Earth Has Its Warmest February Ever - the 9th Record-Setting Month in a Row (axios.com) 91
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:
The Earth just observed its warmest February, setting a monthly record for the ninth time in a row, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Wednesday.
The unrelenting and exceptional global warmth — fueled by a combination of human-caused warming and the El Niño climate pattern — has spanned both land and ocean areas since June. It has scientists worried about the planet crossing a critical climate threshold and prospects for an active Atlantic hurricane season. The month's average global air temperature of 13.5 degrees Celsius (56.3 degrees Fahrenheit) was 0.12 degrees (0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the previous warmest February in 2016.
The warmth of the last 12-month period is unprecedented in modern records, coming in at 1.56 degrees (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial levels... Scientists fear that tipping points, such as those that could lead to catastrophic sea level rises or the collapse of critical ocean circulations, will become more likely to be reached if the Earth's temperature remains near or above that threshold for multiple years.
Axios adds: This is significant, since these 12 months exceeded the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target for a full year. However, the pact is aimed at averting multiple decades above that level, meaning the target hasn't yet been officially breached. Europe was especially warm compared to average during February, along with central and northwest North America, much of South America, Africa and western Australia, Copernicus found.
The Washington Post notes that in the United States, "more than 200 locations in the Midwest and Northeast set records for winter warmth."
They also quote a weather historian who posted on social media that "We are witnessing something extraordinary and unprecedented. Several thousands of records pulverized all over the world in a matter of hours, with margins never seen before."
The unrelenting and exceptional global warmth — fueled by a combination of human-caused warming and the El Niño climate pattern — has spanned both land and ocean areas since June. It has scientists worried about the planet crossing a critical climate threshold and prospects for an active Atlantic hurricane season. The month's average global air temperature of 13.5 degrees Celsius (56.3 degrees Fahrenheit) was 0.12 degrees (0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the previous warmest February in 2016.
The warmth of the last 12-month period is unprecedented in modern records, coming in at 1.56 degrees (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial levels... Scientists fear that tipping points, such as those that could lead to catastrophic sea level rises or the collapse of critical ocean circulations, will become more likely to be reached if the Earth's temperature remains near or above that threshold for multiple years.
Axios adds: This is significant, since these 12 months exceeded the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target for a full year. However, the pact is aimed at averting multiple decades above that level, meaning the target hasn't yet been officially breached. Europe was especially warm compared to average during February, along with central and northwest North America, much of South America, Africa and western Australia, Copernicus found.
The Washington Post notes that in the United States, "more than 200 locations in the Midwest and Northeast set records for winter warmth."
They also quote a weather historian who posted on social media that "We are witnessing something extraordinary and unprecedented. Several thousands of records pulverized all over the world in a matter of hours, with margins never seen before."
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How to tell you are uneducated without telling you are uneducated...
Re:Bleat (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bleat (Score:5, Insightful)
Farmland isn't just about temperature. What matters even more is whether it's arable. That in turn depends on whether the soil is fertile. And that in turn is usually reached by centuries, if not millennia of nature taking its course. You could technically try to enforce it via introduction of fertile soil, which is not exactly cheap and not exactly sustainable.
For reference, see how well it works if they want to cultivate jungle. Takes only a few years before the soil is gone. Because that soil never had time to actually become fertile ground.
Re: Bleat (Score:2)
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Problem is not the soil, water nor temperature. It is the light. Plants need a lot of light and North gets enough of that for only a couple of months per year. You can grow stuff in the North in the winter, it is just very expensive because of the electricity costs.
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You could technically try to enforce it via introduction of fertile soil, which is not exactly cheap and not exactly sustainable.
Don't worry, it will all work out in the end. There will be huge battles fought over this land and the millions of dead bodies will make the soil very fertile in a few hundred years. Yeah, the currently existing humans are fucked, but the soils our bodies will create for future humans will be utterly fantastic. A whole new Garden of Eden.
You just have to evaluate longer term.
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A whole new Garden of Eden.
With a whole of two humans left, I get it?
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Former permafrost is not farmland and cannot be turned into farmland in any reasonable amount of time. How stupid are you?
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Because the tech levels in a century, much less 3, will be unimaginable.
And yet here you are imagining it, magically solving all our problems. You are not the first. I'm still waiting for my flying car but I'll settle for the super-freeways that solve traffic congestion once and for all. But what I think we'll get are self-driving cars that allow us to watch advertising while we're sitting in traffic jams.
Re: Bleat (Score:2)
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You should consider the disastrous extreme weather conditions that will make farming far more expensive as a result of devastating storms and droughts.
The good news is you'll have plenty of migrant workers as migration is going to increase by an order of magnitude of people moving away from the equator. The migrants wont simply be coming here for opportunities, they will be fleeing conflicts and violence that have arisen as a result of farmlands in their own homelands failing. These migrants will be climate
Re: Bleat (Score:2)
Too bad floods wash the topsoil away. But once that's replenished naturally it will be a paradise in a thousand or so years.
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So please explain what's so special about the current warming that it'll be the only warming in Earth's history that'll result in Arrakis-like conditions, instead of the planet becoming a tropical jungle?
You misunderstand, crops need a stable environment with the correct temperature range for the particular crop and suitable weather conditions. These conditions are becoming increasingly unstable which is the problem. An unexpected drought followed by flooding will decrease crop yield or in the worst case totally wipe out a crop. I'm certain this will be an evolutionary pressure and some plants will thrive there but it's not going to be our food crops.
Furthermore, drought and flooding erodes topsoil and the
This is "Earth Shaming" I tell you...! (Score:2)
The earth wants to be hotter as it makes for good news. "Making the solar system great again...!".
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The earth wants to be hotter as it makes for good news.
If you're "good news" isn't about mass extinctions, resource conflicts, and human migration like nothing we've seen before then it's not really the news.
Re:I don't pay attention anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to pay some attention to this stuff like 5-6-7 years ago. I'm done... I do not care anymore. I'm sick of the constant scare tactics and hearing about how every goddamned thing is attributed to climate change. Let it happen at this point, just SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
This article is about the climate actually changing ... and you're mad because that's attributed to climate change?
Re:I don't pay attention anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Some people are just mentally broken, nothing in there that can be reached.
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Probably the same guy [imgur.com].
Re: I don't pay attention anymore (Score:2)
Re: I don't pay attention anymore (Score:2)
Re: I don't pay attention anymore (Score:2)
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For example, a light bulb that produces aesthetically similar light to an incandescent bulb will cost $50. Here they cost 50 cents.
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This article is about the climate actually changing ... and you're mad because that's attributed to climate change?
No. He is mad because he was constantly told this was all his fault and then he proceeded to do everything he could to help and then found out that nothing he did mattered and none of his input had any value as the true America is one of slave owners that wanted to get rid of their obligation to maintain healthy slaves.
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I'm done... I do not care anymore. I'm sick of the constant scare tactics and hearing about how every goddamned thing is attributed to climate change. Let it happen at this point, just SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
Does this mean you onboard with the impending mass migration that climate change will cause? WIll you be be welcoming migrants to their new homeland?
Nah, you're going to cry about "those people" ruining "[your] country" the entire time like the rest of your ilk. You can't have it both ways.
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I'm sick of the constant scare tactics ...
God forbid that actual warnings disrupt your inner peace and tranquility...
Your problem is that you mistook science and predictions based on that science, as hyperbole and scare tactics, when it was just, y'know, science and predictions.
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Contrary to other responses I'm seeing, let me offer you my wholehearted support. It's just fine. This issue is a lot, to say the least. Furthermore, your post says nothing about your politics or your response to immigration and/or climate refugees. Shame on anyone for making bitter political assumptions over a simple request to stop talking about this day-in day-out. Really, guys?
Just so long as you don't run around angrily claiming "hoax," "solar maximum," "carbon is good for life," etc. I assume you are
Re: Waiting for the warm mongers (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Sudbury Ontario in Canada. I normally shovel my driveway regularly between November and April. This year where I live, we had a brief week of snow in November; it melted quickly and we had no snow after that through December until the first week of January. We had maybe 5 snowfalls I needed to shovel and by March 1st we had no snow left on the ground. I've been here 42 years and never had a winter as warm as this one. YMMV of course, but this year I didn't even take out my snowblower.
Re: Waiting for the warm mongers (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays the climate deniers can’t even deny anymore. It’s too damn obvious. So they;ve shifted from “its not happening” to “we cant do anything about it”. Anything to avoid getting up off the couch or paying a penny more in taxes.
I’m not even mad about it anymore. We chose to ignore the science, and now we suffer the consequences. Cause. Effect.
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It’s almost like science predicted this 50 years ago and our species collectively, willfully, proudly ignored the problem.
I'm not sure that we should just let it go at that. There have been plenty of people doing their best to get this noticed. There were a small specific group of people who deliberately spread disinformation and stopped things happening. Perhaps it's time to recognize that and make sure that there are consequences. Not so much out of vindictiveness but with the aim of making the need for further action now clear.
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The good news is billions of cubic feet of natural gas was not burned this winter because of the warmer weather. See there are positives but progressives NEVER mention then. I've never seen a single article on the positives of warming. So you have to wonder what the agenda is??
Maybe they never mention them because they're not stupid enough to think that it's a good thing we've warmed the planet so much we have mild winters. Your "argument" just reminds me of the person who killed both parents and then asked for mercy because they were an orphan.
Aside from deciding that it's only "progressives" that believe in science (actually, that much may be true ... ), no one on the "climate change is real" is hiding their agenda AT ALL. Burn less fossil fuels. Put less carbon into the
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One little problem, Science predicted global cooling 50 years ago.
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No it did not. That is an internet meme.
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Nowadays the climate deniers canâ(TM)t even deny anymore.
Climate "turmoil" is a socially engineered wedge. Everyone has actually noticed the lack of general snowfall over the years. The older we are, the more we have noticed. The social engineering was created to allow the "businesses" free reign for as long as possible despite the consequences.
Most of the pissed off people that you will meet are pissed off that they had no ability to stop or slow any of this. And here you are blaming them for not listening. The social engineering is strong here and you play righ
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I live in the Boston area and we've had mud-season conditions pretty much from December to March. We've had enough snow to shovel maybe once or twice, but that was completely gone in a few days. We've had record *rainfall* between December and March -- something that used to never happen. In Feburary we didn't have a single day where it stayed below freezing, which was another first.
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Snow is not really a good indicator of global warming one way or the other. Remember, we're talking about warming on the order of just +2C. Assuming (as denialists usually do) that that's uniformly distributed across the surface of the Earth and time, that wouldn't turn Winnipeg into Florida. A slight increase in temperature can add water to the atmosphere, and that could lead to an *increase* in snow some places that have a cold and dry baseline.
But of course that uniformity idea is nonsense. The main ph
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Assuming (as denialists usually do) that that's uniformly distributed across the surface of the Earth and time, that wouldn't turn Winnipeg into Florida.
I don't expect it to, and I agree it is not uniformly distributed, though it is accepted the north is warming faster than the rest of the globe. I don't deny it, nor does it keep me awake at night.
But what you should expect when you walk out your front door is a much higher chance of the weather being *weird*.
I already mentioned the weather here is highly variable, as would be expected with a continental climate. I have not found it any weirder than usual.
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When I moved to the house I live in now it was 2010, it was a blizzard, and I shoveled snow that reached my hip.
The winter before this one we did not get snow AT ALL. This winter we got ... a week or so.
I assure you; with my bad back I haven't forgotten about shoveling snow, I simply did not for the past several years because there was no snow to shovel.
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> This winter we got ... a week or so.
what happens if you get record snow next year?
A snowblower, maybe?
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They're coming to gaslight you into forgetting about the snow you shoveled out of your driveway the past three months.
Not at all. Just wait for when the weather gets even more extreme. You'll get floods, droughts, and if your area still gets snow then you're getting EVEN MORE snow.
I hope you're ready to do even more shoveling! ;)
Ever! (Score:2)
Warmest EVER! Ever. Ever.
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Whatever you want to believe.. (Score:1)
Re:Whatever you want to believe.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The deniers will scoff at this as doom mongering, but they should look up temp ranges for various blacktop road surfaces, check the history of heat-driven power outages, and then read up on the response of the human body to various wetbulb temperstures. A body count in the hundreds of thousands or millions is not implausible.
This is probably the magnitude of effect that’s necessary before we take action. Anything less will be largely ignored.
Re: Whatever you want to believe.. (Score:2)
Hey, relax (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, it may be the hottest February so far, but only 'til next February.
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The ten hottest years on record are, literally, the last ten years.
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Who said it's a joke?
Well (Score:2)
This February has 29 days stop scare mongering me! PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!
Worry about food production... (Score:2, Interesting)
Fun times.
I'm sure many others in first world countries have noticed a very slow and subtle reduction in different food products in supermarkets over the last decade or so, as well as price increases that can't just be explained by cost of living after pandemic.
It sometimes feels that we're going back toward seasonal produce, but it's far more worrying that that.
I live in the United Kingdom, where approaching 46% of our food is imported.
A huge amount of this comes from Europe.
Some of the biggest food produc
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Yes! The solution to climate change is to prevent migrants from getting out of the affected areas and holding out in our own less-affected areas as long as possible. Maybe if we can do that long enough, we'll outlast climate change!
FYI, in case you were wondering, this is the epitome of F*** You, I Got Mine.
Sure, eventually it's going to come down to being selfish. But being selfish doesn't fix the problem, it only helps endure it at the cost of others.
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Right you've got that sorted. Now figure out who's goign to pick the crops and slaughter the animals.
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The UK has let-in how many million migrants in the last 40 years? Brits were short on food production then ... even shorter now. In-migration should have been cut to zero , but given lefty do-gooder style politics in influx swelled. Oxbridge swimp-swists pimped it , but they can't pay for it.
So everything in your peanut sized brain comes back to immigrants, does it?
You just lap up the Farage style Daily Mail headlines because they are easy to digest and require zero thought.
It's people like YOU who are ruining the United Kingdom, not the immigrants.
Narrow minded whinging little pricks who can't see beyond the end of their noses.
The UK is currently being held _together_ by immigrants, you insufferable fool!
Who do you think is propping up the NHS staff levels?
Who do you think is doing all the shi
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noticed a very slow and subtle reduction in different food products in supermarkets over the last decade or so
That's due to the vegans crying to management to remove meat-based products from their inventory. Or they'll shop elsewhere. The ones who insist that stores carry "vegan bolognese sauce" because they are too stupid to reach for the marinara.
The good thing about all this: Butcher shops are making a comeback. Because whiny tofu-eaters just don't shop there.
Rich Investors are making sacrifices (Score:2)
Northern Migration (Score:1)
Re:Northern Migration (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate change will put stress on societies. Societies with attributes that help them deal with stress -- ones that are rich, have low levels of corruption, have political stability, have a low GINI coefficient -- will get through it fine. But societies that are vulnerable to destablization will generate refugees in enormous numbers.
If you want to see the template, look at Syria. They had a multi-year drought, which displaced much of the rural population into the cities. There was not jobs in the city for them, so they became dependent on government food aid while the young men were targeted for indoctrination by political/religious radicals. Then there was a crop failure in Ukraine and Russia that led to a spike in global wheat prices, and the whole thing blew up.
If the same events happened to Norway, there would be something they'd probably call a "crisis", but it wouldn't look like Syria.
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You have to grade "doing fine" on a curve. Rich and powerful countries will be able to afford megaproject mitigations, to purchase resources on the international market, or simply to *take* them.
For example, it's entirely feasible for New York City, a region that doesn't grow its own food or manufacture anything, to build a tide gate system in the East River and Hudson to protect Manhattan and it's profitable service economy. In present terms it would be almost inconceivably costly, perhaps thirty to fort
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Washington State is fucked. They're moving North for the climate. And West for the free fentanyl.
Well (Score:2)
The last week in January/first week of February are traditionally the coldest of the year, and it was 40's and fifties during the day, we had one day it dipped to around 12 degrees, then rebounded above freezing - but the rest of that period, it might dip to only 30 for a few hours at night.
Then it started cooking. Upper 60's during several days. We had some pretty strong thunderstorms, and e
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Ok, noted we're fucked (Score:2)
Nope, it did not. Another junk activist claim. (Score:2)
The Earth is BILLIONS of years old. We have accurate temperature readings for SOME of it dating back a hundred years, really spotty measurements from a few areas dating back a thousand years. And only uncalibrated extrapolations from trees, ice, and mud before that. That's a temperature record of perhaps a fifth of a millionth of the age of the Earth - NOT statistically significant.
Additionally, we have archeological evidence of Antarctica and Siberia being green in the distant past, rather than covered in
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Shoul try to be honest to your self first.
Then you can try judging honesty of scientist or jouranlists.
Hints:
Billion years ago, the [planet was a molten rock of magma.
No idea what that has to do with climate, or climate science.
The planet had no atmosphere, and hence no interesting climate.
Antarctica was on a different latitude when it was "green" a little bit south of the equator.
Siberia was green when earth axis was tilted differently.
Again: both has nothing to do with climate, especially not the current
Climate happens in decades not a year (Score:2)
these 12 months exceeded the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target for a full year. However, the pact is aimed at averting multiple decades above that level
This is the most important line in TFS (and TFA). This is a weather report, not climate. I think only climate scientists really understand the scope of what climate is. Everyone else is fretting about daily weather, yearly weather, and stuff that just, AFAIK as a layman, isn't climate. The dust bowl [wikipedia.org] is a thing. Wasn't climate. It was a long catastrophic weather occurrence.
That said, if we don't do something now -- and that means not ruling out mitigation strategies out according to political preferences --