Month: March 2016

Solar Pioneer in one of his last interviews.

Starts about 10 minutes in.

Hulk mad

at Trump pic.twitter.com/Ciu7SEsyCz

— Keegan Stephan (@KeeganNYC) March 18, 2016

Major media continue to pick up`on our current global temp spike.
Scientists struggling to describe strange new landscape.

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press:

Earth got so hot last month that federal scientists struggled to find words, describing temperatures as “astronomical,” ”staggering” and “strange.” They warned that the climate may have moved into a new and hotter neighborhood.

This was not just another of the drumbeat of 10 straight broken monthly global heat records, triggered by a super El Nino and man-made global warming. February 2016 obliterated old marks by such a margin that it was the most above-normal month since meteorologists started keeping track in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The old record was set just last December and the last three months have been the most above-normal months on record, said NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden. And it’s not just NOAA. NASA, which uses different statistical techniques, as well as a University of Alabama Huntsville team and the private Remote Sensing System team, which measure using satellites, also said February 2016 had the biggest departure from normal on record.

NOAA said Earth averaged 56.08 degrees (13.38 degrees Celsius) in February, 2.18 degrees (1.21 degrees Celsius) above average, beating the old record for February set in 2015 by nearly six-tenths of a degree (one-third of a degree Celsius). These were figures that had federal scientists grasping for superlatives.

“The departures are what we would consider astronomical,” Blunden said. “It’s on land. It’s in the oceans. It’s in the upper atmosphere. It’s in the lower atmosphere. The Arctic had record low sea ice.”

“Everything everywhere is a record this month, except Antarctica,” Blunden said. “It’s insane.”

In the Arctic, where sea ice reached a record low for February, land temperatures averaged 8 degrees above normal (4.5 degrees Celsius), Blunden said. That’s after January, when Arctic land temperatures were 10.4 degrees above normal (5.8 degrees Celsius).

Worldwide, February 2016 was warmer than about 125 of the last 136 Marches.

Sydney Morning Herald:

Global temperatures leapt in February, lifting warming from pre-industrial levels to beyond 1.5 degrees, and stoking concerns about a “climate emergency”

According to NASA analysis, average temperatures last month were 1.35 degrees above the norm for the 1951-1980 period.

They smashed the previous biggest departure from the average – set only in the previous month – by 0.21 degrees. Continue reading “Beyond Record Hot – “Shocking and Strange””

Gallup:

Americans are taking global warming more seriously than at any time in the past eight years, according to several measures in Gallup’s annual environment poll. Most emblematic is the rise in their stated concern about the issue. Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they are worried a “great deal” or “fair amount” about global warming, up from 55% at this time last year and the highest reading since 2008.

UPDATE:

Continue reading “As Election Year Unfolds, Climate Concern Rises”

Steve Sherwood and Stefan Rahmstorf in the Conversation:

Global temperatures for February showed a disturbing and unprecedented upward spike. It was 1.35℃ warmer than the average February during the usual baseline period of 1951-1980, according to NASA data.

This is the largest warm anomaly of any month since records began in 1880. It far exceeds the records set in 2014 and again in 2015 (the first year when the 1℃ mark was breached).

In the same month, Arctic sea ice cover reached its lowest February value ever recorded. And last year carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere increased by more than 3 parts per million, another record.

What is going on? Are we facing a climate emergency?

 

Continue reading “What Does This Month’s Temp Spike Mean?”

As always, I’ll try to slice these interviews up and get them online – so anyone can follow the experts for themselves.

More from Zeke Hausfather, San Francisco, December 2015.
Zeke’s experience with Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project has made him an encyclopedic resource on how global temperatures are measured.

Below, see my interview with Richard Muller, head of the Berkeley group – and how he was skeptical, till he actually started studying the record.

Continue reading “Zeke Hausfather: On Buckets and Buoys”

Nice story about diatom sampling near Russell Glacier, site of last year’s Dark Snow campaign.

Also a look inside KISS – Kangerlussuaq International Science Support center – an old barracks that is home away from home to Arctic researchers in Greenland.

No discussion of climate change. But if you’re wondering what really goes on in Trump supporter brains, Samantha Bee goes where none of us have the stomach to tread.

I was fortunate to include Zeke Hausfather among the scientists I interviewed in San Francisco last December.  Zeke is a researcher for the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, and is a star in my most recent video on surface temps.

I am breaking out the individual interviews, as much as I can, to become part of the Scientists Interviews Playlist I’m creating as a resource for journalists, historians, and citizens.

There are 135 videos now in that list – I’ll be adding more from Zeke, and others, regularly.

Below, Zeke on why temperatures are sometimes adjusted. Continue reading “New Scientist Interview: Zeke Hausfather on Temp Records”