2015 may be hotter than 2014, the hottest year ever

2015 may be hotter than 2014, the hottest year ever
Fecha de publicación: 
20 April 2015
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My obsession with global warming was sparked in May of 2004 but began in earnest in 2006 when I stood before the Redding City Council and asked them to sign the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.  They declined to even consider signing an agreement that hundreds of mayors across America had proudly signed.

Back then I devoted any spare moment examining newspapers, magazines and the Internet in search of any hint that the mainstream media was even slightly aware of what was coming and what climate science was predicting.

Now I don’t have to look for scraps of science in obscure journals or in the back pages of magazines in Barnes and Noble.  Now I just have to step outside and look at my dead lawn or look at all the wood I didn’t burn this winter or listen every single day to people who never spent a moment of their lives thinking about global warming worry about the drought.  People are worried.  They should be worried.  As I’ve been warning for nearly a decade, these are “the good old days.”  It only gets worse from here.  Until we wake up.  Will we wake up?

Do we understand that this drought will never end?  Even if we get a flood of rain, it won’t matter if the temperatures in the mountains are above freezing.  And as the planet keeps warming, snow will become as likely as Shasta County voting for a Democrat.  We have no clue what this is going to mean for us in California.

As a species, we are not even close to comprehending what is happening to us but at least the truth is here.  It is all around us.  Denial may be alive and well.  Ignorance is still rampant like a disease but the truth is here.  We will deal with it or it will strangle us as we sleep and dream of cooler, wetter days.  But the truth is here waiting for us to see it.

New studies are suggesting that as we continue to burn fossil fuels and warm the climate and melt ice in the Arctic, it is affecting our weather.  And oil and gas giant BP is dealing with the fact that its shareholders just voted that the company should provide more information about its ‘preparation for the low carbon transition.’”  And the Pope is about to throw the weight of the Catholic Church into the fight to save us from global climate change.

A lone Republican, Lindsey Graham, is willing to admit we are warming the planet.

And how are other Republicans reacting?  How are they dealing with the fact their billionaires are profiting from Earth’s destruction?  Simple.  Prohibit people from talking about it.  Not just in Florida and Wisconsin.  But anywhere conservatives are in control.  And if that is not good enough, Republicans are seeking to prevent NASA from studying the problem.

What is it like to be a Republican parent I wonder?  They love their kids as much as Democrats but they find it necessary to fight against their own children’s future.  What a hell that must be.  I cannot begin to imagine.

“The year 2015 might be on track toward breaking last year’s notorious distinction of being the warmest year on record. According to three separate analyses released this week, the first three months of 2015 have been the warmest on record.

“The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its global temperature analysis on Friday, which revealed that the first quarter of 2015 was the warmest such period on record across the globe’s land and ocean surfaces. With average temperatures of 1.48 degrees Fahrenheit above the twentieth century average, the readings broke the previous record of 2002 by 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. For the oceans, the surface temperatures were 1.01 degrees Fahrenheit above average in the same period, making it third-highest reading in the 136-year period of record.

“’Record warm temperatures continued to dominate in the northeast Pacific Ocean and were also notable in the southwest Pacific and parts of the Arctic Seas to the north and northwest of Scandinavia,’ NOAA said in its report. ‘Overall, every major ocean basin had at least some areas with record warmth and large areas with much warmer-than-average temperatures.’”

land-ocean-temperatures

“Moreover, March 2015 was ranked as the warmest March in NOAA’s 136-year archive. The global average temperatures for March 2015 were 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the twentieth century average of 54.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Despite slight differences in the readings for March temperatures, the NOAA data was backed by the Japan Meteorological Agency and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, both of which ranked 2015 as the hottest year to date. And, given that 2015 is an El Nino year, a further rise in ocean temperatures is expected.

“’If El Nino continues throughout the summer and fall, as currently projected, and if the warm ‘blob’ remains in the northeast Pacific Ocean, as it has been for more than a year now, it seems quite likely that Earth will continue to see record or near-record high temperatures over the next several months,’ Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist at NOAA, told Climate Central.

“If 2015 does break last year’s record, it would mean that 15 of the hottest years on record have occurredin this century — a telling sign of the effect anthropogenic climate change is having on global weather patterns.

“’We expect that we are going to get more warm years, and just as with 2014, records will be broken increasingly in the future. But perhaps not every year,’ Gavin Schmidt, who leads NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, reportedly said.”

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