
February breaks global temperature records by 'shocking' amount - anon1385
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/14/february-breaks-global-temperature-records-by-shocking-amount
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mathgenius
More here at John Baez's blog:

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/global-
tempe...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/global-temperature-
spike/)

~~~
mkesper
From that blog:

Keep in mind that it took from the dawn of the industrial age until last
October to reach the first 1.0 degree Celsius, and we’ve come as much as an
extra 0.4 degrees further in just the last five months.

As of Thursday morning, it appears that average temperatures across the
Northern Hemisphere have breached the 2 degrees Celsius above “normal” mark
for the first time in recorded history, and likely the first time since human
civilization began thousands of years ago.

~~~
barney54
We are in the middle of a powerful El Niño. Let's see where global
temperatures are in 6 months when El Niño fades.

~~~
hackuser
El Ninos have been occurring for (thousands? millions? billions?) of years,
yet nothing like February ever happened before.

~~~
writtles
I didn't realize the scope of our data went back that far!

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anc84
Climate change scares me so much yet I feel completely helpless that I rather
hear nothing about it. The effects have been known for years but those in
power completely ignore or even sabotage attempts to act. What's the point in
hearing about it if there is practically nothing I can do but worry?

~~~
madaxe_again
The really sad thing is that when those forces critical to resolving this
(governments, corporate interests, the majority of the global public) finally
come around to the idea that climate change exists, they won't be interested
in solving it - they'll blame their neighbours, refuse to change themselves,
and will go to war.

Our extinction _is_ coming, and the only tragedy is all the other life we'll
take with us.

We're just not that great, and our behaviour is "primate basic" to the
extreme.

Children playing with matches.

~~~
derrickdirge
Are other people made very uncomfortable by people like this looking down
their nose at the entire species? I'm just not sure what these levels of
defeatism and misanthropy get you.

~~~
madaxe_again
It's not a question of looking down one's nose, rather that understanding that
there are some really fundamental aspects of our own behaviour that are so
deeply rooted we are practically blind to them that we _must_ overcome if
we're to adapt and survive.

We are violently tribal. We are biased to short term reward over long term
gain. Crack those two and you're well on the road to panacea.

If we don't overcome them, we don't adapt, we don't survive. The universe is
pretty big - something out there will hopefully make it through the great
filter, if not us.

Sure, from a selfish and anthropocentric point of view I want us to survive
and prosper, but the reality is that we may not. We're not infinite and
indefatigable.

Right now, we are on the path to certain doom. This can change, but whether it
will in time is down to getting pretty much all humans everywhere to pull
together.

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Nutmog
When we would occasionally get an extra cold day or cold winter, climate
change deniers would say "where's the global warming if it's so cold?" and the
response would be "you have to average it over decades, not just cherry pick
the anomolies." Here they're cherry picking an anomaly. Any actual dramatic
change will gradually become more and more certain as it sustains itself over
months, years and decades. We won't just suddenly notice it oneday.

~~~
yread
According to [http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/03/0210...](http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/03/02101202/UAH2-16-638x357.jpg) we haven't had a month
with temperature below baseline since 2012/2

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fsloth
Could some climatologist say does this imply something specific based on
existing models and simulations or does it mean we are in an unknown
territory?

~~~
anon1385
I'm not a climatologist but I don't think it puts us in unknown territory. You
have to consider what the known influences on the system (e.g. volcanic
eruptions, solar variation) have been doing and what the known internal cycles
(e.g. el nino) have been doing

When you do that then you find Feb was well above the long term trend line,
but not by a staggering amount (i.e. it's similar to things we have seen
before): [https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/surprise-but-not-
sho...](https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/surprise-but-not-shock/)

It does confirm that there was never any 'pause', it was just natural short
term cycles (la nina) masking the long term trend. We will likely be above
trend for a bit due to el nino, as happened in 1997/1998\. Longer term it will
average out. (Average out to a steady increase in temperature that is).

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basicplus2
[https://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/dukes-dr-brown-
bel...](https://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/dukes-dr-brown-believes-
temperature-records-are-being-deliberately-tampered-to-support-man-made-
global-warming-theory/#more-7624)

Have a read and have a look at the graph here and compare and contrast...

~~~
Oletros
For sure, a really unbiased site

~~~
basicplus2
try reading what is written, examine what is presented, research who says
what, examine the evidence and draw your own conclusions, it will help in all
areas if your life

~~~
Oletros
I have read what is written but sorry, WUWT and Robert Brown are not exactly
examples of honest reporting.

And, to be sincere, the site the link pertains to is just another denier site
and not even a very smart one

------
geraldoramos
We are trying to do something here. If at least we find a more efficient way
to distribute climate change real facts, we can accelerate the time that
emerging science discoveries takes to break resistance. Here is our first
attempt: [http://warming.world](http://warming.world)

------
ekianjo
> The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C
> warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period
> of 1951-1980.

Since when do we make conclusions based on outliers? We need to see something
like a 5 years trend before we can confirm if the Feb temperature is really
unusual or part of a real increasing trend.

The guardian should know better.

~~~
mathgenius
Well I guess we would want to know the standard deviation of these numbers
(for each month), and therefore work out how often we would expect to see such
a 1.35C difference from the mean in febuary. Is it 1 in 100 years? or 1 in
100000? or what?

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, and the problem is that our database for reliable temperature
measurements is counted in decades and not even hundred of years. So hardly
telling.

~~~
mathgenius
A few tens of febuaries is enough to get an estimate of the standard
deviation, no?

And also, don't we have ice core samples going back thousands of years? This
should indicate more about the occurrence of large scale variations in
temperature.

I'm not going to argue minutea because I don't have a spare life that I can
devote to climate science. I just assume they are getting it right.

~~~
ekianjo
> A few tens of febuaries is enough to get an estimate of the standard
> deviation, no?

Yes, but even if this point is a significant outlier, there is no telling that
it's not random variation (p-values only talk about probabilities, they never
prove anything not imply causal relationships) and on top of that you don't
have a model to predict the future. Forecasts out of existing data
values/limits are usually extremely unreliable.

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falcolas
In Montana, US, it really was a shocking amount. Averages in the 40's and 50's
(Fahrenheit), where we should be in the 20's and 30's. No new snowpack to
speak of.

It's fair to say forest fires this year are going to be pretty bad. I'm
personally not looking forward to another August where we can't see the sun
for the smoke.

------
douche
How does this stack up against other periods when the earth was considerably
warmer than the Little Ice Age period that we are moving out of now? Have we
gone beyond the levels of the Medieval Warm Period, or say the Jurassic
period?

~~~
stillsut
Roughly equal to Medieval Warm Period in terms of global mean temperature.
Areas the size of Europe (~3% of the total area) might show significant
differences between then and now in average yearly temperature, with the
global average being equal.

The most important comparison to compare Earth's current temperature to is
called the 'Holocene Optimium' which is the current high point (10kya) in the
glacial/inter-glacial cycle. It's thought to have been 0.5C-2.0C warmer than
today.

------
danieltillett
An observation from down under - we are currently stuck in the endless summer.
It has just gone on and on and shows no sign of cooling off.

------
skylan_q
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD (again)

------
rogersmith
"The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C
warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period of
1951-1980."

Earth having been around for millions of years, how statistically significant
is a 29 years period in the grand scheme of things?

~~~
DropbearRob
For me the biggest question is why is that period of time considered the
"baseline". The climate is a dynamic system in constant change. There has
never been a static period of climate. It is forever in flux. Climate Change
is the normal state of climate. The REAL question is, how much of the observed
rate of change is attributable to human factors, and what is the most
effective way to combat the emergence of a potentially hazardous climate
scenario.

I am personally in the camp of plant more trees. It is a fact that sunlight
falling onto a plant causes the energy to be converted into cellular
metabolism and sequestering CO2. A desert however will absorb and then re-
radiate a lot of that heat. We need to stop deforestation and take advantage
of the higher c02 levels to grow more plants. Hell lets start some geo-
engineering projects which will be useful for when we need to terraform other
planets.

~~~
ekianjo
> We need to stop deforestation

That may be one way to address it, but there's a lot to be done to have any
effect there. Most of the places where massive deforestation is happening is
where the most corrupt officials are.

~~~
DropbearRob
I agree 100% that there is a lot more to be done than simply reducing
deforestation, however it is a simple action to be taken. The growth of just
trees/plants is only one method of sequestration, all the insect and animal
growth are also CO2 and energy sinks.

There are many things that we can do to attempt to tackle the issue of a
developing hostile climate. however trading carbon credits is not one. We need
simple engineering solutions, but biological CO2 sequestration is quite
efficient. especially algaes, plankton, grasses, insects, etc.

