The American Meterological Society, in its 26th peer-reviewed state of the climate report, says Earth has shattered records that indicate global warming is happening now. Records for the temperature of the air and the upper ocean, sea levels, and extreme weather have all been shattered in 2015 according to a team of international climate scientists led by NOAA.
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| credit: UK Guardian |
Last year's average surface temperature exceeded the 2014 record by 0.1℃. The UN has already predicted 2016 will be even hotter with an intense El Niño event underway. The oceans absorb 90% of atmospheric CO₂, but the oceans are also warming up and the expanding seawater has elevated sea levels to new highs. The Arctic Ocean hit a
crazy 8℃ above average temperature in August. Oceans are rising 3.3mm per year with the greatest increases seen in the western Pacific. Elevated sea levels contributed to the recorded extinction of an Australian rat when its Barrier Reef island home was inundated by seawater
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The atmosphere hit the landmark 400ppm level of carbon dioxide in 2015 at the Mauna Loa research station in Hawaii. The number of extreme weather events are also rising. A severe heat wave in June 2015 killed over a thousand people in Karachi, Pakistan, and drought in Ethiopia caused threatening food shortages. Intense bush fires in Indonesia filled the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases and particulates.
An algae bloom on the eastern coast of the US harmed wildlife and fisheries.
Ellicott City, MD was nearly wiped out by a 1000 year flood event this year. Greenland's annual ice cap melt started two weeks earlier; the cap is now melting over 50% of its surface adding to sea level elevation. These symptoms of Earth's fever are too numerous to mention here, and the prognosis is clearly negative. This conclusion is especially cogent when one considers 63% of 'Mericans are represented in Congress by
182 persons who are climate change deniers. Climate change denial is now the moral equivalent of denying the Holocaust.
The atmosphere hit the landmark 400ppm level of carbon dioxide in 2015 at the Mauna Loa research station in Hawaii. The number of extreme weather events are also rising. A severe heat wave in June 2015 killed over a thousand people in Karachi, Pakistan, and drought in Ethiopia caused threatening food shortages. Intense bush fires in Indonesia filled the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases and particulates. An algae bloom on the eastern coast of the US harmed wildlife and fisheries. Ellicott City, MD was nearly wiped out by a 1000 year flood event this year. Greenland's annual ice cap melt started two weeks earlier; the cap is now melting over 50% of its surface adding to sea level elevation. These symptoms of Earth's fever are too numerous to mention here, and the prognosis is clearly negative. This conclusion is especially cogent when one considers 63% of 'Mericans are represented in Congress by 182 persons who are climate change deniers. Climate change denial is now the moral equivalent of denying the Holocaust.