to no funds spent on management. Also the Paris accord does not do anything at all effective as under it India and China are allowed to continue increase emissions far into the future
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There are other things that effect global temperatures beyond global warming. As stated in the article, we switched from a strong El Nino the last few years to a slight La Nina. Global temperatures tend to be cooler during La Ninas. Thus it is notable that even with a La Nina temperatures were so warm. These sort of large scale climate oscillations create the natural up-and-down pattern of global temperatures every few years seen in the graph, aka the noise. But the trend of increasing temperatures since the mid-20th century is obvious and trying to deny it while looking at that graph is putting your head in the sand
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Hi, Globie. Just to let you know, Gdawg's comment which posted just minutes before yours, accurately predicted your feeble attempt to make it appear warming is over. We heard the same for years after 1998's record high (as a massive El Niño rode the crest of our greenhouse warming). But each decade after 1998 was warmer in turn then every decade prior in the instrument records. We're ending the fourth record-warm decade in a row, since the 1980 surpassed the 1940s. Place your bets? I'd bet that at least six of the next eight decades will also spend a short while as the new warmest decade in the records.
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Two points do not a trend line make. There are 10th graders who learn this every day.
So India and China have not started their own reduction programs? You positive about that?
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Ah! But notice, the temperature anomaly has declined for the last two years from the 2016 peak. It's the beginning of global cooling and the next Ice Age!
Okay, not... but will anyone be surprised when the denial camp cherry picks data to make such a point? The warming trend has been obvious for years, and the science that explains it has been robust, yet still there are those who claim it's a Chinese hoax, or that we're going to have a "beautiful climate," or that there are no theories, or that it's just not possible for humans to have a global impact.
So now we have coal lobbyist running EPA, a cowboy wannabe running DOE, and an oil lobbyist nominated to run Interior, while the Katzenjammer kids run amok at 1600 Pennsylvania.
Oy vey.
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As long as three government agencies can't agree on the details, that will be enough for climate change deniers to say there are inaccuracies or fraud in the methodologies. Couldn't there have been a combined report that averaged the findings and presented a totally consistent message?
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More aggregate / metaanalysis reports will come along as they get the annual data and work on it. IPCC is the broadest. But you know, they're foreigners and can't be trusted, right?
Carl, try this one from the World Meteorolical Organization https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-confirms-past-4-years-were-warmest-record -- but of course, putting "world" in it will give deniers one of their fake problems anyway, that reality is somehow a liberal plot to give away all our money. -- But I think having several groups each use their own methods to examine and assess such a truly massive data set is better - kind of like bookkeepers using cross and foot to verify calculations rather than just running them once in one way only.
The UN released a report that said we need to make dramatic change over the next 12 years to limit the devastation of climate change. Of course Donald Trump and the Republicans deny this and continue to profiteer from fossil fuel donors.
Unfortunately the Democrats response is very weak considering the urgency of needed change. They named Joe Manchin coal promoter as head to the Energy committee. Meanwhile Pelosi has dismissed Alexandria Contez’s Green New Deal Bill. This is an emergency and because of large donors from fossil fuel corporations there is relative silence.
The consequences of inaction will be devastating, but we still might have a chance if we act now. We need leaders, not those lining their pockets with donors money.
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The emergency will come nine years from now when a future president will declare a national emergency and bleed the top two quintiles dry funding changes. The fossil fuel robber barons would have fled the country by then. (And the politicians who reaped the fossil fuel funds, will be living behind walls and security teams.)
If you don't think the Earth's atmosphere is fragile consider this picture:
It the Earth were a globe with a 25 foot diameter (how wide it is) the breathable atmosphere that supports all human life, or where we all live (from sea level to the first 10,000 elevations) would be equal to the thickness of a bed sheet stretched across and around its entire surface.
That is so fragile that it is a miracle we have life at all.
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Flying at 35,000 feet altitude, one is above 80% of the entire mass of the Earth's atmosphere.
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And if all of Earth’s water fit in a gallon jug, the available freshwater would equal
just over a tablespoon.
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We have a global international climate emergency that has harmed and will harm and kill thousands of species in the natural habitat and food chain.
The adult response is to support solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass and other green energies and public policy and candidates who support them.
Gas Oil Pollution is a Greed Over Planet suicide pill.
"my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" is a right-wing death wish.
Stop supporting the Party of Planetary Abortion.
D to go forward; R for extinction.
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Doesn't exist in the mind of all that support trump.
This is our National Emergency, completely absent from the SOTU last night.
This is America's shame that our leadership ignores. This is what we should be worried about. Not some poor people looking to enter our country to better their lives and become part of our American dream. This should be our number one priority. Until we have leaders that acknowledge this and at least attempt to look for solutions and mitigation we can never ever be great.
We must elect leaders that believe in science. We must start being a nation where we excel in innovation, once again.
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My comment is much less significant than wheeler's comments would
be were he to spend the time necessary with the authors of this report.
So I suggest that all efforts be made to insure that he sit down
with the authors and go over in detail what the report measures,
how it was measured, and what a reasonable person would conclude
from it. It would then be of great national interest to hear what he has
learned and has to say in response.
Perhaps one of the two appropriate House committees could invite him to respond in public.
Anything less than spending the time needed to do this should tell
us that wheeler just doesn't care enough to do his homework, and prefers to live in the same splendid fantasy land that his boss simply refuses to leave.
Another character with whom the same learning session should be
followed is our energy secretary perry, from whom nothing has
been heard of late. Very curious that.
Since I don't expect trump to want his terribly busy schedule to be overly burdened by actually having to learn something new, I can't expect him nor his entourage to seek out the authors of the report for a private briefing. But it would be interesting to hear trumpicans in congress insist that he
lead by doing so.
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