Sunday, November 23, 2014

I've eaten so there's no world hunger

When you mention global warming to ppl, they say, yes but it's cold today, as if global warming means that it will always be hot.  That's as stupid as saying, after you've eaten a big meal, that there's no such thing as world hunger.

The recent abnormally cold spell in the US has led the usual suspects to proclaim that global warming is a furphy.  These two articles explain why that isn't so.

Buffalo's Climate Change Driven Mega Snow & Flood

Growing Evidence That Global Warming Is Driving Crazy Winters.

I would be very happy if global warming wasn't happening.  I could stop worrying about the future of my children and grandchildren, and about the survival of our civilisation.  But it is.

The chart below shows, incontrovertibly, that average global temperatures are rising.  Even if it has been cold in the eastern US in the last week.  It shows the 12 month average temperature to October each year.  Notice how the year 1998 was an obvious statistical outlier.  It was also a strong el nino year.  We are not having an el nino, yet, though Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has just upped its risk of one to 70%.  All the same, even without an el nino, we have  record global temperatures for the last 12 months.  Just how hot will 2015 be if we do have a strong el nino?

The climate change deniers cherry-pick data points (for example, 1998) to show that global temperatures aren't rising.  Or they point to snowfalls outside their windows.  But the evidence, the scientific evidence, is extremely hard to deny.   Unless you are a coal-miner or a demented  right-wing plutocrat.

 (Chart source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/1/10/1880-2014, double click chart to see full size)





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