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Visualizing the Warmest August in 136 Years
- HillaryBriss 10y agoIt's interesting to see that, starting in roughly 1990, the temperature seems to break away from its previous range. It looks so dire. Temperature increases seem to be accelerating.
- ChristianGeek 10y agoI noticed that too. My question is, why then?
- xigency 10y agoThere's a feedback loop to increasing greenhouse gases and increasing temperature.
- allendoerfer 10y agoFor example trees being burned (at a faster rate than they would die naturally and regrow) resulting in less trees to bind CO2. The opposite is also true: Algae in oceans grow when temperatures rise, binding CO2.
- jlewis7272 10y agoI think the fact that we don't look at our solar system as a whole instead of trying to isolate data to "prove we are doing this" is indicative of politics corrupting science. We need to get back to pure science and forget about trying to force this country or that country to do something, namely force it's citizens to pay a tax that fixes nothing. http://www.space.news/2015-10-06-entire-solar-system-is-heating-up-scientists-blame-solar-warming.html http://www.space.news/2015-10-06-entire-solar-system-is-heat...
- mikeash 10y ago"Many scientists suspect that the solar system has migrated to a region of the galaxy with high energy." Can't tell if satire or hippies.
- user5994461 10y agoIt could be science. The solar system is moving at 230 km/s after all. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year
- mikeash 10y agoIt's not the movement that triggers that, but rather the "with high energy" part. It makes no sense in context, and the hippies I know love to use "energy" in nonsensical ways.
- skrowl 10y agoThe actual answer is that NASA has been cooking the books to make it look like it's accelerating to fit their agenda by editing current stuff UP and older stuff DOWN. http://realclimatescience.com/2016/08/the-history-of-temperature-history/ http://realclimatescience.com/2016/08/the-history-of-tempera... (All links and charts are cited) EDIT - Since climate alarmism is somewhat of a religion now, I anticipated the "OMG CONSPIRACY THEORY!" stuff, which is why I mentioned that all links and charts are cited. They all lead back to nasa.gov or archive.org of nasa.gov, proving NASA is lying using their own data. At least check out the link I provided before you dismiss it. If it's too much for you to believe a crazy conspiracy theory site, here's just a chart of NASA's cooked GIS data vs RSS (more accurate satellite data): http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1997.5/mean:60/offset:0.33/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1997.5/mean:60/plot/rss-land/from:1997.5/mean:60/offset:0.33/trend/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1997.5/mean:60/trend http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1997.5/mean:6... . It's literally just a graph, no crazy conspiracy here.
- hood_syntax 10y agoNice conspiracy theory site.
- Oletros 10y agoThe actual answer is that that page is a joke and full of lies They even still are talking about Obama being Kenyan http://realclimatescience.com/2016/09/who-was-the-first-birther/ http://realclimatescience.com/2016/09/who-was-the-first-birt... Really?
- strommen 10y agoFor anybody who cares - the first iteration of temperature data supporting the 1940-70 cooldown period included only latitudes from 20 to 90 degrees North. When equatorial and southern-hemisphere data become available, it showed the cooling was less than previously thought. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature2.php http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/gi...
- Oletros 10y ago> here's just a chart of NASA's cooked GIS data vs RSS Or how to show that you don't know anything about that And you talk about religion?
- gregschlom 10y agoBecause of the exponential growth of humanity along with cars and CO2 emissions. We're a direct cause of the temperature rises, and exponentially more of us means accelerating growth. See also this xkcd comic for a great visualization of this: xkcd.com/1727/
- 24gttghh 10y agoI think you mean #1732.
- mikeash 10y agoHere's what CO2 emissions look like over the last 50 years or so: http://johannes-friedrich.com/emissions/e-reg.htm http://johannes-friedrich.com/emissions/e-reg.htm There's a pretty big increase since 1990, mostly driven by growth in Asia (which in turn is mostly due to the huge economic growth in China and India, I imagine).
- neom 10y agoRecently I've been talking frequently with folks about my concerns re: climate change. The general feedback is along the lines of: "don't worry, the earth knows how to regulate itself, it will figure itself out, we'll be fine". :(
- 6DM 10y agoDon't forget the "You're just being an alarmist, the earth has been heating and cooling for centuries!"
- philippoi 10y agoDid you see the XKCD infographic on that from just the other day? http://xkcd.com/1732/ http://xkcd.com/1732/
- afarrell 10y agoThe problem is that "it will figure itself out" does not imply "we'll be fine".
- whybroke 10y agoYeah, homo-sapiens will undoubtedly survive but the economy sure as hell won't. And given the inevitable loss of every major city coastal city, the unutterable disruption of agriculture and water supplies with the attendant massive die off, I agree the word 'fine' may be a tad inaccurate.
- godshatter 10y agoSea level is rising so slowly (currently 3.4 += 0.4 mm/yr) that we can absorb the increase for quite a while simply by abandoning coastal property and rezoning as each parcel of land becomes endangered by sea level rise. We're talking less than 7 1/2 inches over 50 years. I suspect something similar will hold true for agriculture. Farmers will plant different crops 50 years from now than they do today.
- celias 10y agohttps://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- minimaxir 10y agoThis blog post is taken from the original NASA source without a link back: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2016/09/12/heres-how-the-warmest-august-in-136-years-looks-in-chart-form/ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2016/09/... See also Reddit discussion of the visualization by the author: https://reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52k3gr/earth_just_had_the_hottest_august_in_136_years/ https://reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52k3gr/earth_j...
- sctb 10y agoThank you, we updated the link from http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5216.html http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5216.html.
- vkou 10y agoFortunately, the world has agreed to do something about this global warming business... By entering a vague international agreement with no clear targets, or enforcement power. If I were a fossil fuel lobbyist, I couldn't have drafted a better agreement then the Paris Accord. There's a collective target, there's every reason for the participants to defect, there's no proscribed steps that signatories must take, and there is no mechanism for censure of defectors.
- jedmeyers 10y agoWho, in your opinion, should wield the enforcement power in such cases? And what would be the mechanisms of said enforcement?
- caio1982 10y agoCommercial treaties are signed all the time to make a few bucks, the same contracts could predict economical penalties for breaking these agreements. Money talks both ways, but it takes a lot of courage and political will to enforce such penalties.
- vkou 10y agoEconomic. The simplest way to enforce carbon reduction is to tax goods that come from high-carbon polluting nations/industries. This is, of course, politically unpalatable.
- caio1982 10y agoWhile I agree with you regarding all the points you made, let's try not to get too cynical with age if we can. I was a kid when Earth Summit happened and we humans managed to stop and slightly reduce the Ozone Hole within a generation time. And it all started pretty much the same, with politics and all: something had to be done, if it was an ultimate silver bullet or not it does not matter because it is all about political momentum, IMHO.
- flatline 10y ago> we humans managed to stop and slightly reduce the Ozone Hole By "we humans" I assume you mean Dow Chemical or whoever the primary inventor of CFC replacements was at the time. Yes, it was a good thing, but there was a relatively easy and uncontroversial fix. What we are talking about here involves people with huge vested interests in fossil fuels - people dependent on them for living and commerce, entire nations solely dependent on them just to function - there are much larger systematic problems at play that must be overcome to reverse the current trend. I'm still mildly optimistic that we can improve the situation, but if the ozone was like steering a rowboat, this is like trying to do a 180 in an aircraft carrier.
- forrestthewoods 10y agoI like how the Y-Axis shows a 2 degree "difference from annual mean" when the trend is very clearly a 1 degree difference for every month.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoThanks for point that out. It even says right before the graph the month also was 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean August temperature from 1951-1980. Why would they do that?
- blondie9x 10y agoMay this planet somehow be saved for us and our posterity if Trump becomes president.
- emodendroket 10y agoPlease, the problem is much bigger than one political figure.
- blondie9x 10y agoYou sure about that? Obama has done much work than most individuals to bring about the first international collective agreement to prevent climate change. Domestically he has gone above and beyond and risking political backlash to avoid partisanship in senate and bring about climate change prevention policy. This can very well be undone by a president who doesn't believe humans can change the planet. A man who will not acknowledge the comprehensive science surrounding greenhouse gases. There is more danger than you realize.
- emodendroket 10y agoHow could he be risking political backlash if one man alone was uniquely threatening?
- SamPhillips 10y agoSome ideas for positive action: "What can a technologist do about climate change?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- 1024core 10y agoDon't tell anyone that in San Francisco. We recorded the coldest August in 74 years: http://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/Fogust-Coldest-August-in-74-years-for-San-9197715.php http://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/Fogust-Coldest-August-...
- bhhaskin 10y agoSame here in Northern Nevada. It snowed in Tahoe already.
- credit_guy 10y agoSilly question here: why are January and December below the average and July-August above? Aren't the two hemispheres equal in size?
- credit_guy 10y agoAnswering my own question, just in case anyone was wondering the same thing. One possible explanation is that the Southern Hemisphere has a lot more ocean area, and oceans have higher thermal inertia, and therefore the average temperature will oscillate less than in the Northern Hemisphere. When combining the two averages that are sinusoids in opposite phase, the one with larger amplitude will dominate, so the overall effect is that the global average looks more similar to the average of the Northern Hemisphere. In other words warmer in July-August and colder in December-January.