For those who want to know if it’s any hotter than it used to be…
• According to NOAA, 2011 ranked as tied for 11th warmest on record (since 1880), and the warmest La Nina year on record (since 1950). Of the 3 warmest years on record, 2 (1998 and 2010) were El Nino years. 1998 was a strong El Nino. (The third year was 2005.)
The sun is cooler than average right now.
• According to NOAA, Arctic ice extent was the 2nd smallest on record, and ice volume was smallest on record.
Also see for more on major droughts and floods in 2011.
• More on this from Jeff Master’s blog—La Nina can cool Earth 0.2°C compared to El Nino Southern Oscillation neutral, and El Nino can warm Earth 0.2°C. And last year, the Arctic had its warmest year on record.
• Texas drought had especially warm nights, the fingerprint of climate change caused by climate change.
For current drought information, see the drought monitor. It includes archived drought information, such as this for October 7:
October 7 drought map—88% of TX drought considered exceptional.
Your fears may soon be over, only to be replaced by something potentially worse. How cold does it have to get before we can’t grow enough food to feed the world? I don’t know, but such temperatures can and has happened. Coastal cities wouldn’t be flooded, just filled with starving people.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming–Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html
The Daily Mail misunderstood or just misstated what the Met said. I know, the Daily Mail specializes in science; it’s a shock whenever they make such a mistake!!!
Could be. My position is that climate change makes little difference to me in terms of how I live my life. I started recycling in the 1970s. Almost all the cars I’ve owned, and will own, are economy cars. I first bought the new fluorescent bulbs years ago to simply save money. (About the same time my “progressive’ sister and her husband built and fancy new house and intentionally avoided having any fluorescent bulbs. Now they’re global warming alarmists.)
Two things I believe in are not wasting money, hence the bulbs, cars, etc. The other is not polluting the planet, hence there’s nothing much I can do differently except embrace whatever improved methods and technologies to that end that come along.
I have some skepticism about man made global warming. Having studied geology, I’m quite aware that the temperature and climate of the Earth has flucuated wildly over time. But, there are obvious dangers from pollution and over-population that can’t be ignored.
Could be? There isn’t a question re scientific consensus! Too often people look at the solutions, from individual behavior change to policy change, and then decide whether they accept the problem as valid.
That the temperature of Earth has fluctuated in the past really doesn’t apply, any more than the existence of death from natural causes tells us whether a murder has just occurred.