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2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

177 points by gregcrv 11y ago

InclinedPlane 11y ago
Ah yes, an El Nino "this proves global warming" versus a La Nina "weather is not climate" year. I hate that this is the narrative. Can people just ... stop doing this? Maybe? If you try to use the "record breaking heat, it was warm this one year" argument to argue for acceptance of theories of climate change you are only going to be hoist by your own petard a few years later when natural weather cycles result in record breaking cold years. It's the wrong playing field to be on.
- AngrySkillzz 11y ago
  It's not that it was warm "this one year," it's another data point in the pattern of record-breakingly warm years over the past few decades. Checkout the animation in this Bloomberg report if you want a better idea.[1] [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-by-a-stunning-margin http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-t...
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    It's still fundamentally the wrong argument to make if you're trying to convince the public. As I mentioned, all of that precious work goes right out the window the very first year there's a record breaking cold snap (because there will be). And then you'll end up spending all your time trying to break people out of the logic you set them up for. Getting complex science across to the public is a difficult bargain but if you short cut it you're just going to pay the price later.
js8 11y ago
I like to look at the State of the Climate: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513
ergothus 11y ago
Okay - help someone that doesn't truly understand this. Earth's surface can gain heat through 4 ways I can think of (and this is just what I can think of and is likely wrong): 1) Geothermal brings more heat from core/mantle up. I don't think this is currently any larger than normal, nor do I imagine this varies much. 2) Oceans can give up heat they are storing and provide it on the surface. I don't know if El Nino is this, or if that just means "surface" ocean temperatures are up from whatever source. 3) Solar radiation (including infrared) can be higher than normal. I honestly have no idea if there's any significant variation in this, ever. 4) Earth can retain more heat that it was previously (global warming, be it man-made or not) When they say the annual variation is usually hundredths of a degree, that sounds to me like 1-3 are generally non-factors, but that's all gut interpretation. Can someone with actual knowledge validate this?
- sp332 11y ago
  Solar radiation is variable but it's pretty predictable. There's an 11-year sunspot cycle that accounts for most of that variation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle Oceans so far have been storing heat, and keeping the average temperature increase down. No one knows how long that will continue. They also store a fair bit of CO2 which has lead to acidification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification I think this Ars Technica article does a better job of showing how short-term weather patterns like El Niño and La Niña cause variations from the overall trend https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/2015-was-official-the-hottest-year-on-record/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/2015-was-official-th...
- smikhanov 11y ago
  I second that. Any real climatologists on HN?
- pjc50 11y ago
  4) is the biggest, yes. 3) does vary a bit ("Maunder minimum"). 2) is the other way round - the oceans are a big stabiliser of temperature. A subtlety of (4) is the feedback loops, especially involving water. Water vapor increases heat retention and is increased by heat, but this is where weather interacts with climate and it gets non-linear.
themgt 11y ago
Incredible. If we continued to break records at this pace we'd be at 2C above preindustrial in 2019. Not that we will, but it gives a sense of how close we've come to the precipice, if indeed we have any < 2C carbon budget remaining.
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oolongCat 11y ago
I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. Its funny how people you would consider uneducated and poor in my country would understand that there is clearly something going wrong with the world around us, while some people with lots of money, influence and education choose to believe that this is all a conspiracy by a foreign government. It's just nuts, really, something is terribly wrong with our world, and we need to fix it. Please, if you have the time, please join a local group that helps conserve the environment, learn how you could help reduce your carbon footprint, even a little could go a long way.
- flubert 11y ago
  >I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. You can sense a 0.23 degree F average temperature difference? Or maybe you are unhelpfully confusing weather with climate?
  - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    Or, he could be observing that there were noticeably more noticeably hotter days last summer.
    - md224 11y ago
      The problem is extrapolating from local weather to "climate change is real!" or "climate change is a lie!" We mock idiotic politicians who use snowstorms to "debunk" global warming; we should hold the other side to the same standard.
      - yongjik 11y ago
        There's a difference. Of course, if someone says "My country was so hot last year, this proves global warming!" then it's BS. On the other hand, since we know that global warming is happening, it's totally legitimate to say "My country was so hot last year, it sucked, and thanks to Global Warming we can expect more such years to come in the future. Why aren't we doing anything about it?"
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orf 11y ago
It sounds bad but I'm very unoptomistic about our chances of stopping this. There is just too much pollution and too little meaningful global cooperation. Just imagine if Trump did get into office as well...
- api 11y ago
  IMHO the problem with stopping this and many other forms of environmental degradation is that it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven so to speak. Poverty is worse than all but the most severe natural disasters. Infant mortality in many poor countries is probably a lot higher than it is in Miami during a hurricane. Poverty is worse than pollution or storms. Even if the sea level rises it would be better to be forced to uproot cities and move them inland than it would be to go without modern sanitation, health care, food availability, education, etc. Only acute natural disasters like severe earthquakes and tornadoes approach chronic poverty in their destructive power. As a result it is in the self-interest of everyone on Earth to prioritize some level of wealth -- say the achievement of a basic first-world middle class standard of living -- over any environmental problem save the most immediate, acute, and apocalyptic. That's why the response of the developing world to suggestions like CO2 reduction or limiting overfishing has so far been "screw you, we're poor." This is also why I really think that what I call "abstinence based solutions" to these problems are dead on arrival. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption or modern technology is like telling teenagers not to have sex. The only hope we have is to develop the world to the point that people can afford the luxury of caring about the future beyond the next 48 hours. Only then will we be able to transition to anything more sustainable. Desperate people can't afford to care. It's also a total non-starter to try to sell first world people on regressing their standard of living. They're not stupid.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    > The only hope we have is to develop the world to the point that people can afford the luxury of caring about the future beyond the next 48 hours. Only then will we be able to transition to anything more sustainable This condition still exists in the "developed" first world. We haven't gotten off the treadmill. Artificially stimulating the economy into the unnatural state of inflation made sense when we had a scarcity of food and physical goods. Now it's just extremely wasteful, from both individual and global perspectives.
nsxwolf 11y ago
Wasn't clear to me if 2015 would have been hotter than 2014 had it not been an El Niño year.
- martinpw 11y ago
  The graphs here show that in 2015 every month was warmer than 2014 apart from April. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/hottest-year-on-record/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/hottest-year-on-record/ So the question is when did the effects of El Niño start having an impact in 2015? Unless it was significant for almost the whole year, it would still have been a record without it.
- pdabbadabba 11y ago
  >2015’s sharp spike in temperatures was aided by a strong El Nino weather pattern late in the year that caused ocean waters in the central Pacific to heat up. But the unusual warming started early and steadily gained strength in a year in which ten of 12 months set all-time records, scientists said.
  - nsxwolf 11y ago
    That doesn't answer the question.
- deleted 11y ago
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colmvp 11y ago
If this keeps up, I have no idea how countries are going to deal with displaced migrants. We barely have the capability right now to properly deal with Syrians and African refugees.
- ars 11y ago
  There's lot of room in Canada. Warm it up and it makes great farmland - there is plenty of freshwater nearby.
- mahouse 11y ago
  It's not like we are forced to deal with them. They can also be relocated to cold but uninhabited places such as Siberia.
- morsch 11y ago
  All the more reason to improve those capabilities now.
- lumpypua 11y ago
  The numbers in gumball form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDceLiPLHWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDceLiPLHWQ
- VLM 11y ago
  Moving is expensive. Cheaper to stay in place and work around it. Note that I'm talking about overall total world costs. The only reason you have refugees now is the costs are being externalized. Bombing Syria is pretty cheap if Europe pays the refugee price, not sure the last time Germany bombed Syria, but they're paying the price for someone else doing it right now... Because of the ease of externalizing costs, I suspect we will get more refugees, but reducing it would be a wise goal. Obviously there are very small exceptions to the very large general rule, like if your whole island submerges or whatever.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    I would say that Bangladesh is a large exception. Population ~160 million. Most of the countries is ~10m above sea level.
ps4fanboy 11y ago
Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/sources-overview.png http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a dent in 58% of this pie. There are people who simultaneous worry a tremendous amount about global warming who will actively protest against nuclear power. All while an extremely large amount of pollution is being burned all around us. Be reasonable we need a now solution or there wont be a when.
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  Lots of people keep saying this, but I really don't think it's true. Solar and wind work fine at scale. There is nothing un-scalable about them. What they don't do is work at night, and in that case nuclear is a fine option. Although batteries that can run a house overnight aren't that expensive.
  - scottkduncan 11y ago
    Wind works at night. :)
    - deleted 11y ago
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  - epistasis 11y ago
    Given nuclear's huge expense, huge lead times, and intense local political opposition, and comparing it to how battery&renewable is getting much cheaper with time, I don't doubt that battery&renewable will be cheaper at scale than nuclear power will be by the time that either could be built out.
    - brc 11y ago
      The expense and lead times and nimby-ism which cripples nuclear are mostly regulatory. If you apply the same constraints to wind generation (which is increasingly happening) it looks even worse than nuclear.
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pfarnsworth 11y ago
There is a 10F difference in temperature between my upstairs and downstairs without any heat turned on. There is a 4F difference in temperature between the front of the house and the back of my house. There are so many factors as to how temperature is calculated, how exactly can we take a temperature today and compare it to values from years ago? I'll buy that satellite imaging will produce values that are useful over large areas, but those only go back 20-30 years. To compare against values before that seems like pseudoscience at best.
- MCRed 11y ago
  Especially after climate gate where it was revealed that a warming factor was applied to the raw data, forcing a hockey stick....
  - alayne 11y ago
    Please don't spread this nonsense. "Climate gate" was a nonevent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_c...
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  Do you think people have systematically moved the locations of thermometers to warmer places? There's a thing called averages, medians, and other statistics that can remove or put error bars on that kind of uncertainty.
  - pfarnsworth 11y ago
    Please don't conflate some sort of political viewpoint to my my strictly scientific criticisms. I didn't say anything except that the idea of comparing data today to many decades ago seems ridiculous when there are so many factors involved with what the temperature is, including location, sun, wind, etc. I'm more interested in accuracy rather than politics or news-grabbing headlines. Regardless, your point doesn't have any validity. There is a systemic difference between the front of my house and the back of my house in terms of temperature. My thermometers are extremely accurate, with 0.5F if I remember correctly. And the average/median would still show a net 4F difference. So no, your point is invalid, there is still a problem with the data due to location.
jupiter90000 11y ago
Is anyone aware if there is reliable data prior to say 1880? [1] Is there any possibility that large scale climate trends could be outside of the observed window of time available? For instance, some large scale natural state-shifting appears to occur on the order of hundreds of years (reference is about earthquakes, but maybe relevant?) [2]. Based on everything I've heard/read/etc about this, it seems unlikely that humans are not impacting climate, but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts. [1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/ytd/12/1880-2015 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/... [2] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-...
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- rayiner 11y ago
  > but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts. What motivation does anyone have to predict disaster?
  - TearsInTheRain 11y ago
    power? Almost every issue has at least one of the parties predicting disaster
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    Distract people from real issues and extract taxes, is usually how people use disaster predictions.
    - moultano 11y ago
      The people making these predictions do not have the power to extract taxes. The people who do have the power to extract taxes (Congress) are ignoring the predictions.
jokoon 11y ago
I wonder if there is a planned study of the melting of the permafrost, since I've seen on Cosmos that it will be one of the "irreversible" side effects of global warming.
monochromatic 11y ago
> "But this record, we literally smashed. It was over a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit, and that’s a lot for the global temperature.” We literally smashed it Thomas? Literally? The record is broken into pieces and scattered around the literal floor?
drinchev 11y ago
My home country is suffering enormous climate anomalies, that are becoming usual for the population. We have big floods, forest fires, enormous heat waves and huge snow storms. This is so obvious that people are having hard time to talk about it. First years this happened it was "just a nature glitch", but recently it is becoming more and more "climate has changed".
sago 11y ago
So next year, when there's a modest decrease in global temperature (as per regression to the mean, even if the mean is monotonically increasing), the climate skeptics will be out in force with their 'I told you so - it goes up and down'. Such a huge record seems like good news for climate change deniers, just deferred.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Well the US government is at fault here to make such a big deal out of data from a single year. That really tells you there is more politics at play here than Science.
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  That's what happens when you combine people who have fixed ideas, with noisy data. As you say, once this spike subsides (pushed higher by El Nino), we'll probably have another 5-10 years of people talking about the next global warming pause. Meanwhile the baseline carries on creeping up.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Maybe 2015 was the regressing to the (increasing) mean after slower increases before, rather than 2015 being an unusual spike. Certainly what you describe seems to have happened after the record hot year of 1998, though. It sure would be nice if we could all stop trying to play silly "gotcha" games and get on with the serious business of figuring out 1) what's happening and 2) what to do about it.
tahssa 11y ago
My 3 wishes.... 1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains. 3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true. ;)
- flubert 11y ago
  >Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. Anyone know how practical it might be to have a "progressive" carbon tax, similar in nature to a progressive income tax? I can't think of a good way to measure individual carbon-dioxide generation offhand, but that doesn't mean that there isn't. Maybe in a piecemeal fashion? Bringing back carbon based Luxury taxes on airline tickets, with a $100 tax on the first transoceanic flight, $200 for the second, $400 for the third, etc.?
  - prawn 11y ago
    Would piecemeal through household/business energy bills and fuel costs cover the bulk of it? I'd guess transport, home heating/cooling, etc to be a significant portion?
- rodgerd 11y ago
  > 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some more with commuter trains. I hope you don't mind not making it to hospital in a medical emergency.
  - tahssa 11y ago
    Where there's the will there's a way. If you can't bring me to the hospital then bring the hospital to me. We would just need many more doctors and better/bigger electric drones. Amazon can figure it out - I'm sure of it.
Laaw 11y ago
2015 was a strong el nino, I dunno if it's gonna tell us much about global warming... It's actually alarming to me that this post is being given any traction on here, when I know everyone here is smarter than to attribute one year to global warming. How many times have we mocked Fox News for saying shit like, "It was -10F outside today, so much for global warming!" Climate change is clearly a big deal, and one of (if not the) biggest threats to every nation's national security, but it's not the cause of a warm 2015. Sorry folks, it just isn't.
- joenathan 11y ago
  You talk about how smart everyone here is but you offer no data for your assertion. You mention the el nino being the cause but some might argue that climate change lead to a a bigger el nino. You have evidence showing that there is no link?
  - Laaw 11y ago
    What kind of data do you want to see that something isn't causing something else? That's a pretty insane thing to ask for, if you know about falsifiability. Usually this works by me saying "there's no known link between a single year's temperature and overall global warming", which is a falsifiable statement, and then you/anyone else can go ahead and provide any evidence that what I said is false. If you can prove that a single year's temperature variance is primarily explained by global climate change, now would be the time to do it.
citrin_ru 11y ago
I'm recently come to US and currently live in (rented) apartments where gas stove with pilot light is used. 24x7 small fire inside stove turns gas into heat and CO2 with water. I was very surprised - it is waste of energy. I never seen pilot light before (in other countries).
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  I would be amazed to find out that a) this only exists in America and b) it is significant Edit: it is significant, although the citations are impossible to follow. I am amazed. But I see nothing that indicates it unique to the US.
  - green7ea 11y ago
    I can confirm that they also exist in Canada but that they are rare.
sebringj 11y ago
I usually question conventional wisdom and was stuck on the part of co2 being the root cause of recent global warming based on the co2 lag but this helped me clear it up a bit -> http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-interme...
galactical 11y ago
What's a good book for someone who wants to know more about climate change? I recently bought the most scientific, written by scientists book I could find on Amazon, and the gist of the book is that any amount of warming that is happening is due to geologic cycles and not human activity. The consensus here seems to be that it is due to human activity, so if that's the case can you point me to a good explanation of what's happening? I'm not biased either way, I just want to know the truth according to science, which seems to be really hard to find for some reason.
- lutorm 11y ago
  Not hard at all. Assuming you have the required stamina, just look at the IPCC Working Group I's reports, like http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-2013-Contribution-Intergovernmental/dp/110766182X http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-2013-Contribution-Inter.... From there, you can find thousands of references if you really want to track things down.
- drewrv 11y ago
  I'm curious what book you read because it sounds like it does not agree with what almost all scientists believe. Perhaps you should start with The IPCC Reports.
  - galactical 11y ago
    This was the book, chosen because it looked like the most objective one available: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986398306 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986398306
    - drewrv 11y ago
      This book seems explicitly one sided to me, it says right in the blurb: > The authors of Climate Change: The Facts number some of the most prominent dissenters from Big Climate alarmism
      - galactical 11y ago
karmawitch 11y ago
is it just me or is it quite rare to see such a low level of discussion on HN?
- orf 11y ago
  Agreed, and such a level of ignorance as well. This doesn't bode well for the future.
- nikdaheratik 11y ago
  I think it depends on what kind of article you're looking at. It's related to a political issue early in the U.S. election year, so there's alot of noise from people who don't usually comment. Only 10.5 months until the nonsense goes away for awhile.
  - midwest1 11y ago
    Is this a typical thing on HN in election years? This is where I come to escape, dammit! :) I would give a finger to have an entire forum of people from various technical backgrounds who could have intelligent conversations about various topics without the bumbling interference of the devoted true believers of whatever creed.
codecamper 11y ago
What if all these guesses & models are WAY OFF?? What happens when the average temperature change is 10C, not 2C? A family member works at Nasa & he says that their model is written in Fortran. And those models do not really take into account feedback loops. (like Siberia thaws & releases giga giga tons of methane.. Greenland disintegrates instead of melting slowly)
567945679 11y ago
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/21/failed-math-in-1997-noaa-claimed-that-the-earth-was-5-63-degrees-warmer-than-today/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/21/failed-math-in-1997-no...

177 points by gregcrv 11y ago

Ah yes, an El Nino "this proves global warming" versus a La Nina "weather is not climate" year. I hate that this is the narrative. Can people just ... stop doing this? Maybe? If you try to use the "record breaking heat, it was warm this one year" argument to argue for acceptance of theories of climate change you are only going to be hoist by your own petard a few years later when natural weather cycles result in record breaking cold years. It's the wrong playing field to be on.

AngrySkillzz 11y ago
It's not that it was warm "this one year," it's another data point in the pattern of record-breakingly warm years over the past few decades. Checkout the animation in this Bloomberg report if you want a better idea.[1] [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-by-a-stunning-margin http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-t...
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  It's still fundamentally the wrong argument to make if you're trying to convince the public. As I mentioned, all of that precious work goes right out the window the very first year there's a record breaking cold snap (because there will be). And then you'll end up spending all your time trying to break people out of the logic you set them up for. Getting complex science across to the public is a difficult bargain but if you short cut it you're just going to pay the price later.

js8 11y ago

I like to look at the State of the Climate: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513

ergothus 11y ago

Okay - help someone that doesn't truly understand this. Earth's surface can gain heat through 4 ways I can think of (and this is just what I can think of and is likely wrong): 1) Geothermal brings more heat from core/mantle up. I don't think this is currently any larger than normal, nor do I imagine this varies much. 2) Oceans can give up heat they are storing and provide it on the surface. I don't know if El Nino is this, or if that just means "surface" ocean temperatures are up from whatever source. 3) Solar radiation (including infrared) can be higher than normal. I honestly have no idea if there's any significant variation in this, ever. 4) Earth can retain more heat that it was previously (global warming, be it man-made or not) When they say the annual variation is usually hundredths of a degree, that sounds to me like 1-3 are generally non-factors, but that's all gut interpretation. Can someone with actual knowledge validate this?

sp332 11y ago
Solar radiation is variable but it's pretty predictable. There's an 11-year sunspot cycle that accounts for most of that variation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle Oceans so far have been storing heat, and keeping the average temperature increase down. No one knows how long that will continue. They also store a fair bit of CO2 which has lead to acidification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification I think this Ars Technica article does a better job of showing how short-term weather patterns like El Niño and La Niña cause variations from the overall trend https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/2015-was-official-the-hottest-year-on-record/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/2015-was-official-th...
smikhanov 11y ago
I second that. Any real climatologists on HN?
pjc50 11y ago
4) is the biggest, yes. 3) does vary a bit ("Maunder minimum"). 2) is the other way round - the oceans are a big stabiliser of temperature. A subtlety of (4) is the feedback loops, especially involving water. Water vapor increases heat retention and is increased by heat, but this is where weather interacts with climate and it gets non-linear.

themgt 11y ago

Incredible. If we continued to break records at this pace we'd be at 2C above preindustrial in 2019. Not that we will, but it gives a sense of how close we've come to the precipice, if indeed we have any < 2C carbon budget remaining.

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oolongCat 11y ago

I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. Its funny how people you would consider uneducated and poor in my country would understand that there is clearly something going wrong with the world around us, while some people with lots of money, influence and education choose to believe that this is all a conspiracy by a foreign government. It's just nuts, really, something is terribly wrong with our world, and we need to fix it. Please, if you have the time, please join a local group that helps conserve the environment, learn how you could help reduce your carbon footprint, even a little could go a long way.

flubert 11y ago
>I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. You can sense a 0.23 degree F average temperature difference? Or maybe you are unhelpfully confusing weather with climate?
- knowaveragejoe 11y ago
  Or, he could be observing that there were noticeably more noticeably hotter days last summer.
  - md224 11y ago
    The problem is extrapolating from local weather to "climate change is real!" or "climate change is a lie!" We mock idiotic politicians who use snowstorms to "debunk" global warming; we should hold the other side to the same standard.
    - yongjik 11y ago
      There's a difference. Of course, if someone says "My country was so hot last year, this proves global warming!" then it's BS. On the other hand, since we know that global warming is happening, it's totally legitimate to say "My country was so hot last year, it sucked, and thanks to Global Warming we can expect more such years to come in the future. Why aren't we doing anything about it?"

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orf 11y ago

It sounds bad but I'm very unoptomistic about our chances of stopping this. There is just too much pollution and too little meaningful global cooperation. Just imagine if Trump did get into office as well...

api 11y ago
IMHO the problem with stopping this and many other forms of environmental degradation is that it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven so to speak. Poverty is worse than all but the most severe natural disasters. Infant mortality in many poor countries is probably a lot higher than it is in Miami during a hurricane. Poverty is worse than pollution or storms. Even if the sea level rises it would be better to be forced to uproot cities and move them inland than it would be to go without modern sanitation, health care, food availability, education, etc. Only acute natural disasters like severe earthquakes and tornadoes approach chronic poverty in their destructive power. As a result it is in the self-interest of everyone on Earth to prioritize some level of wealth -- say the achievement of a basic first-world middle class standard of living -- over any environmental problem save the most immediate, acute, and apocalyptic. That's why the response of the developing world to suggestions like CO2 reduction or limiting overfishing has so far been "screw you, we're poor." This is also why I really think that what I call "abstinence based solutions" to these problems are dead on arrival. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption or modern technology is like telling teenagers not to have sex. The only hope we have is to develop the world to the point that people can afford the luxury of caring about the future beyond the next 48 hours. Only then will we be able to transition to anything more sustainable. Desperate people can't afford to care. It's also a total non-starter to try to sell first world people on regressing their standard of living. They're not stupid.
- mindslight 11y ago
  > The only hope we have is to develop the world to the point that people can afford the luxury of caring about the future beyond the next 48 hours. Only then will we be able to transition to anything more sustainable This condition still exists in the "developed" first world. We haven't gotten off the treadmill. Artificially stimulating the economy into the unnatural state of inflation made sense when we had a scarcity of food and physical goods. Now it's just extremely wasteful, from both individual and global perspectives.

nsxwolf 11y ago

Wasn't clear to me if 2015 would have been hotter than 2014 had it not been an El Niño year.

martinpw 11y ago
The graphs here show that in 2015 every month was warmer than 2014 apart from April. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/hottest-year-on-record/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/hottest-year-on-record/ So the question is when did the effects of El Niño start having an impact in 2015? Unless it was significant for almost the whole year, it would still have been a record without it.
pdabbadabba 11y ago
>2015’s sharp spike in temperatures was aided by a strong El Nino weather pattern late in the year that caused ocean waters in the central Pacific to heat up. But the unusual warming started early and steadily gained strength in a year in which ten of 12 months set all-time records, scientists said.
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  That doesn't answer the question.
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colmvp 11y ago

If this keeps up, I have no idea how countries are going to deal with displaced migrants. We barely have the capability right now to properly deal with Syrians and African refugees.

ars 11y ago
There's lot of room in Canada. Warm it up and it makes great farmland - there is plenty of freshwater nearby.
mahouse 11y ago
It's not like we are forced to deal with them. They can also be relocated to cold but uninhabited places such as Siberia.
morsch 11y ago
All the more reason to improve those capabilities now.
lumpypua 11y ago
The numbers in gumball form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDceLiPLHWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDceLiPLHWQ
VLM 11y ago
Moving is expensive. Cheaper to stay in place and work around it. Note that I'm talking about overall total world costs. The only reason you have refugees now is the costs are being externalized. Bombing Syria is pretty cheap if Europe pays the refugee price, not sure the last time Germany bombed Syria, but they're paying the price for someone else doing it right now... Because of the ease of externalizing costs, I suspect we will get more refugees, but reducing it would be a wise goal. Obviously there are very small exceptions to the very large general rule, like if your whole island submerges or whatever.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  I would say that Bangladesh is a large exception. Population ~160 million. Most of the countries is ~10m above sea level.

ps4fanboy 11y ago

Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/sources-overview.png http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a dent in 58% of this pie. There are people who simultaneous worry a tremendous amount about global warming who will actively protest against nuclear power. All while an extremely large amount of pollution is being burned all around us. Be reasonable we need a now solution or there wont be a when.

vectorjohn 11y ago
Lots of people keep saying this, but I really don't think it's true. Solar and wind work fine at scale. There is nothing un-scalable about them. What they don't do is work at night, and in that case nuclear is a fine option. Although batteries that can run a house overnight aren't that expensive.
- scottkduncan 11y ago
  Wind works at night. :)
  - deleted 11y ago
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- epistasis 11y ago
  Given nuclear's huge expense, huge lead times, and intense local political opposition, and comparing it to how battery&renewable is getting much cheaper with time, I don't doubt that battery&renewable will be cheaper at scale than nuclear power will be by the time that either could be built out.
  - brc 11y ago
    The expense and lead times and nimby-ism which cripples nuclear are mostly regulatory. If you apply the same constraints to wind generation (which is increasingly happening) it looks even worse than nuclear.

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pfarnsworth 11y ago

There is a 10F difference in temperature between my upstairs and downstairs without any heat turned on. There is a 4F difference in temperature between the front of the house and the back of my house. There are so many factors as to how temperature is calculated, how exactly can we take a temperature today and compare it to values from years ago? I'll buy that satellite imaging will produce values that are useful over large areas, but those only go back 20-30 years. To compare against values before that seems like pseudoscience at best.

MCRed 11y ago
Especially after climate gate where it was revealed that a warming factor was applied to the raw data, forcing a hockey stick....
- alayne 11y ago
  Please don't spread this nonsense. "Climate gate" was a nonevent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_c...
vectorjohn 11y ago
Do you think people have systematically moved the locations of thermometers to warmer places? There's a thing called averages, medians, and other statistics that can remove or put error bars on that kind of uncertainty.
- pfarnsworth 11y ago
  Please don't conflate some sort of political viewpoint to my my strictly scientific criticisms. I didn't say anything except that the idea of comparing data today to many decades ago seems ridiculous when there are so many factors involved with what the temperature is, including location, sun, wind, etc. I'm more interested in accuracy rather than politics or news-grabbing headlines. Regardless, your point doesn't have any validity. There is a systemic difference between the front of my house and the back of my house in terms of temperature. My thermometers are extremely accurate, with 0.5F if I remember correctly. And the average/median would still show a net 4F difference. So no, your point is invalid, there is still a problem with the data due to location.

jupiter90000 11y ago

Is anyone aware if there is reliable data prior to say 1880? [1] Is there any possibility that large scale climate trends could be outside of the observed window of time available? For instance, some large scale natural state-shifting appears to occur on the order of hundreds of years (reference is about earthquakes, but maybe relevant?) [2]. Based on everything I've heard/read/etc about this, it seems unlikely that humans are not impacting climate, but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts. [1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/ytd/12/1880-2015 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/... [2] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-...

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rayiner 11y ago
> but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts. What motivation does anyone have to predict disaster?
- TearsInTheRain 11y ago
  power? Almost every issue has at least one of the parties predicting disaster
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Distract people from real issues and extract taxes, is usually how people use disaster predictions.
  - moultano 11y ago
    The people making these predictions do not have the power to extract taxes. The people who do have the power to extract taxes (Congress) are ignoring the predictions.

jokoon 11y ago

I wonder if there is a planned study of the melting of the permafrost, since I've seen on Cosmos that it will be one of the "irreversible" side effects of global warming.

monochromatic 11y ago

> "But this record, we literally smashed. It was over a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit, and that’s a lot for the global temperature.” We literally smashed it Thomas? Literally? The record is broken into pieces and scattered around the literal floor?

drinchev 11y ago

My home country is suffering enormous climate anomalies, that are becoming usual for the population. We have big floods, forest fires, enormous heat waves and huge snow storms. This is so obvious that people are having hard time to talk about it. First years this happened it was "just a nature glitch", but recently it is becoming more and more "climate has changed".

sago 11y ago

So next year, when there's a modest decrease in global temperature (as per regression to the mean, even if the mean is monotonically increasing), the climate skeptics will be out in force with their 'I told you so - it goes up and down'. Such a huge record seems like good news for climate change deniers, just deferred.

ekianjo 11y ago
Well the US government is at fault here to make such a big deal out of data from a single year. That really tells you there is more politics at play here than Science.
Brakenshire 11y ago
That's what happens when you combine people who have fixed ideas, with noisy data. As you say, once this spike subsides (pushed higher by El Nino), we'll probably have another 5-10 years of people talking about the next global warming pause. Meanwhile the baseline carries on creeping up.
mikeash 11y ago
Maybe 2015 was the regressing to the (increasing) mean after slower increases before, rather than 2015 being an unusual spike. Certainly what you describe seems to have happened after the record hot year of 1998, though. It sure would be nice if we could all stop trying to play silly "gotcha" games and get on with the serious business of figuring out 1) what's happening and 2) what to do about it.

tahssa 11y ago

My 3 wishes.... 1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains. 3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true. ;)

flubert 11y ago
>Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. Anyone know how practical it might be to have a "progressive" carbon tax, similar in nature to a progressive income tax? I can't think of a good way to measure individual carbon-dioxide generation offhand, but that doesn't mean that there isn't. Maybe in a piecemeal fashion? Bringing back carbon based Luxury taxes on airline tickets, with a $100 tax on the first transoceanic flight, $200 for the second, $400 for the third, etc.?
- prawn 11y ago
  Would piecemeal through household/business energy bills and fuel costs cover the bulk of it? I'd guess transport, home heating/cooling, etc to be a significant portion?
rodgerd 11y ago
> 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some more with commuter trains. I hope you don't mind not making it to hospital in a medical emergency.
- tahssa 11y ago
  Where there's the will there's a way. If you can't bring me to the hospital then bring the hospital to me. We would just need many more doctors and better/bigger electric drones. Amazon can figure it out - I'm sure of it.

Laaw 11y ago

2015 was a strong el nino, I dunno if it's gonna tell us much about global warming... It's actually alarming to me that this post is being given any traction on here, when I know everyone here is smarter than to attribute one year to global warming. How many times have we mocked Fox News for saying shit like, "It was -10F outside today, so much for global warming!" Climate change is clearly a big deal, and one of (if not the) biggest threats to every nation's national security, but it's not the cause of a warm 2015. Sorry folks, it just isn't.

joenathan 11y ago
You talk about how smart everyone here is but you offer no data for your assertion. You mention the el nino being the cause but some might argue that climate change lead to a a bigger el nino. You have evidence showing that there is no link?
- Laaw 11y ago
  What kind of data do you want to see that something isn't causing something else? That's a pretty insane thing to ask for, if you know about falsifiability. Usually this works by me saying "there's no known link between a single year's temperature and overall global warming", which is a falsifiable statement, and then you/anyone else can go ahead and provide any evidence that what I said is false. If you can prove that a single year's temperature variance is primarily explained by global climate change, now would be the time to do it.

citrin_ru 11y ago

I'm recently come to US and currently live in (rented) apartments where gas stove with pilot light is used. 24x7 small fire inside stove turns gas into heat and CO2 with water. I was very surprised - it is waste of energy. I never seen pilot light before (in other countries).

oldmanjay 11y ago
I would be amazed to find out that a) this only exists in America and b) it is significant Edit: it is significant, although the citations are impossible to follow. I am amazed. But I see nothing that indicates it unique to the US.
- green7ea 11y ago
  I can confirm that they also exist in Canada but that they are rare.

sebringj 11y ago

I usually question conventional wisdom and was stuck on the part of co2 being the root cause of recent global warming based on the co2 lag but this helped me clear it up a bit -> http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-interme...

galactical 11y ago

What's a good book for someone who wants to know more about climate change? I recently bought the most scientific, written by scientists book I could find on Amazon, and the gist of the book is that any amount of warming that is happening is due to geologic cycles and not human activity. The consensus here seems to be that it is due to human activity, so if that's the case can you point me to a good explanation of what's happening? I'm not biased either way, I just want to know the truth according to science, which seems to be really hard to find for some reason.

lutorm 11y ago
Not hard at all. Assuming you have the required stamina, just look at the IPCC Working Group I's reports, like http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-2013-Contribution-Intergovernmental/dp/110766182X http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-2013-Contribution-Inter.... From there, you can find thousands of references if you really want to track things down.
drewrv 11y ago
I'm curious what book you read because it sounds like it does not agree with what almost all scientists believe. Perhaps you should start with The IPCC Reports.
- galactical 11y ago
  This was the book, chosen because it looked like the most objective one available: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986398306 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986398306
  - drewrv 11y ago
    This book seems explicitly one sided to me, it says right in the blurb: > The authors of Climate Change: The Facts number some of the most prominent dissenters from Big Climate alarmism
    - galactical 11y ago

karmawitch 11y ago

is it just me or is it quite rare to see such a low level of discussion on HN?

orf 11y ago
Agreed, and such a level of ignorance as well. This doesn't bode well for the future.
nikdaheratik 11y ago
I think it depends on what kind of article you're looking at. It's related to a political issue early in the U.S. election year, so there's alot of noise from people who don't usually comment. Only 10.5 months until the nonsense goes away for awhile.
- midwest1 11y ago
  Is this a typical thing on HN in election years? This is where I come to escape, dammit! :) I would give a finger to have an entire forum of people from various technical backgrounds who could have intelligent conversations about various topics without the bumbling interference of the devoted true believers of whatever creed.

codecamper 11y ago

What if all these guesses & models are WAY OFF?? What happens when the average temperature change is 10C, not 2C? A family member works at Nasa & he says that their model is written in Fortran. And those models do not really take into account feedback loops. (like Siberia thaws & releases giga giga tons of methane.. Greenland disintegrates instead of melting slowly)

567945679 11y ago

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/21/failed-math-in-1997-noaa-claimed-that-the-earth-was-5-63-degrees-warmer-than-today/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/21/failed-math-in-1997-no...