State of the Climate: Earth fails another annual physical. Or, maybe better stated, human activity resulted in another horrible annual reading of Earths temps. Beyond time to move Earth from a Private room to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Unfortunately, 2015 blasted past all records set in 2014. The El Nino effect help somewhat, and looks like it will assist somewhat with 2016 setting even more records. Although el Nino is a natural occurrence, the effects can be removed statistically; plus, it should have less of an effect on 2016 which is on pace to shoot past the monthly and annual records of 2015.
The word used to describe the report was "Grim".
"Ugly", would be descriptive too.
Of the 50 or so metrics used, only Antarctica showed a few positive signs, mixed with some serious negatives. Highlights include:
- Greenhouse gases hit records, passing the 400ppm of CO2, to blast past all modern records.
- Surface temps set records by a mile, breaking the record set in 2014.
- Sea surface temps set a record, breaking the record set in 2014. (Part of the El Nino effect as it pertains to the Pacific.)
- Globally, upper ocean heat content exceeded the record set in 2014, "reflecting the continuing accumulation of thermal energy in the upper layer of the oceans. Oceans absorb over 90 percent of Earth’s excess heat from global warming." Which brings us to thermal expansion, as water heats it expands. If average depths of oceans are 2 miles, that thermal expansion eventually adds up as temps permeate throughout the oceans.
- Global Seal Levels highest on record. (Especially precises since the use of satellites over the last 20 years.)
- Extremes in water cycles and precipitation.
- And extreme weather. Thousands of people dies from heat in India/Pakistan, for example.
- In North America we don't realize what an ugly year 2015 was for cyclones because it was very tame for hurricanes. "There were 101 tropical cyclones across all ocean basins in 2015, well above the 1981–2010 average of 82 storms. The eastern/central Pacific had 26 named storms, the most since 1992."
"The report, led by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, is based on contributions from more than 450 scientists from 62 countries around the world and reflects tens of thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets (highlights, full report (link is external)). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice and in space."
Lots of good places to go view more details about any and all discussions, statistics and assertions.
You choose the word: Ugly? Grim? @#$@#$@ ???
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