The NASA GISS data for surface temperatures of the planet Earth are in for February, and February was warm. The anomaly value was 79, which means 0.79 degrees C above a the baseline NASA uses (1951-1980). So, while it looks like the planet has warmed by a about 8 tenths of a degree, since warming started well before 1880, it is really more like a whole degree or more. Depending on what you know and don’t know about how climate works, that may seem like a lot or a little. Trust me, it is a lot.
Most interestingly, the last 12 months were the warmest 12 months in the NSAS GISS database (you’ll remember that 2014 was the warmest year in that database as well as other). This continues an upward trend of temperatures that we expect with global warming.
February 2015 was the seventh warmest month in the entire GISS record, which goes back to 1880. All of the warmest months have been recent. February 2015 was the second warmest February in that record.
We are not going to know about March officially for another month (obviously!), but indications are that March has been warm and will continue to be warm, so I don’t see this trend turning around.
If you want a higher resolution version of this graphic, click here, then click through to the original file.
Here is a version of the above graph without the trendline:
Again, go HERE to get a higher resolution version (Scienceblogs is very efficient at scaling down graphics!).
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Which might partially explain why Ted Cruz doesn’t want NASA to do this kind of research anymore. http://www.salon.com/2015/03/12/ted_cruz_to_nasa_stop_focusing_so_much_on_climate_change_and_go_explore_space/
‘Partially” explain? I suppose the fact that Cruz is a moron would supply the rest of the explanation.
So warm the March Hares have come ot early.
vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/03/it-depends-on-whose-bunny-is-boiled.html
NASA might do well to take Ted Cruz up on his demands and send the senator on a mission to explore the surface of the sun. I’m sure Cruz would be flattered and accept…
Apparently, the real old line Reaganites don’t agree with the climate deniers. See WaPo today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-reagan-model-on-climate-change/2015/03/13/4f4182e2-c6a8-11e4-b2a1-bed1aaea2816_story.html?hpid=z3
I was as shocked as you all, no doubt, are.
Bob, not too much of a shock if you realize that around the time of the Reagan administration, a malevolent element crept into the GOP and hijacked the party to its own self-serving ends, took over, ousted the old-timey moderates, and took the name “Republican Party” in order to secure the support of the existing base. (Hoodwinking them wasn’t too hard: Just appeal to insecurities and prejudices with scare tactics and offer the needed salve/salvation…)
So of course they didn’t agree with the climate deniers: The deniers belong to that malevolent element that ousted them from power & from the party, and they’re the group that run it today. Kinda funny that it was an even further-right splinter group that caught on and is giving them grief now.
I’m sure there are a lot of “real Republicans” still out there who wish these RINOs could be ousted in favor of the traditional pro-American, co-operative, moderate sorts who used to run the party. Those types respect science; today’s imposters started a war on science. The deniers are their infantrymen…
Global warming will end with everything combustible bursting into flame.
The burning of the sun is primarily fed by oxygen. Fusion is a secondary result of heat. No oxygen and the hydrogen accelerated fusion fire of the sun starves, and once the temp drops below a certain level, the fusion process can,t maintain it,s momentum and reverses. The sun gets it,s fuel, oxygen, mainly from the only source for it in the near solar system….the earth.
The magnetic field and gravitational pull of the sun strips oxygen from our atmosphere and uses it to regenerate. The balance-upsetting vast amounts of CO2 we are producing lowers the available oxygen, and the sun starves slowly, eventually becoming a red giant. That,s the normal death process of a star. As the sun cools, it expands, and eventually the swelling circumference gets so close to the earths surface that everything combustible on the surface just bursts into flame.
This is what the oil companies are leading us towards. So keep denying away, you blinkard Phillistines, you will end up living 1000 ft down in a diamond mine and eating worms and mushrooms.
.
This February’s Co2 level was already over 400 ppm too – good site for tracking that monthly (& more) here :
http://co2now.org/
Telling graph and good article here.
Which year had the warmest out of curiosity?
@9. Dano Bivins :
Um, are you doing a Poe or honestly seriously confused there?
No. That’s just wrong. Our daytime star (our Sun) fuses hydrogen into helium at its core without any need for oxygen. Its a nuclear not chemical reaction. The material is fusing because its being crushed together under intense pressure from gravity and heat and the fusion chain reaction of colliding hydrogen nuclei. Oxygen isn’t even a catalyst here and isn’t required.
No. The solar wind would expel oxygen particles away from our Sun and there are plenty of closer sources for our Sun to get oxygen if it needed it -which it doesn’t – namely sun-grazing comets, asteroids and even the ice reserves in shadowed craters at the poles of Mercury!
No it doesn’t and wherever did you get that idea from?
Well, that part is actually correct – as our sun runs low n core hydrogen it will indeed balloon out into a red giant star – in about 5 million years time. Our sun is gradually getting hotter as it ages and it will swell out into a sub-giant then an orange giant making our planet uninhabitable much earlier – perhaps only another billion and a half years even – Earth will end up like a second Venus in aeons naturally. (No need for us to speed that process up!)
Eventually in its red giant stage it is most likely that our planets entire surface will be melted into an ocean of lava and our world may well be completely consumed and destroyed when our Sun reaches its greatest size and becomes a Mira type red giant variable star.
This has no connection with the Earths atmosphere and what we are doing to it though. (What we are doing to it is bad but for our planet’s biosphere and climate reasons not from any astrophysical perspective.)
There’s not many worms down a diamond mine! They are generally restricted to the upper soil layers full of nutrients to decompose and consume. Not sure about growing fungi down there either – but I do agree the oil companies and fossil fuel companies and Climate Change deniers aren’t taking us anywhere good.
So, Dano Bivins, if you were being satirical , well ya got me. If not, oh man, do you ever need to do some more research and learn a bit more about a few topics before commenting on this further!
“Our Sun’s brightness is gradually increasing by about 10 % every billion years. ”
– McNab, David & Younger, James, ‘The Planets’, BBC Worldwide,1999. & “The Planets” final episode – ‘Destiny” , BBC TV, screened circa 1995-2005. (?)
Note that this is ongoing over a far longer and more gradual timescale than the current geologically super-rapid increase in Global temperatures and shifting climates caused by our Human-Induced Global Overheating.
See also :
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html
In addition to :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#The_Sun_and_planetary_environments
Plus on youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35EooK-vFs
Lots of questions still over Earth’s exact fate and there have even been suggested we can move it using repeated asteroid passes and such like but ultimately our Sun is doomed. But after billions of years so not something we need worry about now.
Surface data? Really? Global Cooling Deniers are so much fun to observe.
Ain,t it silly Mark? I haven,t been to the surface in a Polar Bears age. Who cares?
The temperature must be coping with climate change and environment find its way to adapt to the conditions. u13127846
Global warming refer to the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth’s climate system and its related effects. It has been a number one problem around the world. This problem is forcing our animals to change their ways of living. As the time is passing, more and more animals are suffering form the effects of global warming. We are concerned that the more intense heat waves, heavier precipitations and floods will destroy our planet.u13127846
I think our planet in time will be able to withstand harsh conditions caused by global warming.the biodiversity may decrease in the process but Animals and Plants will make adjustment which will make them adapt to the changing environment
This was an interesting read and it is important that measures are taken to reduce the defistating effects of global warming.
As it said ”
Global warming refer to the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth’s climate system and its related effects. It has been a number one problem around the world. This problem is forcing our animals to change their ways of living. As the time is passing, more and more animals are suffering form the effects of global warming. We are concerned that the more intense heat waves, heavier precipitations and floods will destroy our planet”.u13127846
I think our planet in time will be able to withstand harsh conditions caused by global warming.the biodiversity may decrease in the process but Animals and Plants will make adjustment which will make them adapt to the changing environment although its not easy.
Global warming will never be good to us human beings.