Last year was one of Earth's hottest years on record and I can't believe I'm writing this story again

It's unanimous: 2017 was one of Earth's warmest years on record, continuing an impressive and quickening trend seen since the dawn of the industrial revolution. 

It's unanimous - 2017 was Earth's warmest year on record.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the UK Met Office, and other groups that monitor the planet's thermostat, 2017 was by far the warmest year to occur without an El Niño event, which can boost ocean and air temperatures and was partly responsible for propelling 2016 to the top spot on the list of warmest years. 

While each group differs slightly in their final numbers and rankings, the numbers they came up with differ mainly because of the way they calculate temperatures in data-poor regions, such as the rapidly warming Arctic.

Read the Mashable Australia story by Andrew Freedman - ”Last year was one of Earth's hottest years on record and I can't believe I'm writing this story again.”

Bureau of Meteorology tips pleasant Christmas weather

The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting a "beautiful day for many parts of the country".

Christmas Day will be much cooler in Melbourne than 2016's Yuletide heatwave.

This year is shaping up as Australia's fifth warmest, but Christmas Day won't be a record-making day.

Read Madeleine Heffernan’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Bureau of Meteorology tips pleasant Christmas weather.”

NASA heat records tumble in first six-months of 2016

The first six months of 2016 were the
warmest six-month period in NASA's
 modern temperature record, which
dates to 1880. 

Two key climate change indicators — global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent — have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet's warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.

Read the NASA story - “2016 Climate Trends Continue to Break Records.”

Sunshine and mostly brown slopes greet skiers in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley

CHAMONIX, France — Bright sunshine and mostly brown slopes welcomed skiers to the Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley just before New Year’s Eve, a sight that hardly came as a shock.

Across France, December 2015 was already on track to be the warmest since 1900, a fact since confirmed by Météo France, the national weather service.

The toll of global warming on Alpine ski resorts has already been well documented. A 2006-7 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which landed in the middle of another warm winter, had an immediate impact. In Germany, Der Spiegel warned of “Snow Cannons Against the Apocalypse,” and The Daily Telegraph in Britain declared, “Global Warming Could Spell Ruin for Alps.”

Read The New York Times story - “For French Ski Resorts, a Scramble to Offset Snow Deficit.”

The wettest December ever in the UK

Ducks float by doorways in what was
the UK's wettest December ever.

December was the wettest month ever recorded in the UK, with almost double the rain falling than average, according to data released by the Met Office on Tuesday.

Last month saw widespread flooding which continued into the new year, with 21 flood alerts in England and Wales and four in Scotland in force on Tuesday morning.

The record for the warmest December in the UK was also smashed last month, with an average temperature of 7.9C, 4.1C higher than the long-term average.

Read The Guardian story - “December 2015 was the wettest month ever recorded in UK.”

Climate change records remind us thermostat is steadily pushing up

N

ew climate change records have come along to remind us that Earth’s thermostat is steadily pushing upward.

More exactly, there are two global high temperature records and a smattering of climate change low points.

March 2015 was the warmest March since record-keeping began in 1880, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the first quarter of 2015 was the warmest first quarter on record in those same 136 years.

That gives 2015 a stab at trumping the hottest year on record — which was 2014.

The uninterrupted continuation of the warming trend is no surprise. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 17 years.

And though the rise in the last 10 years has been gentle by comparison, since 1910, the clear trend has been up, according to NASA’s Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index.

Read the GantDaily story - “New temperature records highlight global warming’s continued rise”.

Things are warming up as we head for the hottest year on record

T

he first three months of 2015 were the warmest start to any year on record, according to new data released from NASA on Wednesday.

All major global temperature-tracking agencies have ranked January, February, and March 2015 as among the warmest three months on record, respectively. Collectively, those numbers mean 2015 has been record hot so far. What’s more, the last 12 months (from April 2014 to March 2015) was the warmest 12-month period on record, according to the NASA data.

The previous warmest 12-month period ended just last month, so don’t write this one down in your diary in ink.

Read the Slate story here - “2015 Is Shaping Up to Be the Hottest Year on Record”.

Hottest ever, but PM doesn't seem to care

It’s official: 2014 has taken the title of hottest year on record.

The fellow who could help Australian’s prepare for this slow motion shipwreck-type calamity has been stomping about in Iraq, chest thrown out, rubbing shoulders with the military, and endorsing violence that is simple a further manifestation of our damaged climate, when he should be at home.

True, it is the people who will have to rally and so do the true “lifting” when it comes to addressing climate change, but what an easier task it would be if our government honestly, and quickly re-appraised its sceptical position.

With the government onside, rather than plumping for endless growth in a finite world, Australia could become a nation of resilient communities that both understand and embraced localism, that accepted survival of the climate change-driven catastrophe demanded processes that fell in line with the Transition Towns thesis and our government institutions were truly about caring for people, rather than having their success measure in economic terms.

This governmental opposition to climate change comes in the face of news that the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has declared 2014 the hottest for the planet on record.

In a story headed: “One for the Record Books: 2014 Officially Hottest Year” reports that the average temperature was 1.1°F above the 20th century average according to JMA’s data.

“That,” Climate Central reports, “edges 1998, the previous warmest year, by about 0.1°F.”

David Karoly uses filling bath as analogy of climate change

David Karoly -
like water
filling a bath.

David Karoly explained some five years ago to Shepparton audience of about 70 how climate change was a little like a tap running into a bath.

So long as the plug wasn’t in place the water drained out just as quick as it ran in and everything remained in equilibrium.

Even with the plug in place and the bath beginning to fill, everything continued in equilibrium until the bath began to overflow and so a tipping point had been reached.

Everything was fine with the earth’s atmosphere when the naturally greenhouse gases were comfortably accommodated by the naturally existing sinks, such as earth’s oceans or existing forests, but then a couple of centuries ago that all changed.

Humans stumbled upon the keys to the fossil-fuel larder and in burning them effectively plugged the bath, the bath’s now full, it’s running over, a tipping point has been reached and because of those additional greenhouse gases earth’s atmosphere is in serious disequilibrium.

The upshot of that disequilibrium is the emergence around the world of never before seen changes to our weather, brought upon by seemingly small, but every-increasing temperatures.

And now having seen 14 of the 15 warmest years on record this century, the 21st century, and we are now on the verge of adding 2014 to that less than impressive record.

The Huffington Post reports that in a story headed: “2014 May Be Hottest Year On Record, WMO Warns”.

 

David Karoly is Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is an expert in climate change science and was involved, through several different roles, in the preparation of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2007.

 

 

'Farce' believers not observing world events or the science

Those who describe global warming as a “farce” are obviously not taking any note of what is happening around the world or what the science says.

Writing in a story headed: “The Planet Just Had Its Warmest August On Record” The Huffington Post says the latest readings continue a series of record or near-record breaking months.

Climatologist and climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, told The Post that while the agency's data does indicate that this August was the hottest on record, the difference falls within a few hundredths of a degree compared with previous Augusts.

“Schmidt cautioned against focusing on any one month or year, but instead on the fact that "the long-term trends are toward warming." A very hot August, he said, is just one piece of the data that "point[s] towards the long-term trends," The Post reported.

Report again warns us to 'be prepared'

Prof Lesley Hughes.

The warning that we should “Be prepared” has been sounded again in the latest report from Australia’s crowd funded Climate Council.

Australians valued to work of the Climate Commission so much that even though the Abbott-led Coalition Government acted soon after its election to bury it, the people bonded, and dug deep, to ensure it continued its works under the new name of the “Climate Council”.

And now, just today, the council has released the report: “Be prepared: Climate Change and the Australian bushfire threat”.

The preface to the report, of which the prime authors are Climate Councillors, Prof Lesley Hughes and Prof Will Steffan, says:

“Over the past year, record breaking temperatures have been experienced across the country. More than 120 weather records were broken last summer, including the hottest summer, the hottest January, and the hottest day.”



Prof Will Steffan.

“2013 is on track to become Australia’s warmest year on records. These trends together with below-average rainfall in many part of the country, including the southeast, indicated that the coming fire season was likely to be a serious one.

“We thus made the decision in September to focus our first report on bushfires and their link to climate change.

“This decision was, unfortunately, borne out by the events in NSW in early October, where intense and uncontrolled fires raged across parts of the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains”.

A 'Decade of Extremes' - WMO

A “Decade of Extremes” is the description given to the past 10 years by the World Meteorological Organization.

In the forward to its report, the organization says:

“The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest decade recorded since modern measurements began around 1850. It saw above-average precipitation, including one year – 2010 – that broke all previous records.

It was also marked by dramatic climate and weather extremes such as the European heatwave of 2003, the 2010 floods in Pakistan, hurricane Katrina in the United States of America (USA), cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and long-term droughts in the Amazon Basin, Australia and East Africa.”