Note also the most reliable data on this is probably from the Argo floats, there are about 4000 of them deployed globally (collected data besides SST, such as mixed-layer depth, salinity etc.), since 2000:
There are detailed contemporary human observations dating back a couple of centuries, on both land (at specific locations) and sea (mostly via ships logs). These can provide extensive direct measurement and are useful in calibrating other sources.
Remote satellite sensing of course dates back only to the late 1950s, and for the most part useful measurements to the 1970s and 80s. These are useful in being global and detailed, but of course offer limited timespans.
Proxy measures from an incredible array of biological and geological factors and indicators can provide strong indicia of extant conditions ranging from 100s to 1,000s to 1,000,000s of years. Among some that I'm aware of are isotope ratios in trapped gasses (found in ice cores, ranging back ~800,000 years), mineralisation of seashells and seashell-derived limestones (dating back 100s of millions of years), tree-ring data and pollen deposition in lakes and bogs (both dating back 10s of thousands of years), and again isotopic patterns in geological strata (cruder but ranging back billions of years), as well as signs of glaciation (indicating sub-freezing surface temperatures), of ancient seas, lakes, or rivers (indicating sea levels and precipitation patterns), dust deposition in seafloor strata (drill cores from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge were pivotal in determining periods of desertification and temperate climates in the Sahara / North African region), amongst others.
It's of course tricky to directly compare two different data series, but it's possible, and the narrative which emerges is both generally consistent and points to the critical role of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.
I've wondered whether or not longer term this will have a cooling effect because as the atmosphere clears up, shouldn't clouds become more reflective therefore having a cooling effect?
A whiter cloud not reflect more sunlight back into space?
"The obvious and primary driver of this trend is society’s emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat that the oceans steadily absorb. Another influence has been recent weather, especially stalled high-pressure systems that suppress cloud formation and allow the oceans to bake in the Sun.
But researchers are now waking up to another factor..."
They're saying that these clouds have blunted the impact of CO2 emissions. Most of the CO2 increase (to ~420ppm) above pre-industrial levels (from ~275ppm) has occurred over the past 100 years; about half of it has only been since ~1990 (then ~350ppm).
> "So during the age of sailing ships the oceans were warmer?"
Highly unlikely, because of the many other factors involved, such as a completely different overall climate situation during that time period; A climate not nearly as heavily affected by human actions as the climate of today, to name just one of the most glaringly obvious factors.
Those images would have more impact if they compared them to the average temperature for August over many years, rather then the average temperature over an entire year.
Absolutely point on. NASA should not leave obvious vulnerabilities to attacks by climate change deniers. People should give more thought to how and what data is presented (with a bow to Edward Tufte and Hans Rosling).
They also need to make everything public facing use the Fahrenheit scale. To Americans, 2 degrees doesn’t sound like too much, but 4 (3.6) degrees sounds like a lot more. Essentially zero people in the U.S. even know that 2 degrees C is almost 4 degrees F.
This type of article, from NASA no less, leaves me with a mixture of negative emotions.
Fear, anxiety, desperation, helplessness. Guilt.
And ultimately it all boils down to a quiet numbness. Not comfortably numb, to coin a song. But vapidly numb. Unable to process any constructive fix for our kids that doesn't sound utterly silly.
If I’m honest, my concerns are way more selfish - climate change is making my city just way too hot and humid to live in. While I’m certainly concerned about the environment, I’m more concerned about my ability to live comfortably for the 3-4 months of increasingly stretched out summers.
the article seemed rather reserved, flat, and emotionless to me. perhaps this feeling is just your reaction to the situation
organizations attempting to implement solutions or achieve progress on this issue are portrayed as irrational and occasionally prosecuted as domestic terrorists, so it makes sense that anyone might feel numb and stupid when thinking about the available options.
Sometimes it's the flat, nonemotional, and direct accounts which have the strongest impact as one comes to realise just what it is that they're saying.
Read through, say, an official air crash report or industrial accident investigation, and slowly realise that what you're reading is an account of how some dozens of souls ended their existence. Often with a chain of events such that once the process had begun, the fate was inevitable, though it might have played out over many minutes or hours, possibly even longer.
In some ways it's an ultimate example of "show, don't tell".
If the next few summers get even more extreme, we'll probably have to start geoengineering before the end of the decade (starting with spraying saltwater into the atmosphere), consequences be damned.
As ocean surface temperatures increase the atmospheric water vapor over the oceans increases as well. Water vapor is itself a infrared-absorbing gas so this drives additional warming, but this effect is included in climate models and projections of long-term CO2 effects (and has been experimentally tested, e.g. the Pinatubo explosion threw enough dust into the atmosphere in the early 1990s to cool the ocean surface and there was a subsequent drying of the atmosphere that lasted ~7 years).
The main effect on human and economic activity is that increased water vapor means more extreme weather events, as warm wet air holds more energy that can be violently released if a warm wet system runs into a cold dry polar system, so we can expect more major flooding events as these trends steadily continue. Clear-air water vapor also contributes to major heat waves during the summer, so those should continue as well, along with dry conditions in some regions leading to high fire risk. For individuals, this means living in wildfire zones, flood zones etc. has a high risk factor (which is also why insurance companies are fleeing those markets right now).
Practically the rational governmental response would be to put more funds into robust infrastructure (high temps mean high AC demand so more strain on the grid), more funds into emergency response for fires and floods and heat waves, and of course take major actions to eliminate fossil fuels from the energy mix as soon as possible... which is going to be a few decades at best, so adapting to these new conditions is pretty critical.
Ideally? Mobilize like WW2 to decarbonize the economy. Quadruple the cost of fossil fuel via taxes and then use those funds to help the lower 60% or so survive by giving money direct to consumers for food, heating, etc. The markets will rapidly adapt as most tech is there, we just misallocate the hand of government spending.
Realistically since what I proposed above is non-viable? Increase the cost of producing fossil fuels through more direct means, of which discussion is banned on most of the public internet.
"Quadruple the cost of fossil fuel via taxes" - It's not what people want to hear, but this type of taxation will have no practical impact on the fossil fuel use of the world. Any fossil fuels produced and not consumed by the west where those tax regimes exist, will be consumed by the developing world. The overall world use of fossil fuels will continue to increase.
Nuclear does have a hope in changing this dynamic. But even then, fossil fuels have powerful advantages that won't be easily overcome any time in the next 10-15 years, at least.
Taxation to reflect the true cost of fossil fuels can (rather should) be redirected towards mega scale (ie matching the scale of oil extraction industry) actual atmospheric carbon capture, both industrial plant based (to create fuels used to reduce deep extraction fuels) and organic plant based (as plants are pretty damn good at pulling down C02) for sequestration.
The goal is to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere by whatever means work.
Does not work in a globalised world as the emissions just move to wherever they are not taxed. Now, you could then tax imports but that’s your own populous paying that tax - and you no longer have free trade. Your exports will be uncompetitive due to the tax you levied on their production and any still-polluting trading partners you slapped tariffs on will respond in kind. End result is wholesale destruction of large segments of the economy (reducing your tax receipts which were supposed to support people) and famine in the developing world.
I've seen the fuel or carbon tax pitched with a program where wealthy states directly subsidize the growth of non-carbon-emitting processes (or a low amortized rate, for instance for the concrete and mining and processing of nuclear fuel)—the non-wealthy states can continue to grow at a similar pace while not sacrificing leverage over the wealthy ones. There are many reasons this likely won't happen, but there certainly are solutions for those searching for them.
You don't have to do that explicitly. Tax all products by carbon emissions. Tariff all nations that do not participate in such a program.
You don't have to tax beef explicitly when you tax carbon because beef is carbon intensive and so the tax is implicit.
The problem is that carbon pricing is a political 3rd rail and also has no moat, so it's trivially easy for the a conservative government to pander and throw it out.
It seems impossible at times... creating more green energy just reduces the demand for fossil fuels, making them cheaper for other people to use. Reducing one's impact makes space for more people...basically, more efficiency in one place is immediately counteracted by people using MORE resources.
The only solution would be for humanity to collectively agree to make fossil fuels incredibly expensive GLOBALLY...in some way or another. Whether that's through collective action or something else, I guess time will tell.
That is not really a solution in itself though. As soon as it becomes cheaper, fossil fuel prices will drop due to a drop in demand for them, especially in developing countries. Moreover, more clean energy might mitigate the CO2 problem somewhat but it does not necessarily mitigate our expansion into natural habitats, an expansion that destroys them.
It is simple-minded to think that a single technological breakthrough will suddenly make the problem of climate change go away.
A cheaper alternative energy would reduce usage of fossil fuels even if they became cheaper.
I agree that a single technological breakthrough is unlikely to solve climate change. It will require many. I am simply pointing out that it is incorrect to say that the only solution is a global cartel to make fossil fuels much more expensive.
80 years ago vast swaths of the world sent a generation of their young people off to Europe and Asia to die for the sake of political alliances. Killing all those people was extremely expensive.
"Artificially high" by a factor of maybe 3. We need to look at how to get to a factor of 100 or 1000.
Oil is much, much more valuable in the long term as a material commodity, not a fuel commodity. This can be realized if we bring down the price of power, which is happening, albeit in only part of the globe.
Stop ignoring climate science and stop politicising it unnecessarily, then take steps to move to renewable energy and cut down CO2 emissions from all sources. Figure out how to keep oil money out of public discourse.
And do it all 20 years ago. Like everyone was saying at the time.
I’d say I’m disappointed and disgusted at humanity’s collective failure to act in the face of clear evidence. But I had massively low expectations.
The first thing that I thought of when reading the headline was “more cowbell.” [0]
But in reality the answer is “less cowbell” as bovine emissions are a significant greenhouse gas [1] and cattle ranching in Brasil is linked to deforestation. [2]
It isn't. We can't build anything big and complicated without costs spiraling out of control. You're going to have to fundamentally change our management approach in this country to get cheap nuclear.
> Data are currently available from September 1, 1981.
Seems like a short time range to analyze, but I guess most weather data is recent-ish.
[0] https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/optimum-interpolation-sst