Phil Plait reports on yet another spike in global warming.
February 2016 was the hottest February on the planet on record, a staggering 1.35° C hotter than the average. The previous hottest Februaries were 1998 (0.88° above average) and 2015 (0.87°). That’s a huge jump.
Those numbers are from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, one of the premier centers for keeping tabs on our ever-warming globe. They are from temperature measurements over land and ocean going back to 1880. They representtemperature anomalies, that is, deviations from an average. In this case, the average is taken over the range of 1951–1980. That makes comparing temperatures easier, and shows that February 2016 was the hottest recorded February for 136 years.
It’s not just El Niño, either, he says; not even close.
And another article (scroll down), this one by Eric Holthaus, elaborates.
Our planet’s preliminary February temperature data are in, and it’s now abundantly clear: Global warming is going into overdrive.
There are dozens of global temperature datasets, and usually I (and my climate journalist colleagues) wait until the official ones are released about the middle of the following month to announce a record-warm month at the global level. But this month’s data is so extraordinary that there’s no need to wait: February obliterated the all-time global temperature record set just last month.
With an update later:
As of Thursday morning, it appears that average temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere have breached the 2 degrees Celsius above “normal” mark for the first time in recorded history, and likely the first time since human civilization began thousands of years ago.* That mark has long been held (somewhat arbitrarily) as the point above which climate change may begin to become “dangerous” to humanity. It’s now arrived—though very briefly—much more quickly than anticipated. This is a milestone moment for our species. Climate change deserves our greatest possible attention.
Um.
Comments
7 responses to “Hotter”
Me, I’m setting up in business selling spades to the AGW-denying ostriches so they can more efficiently bury their heads in the sand. Once they pull them out of their arses, of course.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuck.
Okay, panic.
Too late to do much about it at this point…
How do we stop it (reversing it isn’t going to happen except in geological timeframes) and how do we adapt to the world that we (mostly they) created? Can’t do either of those until those fools acknowledge what happened.
Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican nominee rolls his eyes and makes his voice all sarcastic when he refers to protecting the atmosphere – he sounds almost like he believes the atmosphere is some fictional monster or something.
FSM help us all.
We’ve been in mitigation, not prevention, territory for some time now. I don’t think anyone who understands even a bit about global warming is surprised by this
The chances of us stopping using fossil fuels in the near future is slim to none so, imo, we have to plan for the worst case scenario. Fortunately I’m old enough that I won’t see the worst of it. OTOH I have two kids of 18 and 21. Their life is going to be… interesting. :-(
Steamshovelmama, how do you mitigate continent-wide droughts? We are in for a rough time, but it will be much rougher if we don’t do everything possible to reduce CO2 emissions. For instance, the US is blocking a large solar power project in India because the Indians understandably want to require the parts to be locally sourced. That’s supposedly against some free trade agreement, though the US often imposes similar requirements. F*** that, I say.