- Feb 2021
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www.breitbart.com www.breitbart.com
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Even sea-level rise — predicted to be the most damaging impact of global warming — seems to be much less of a problem than thought, according to to the study’s findings.
This is literally the opposite of what a growing body of recent evidence has shown. Research actually showns that rates of global sea level rise have accelerated in recent years (Nerem et al. 2018), and estimates regarding the upper end of plausible further SLR over the coming century have actually increased considerably as the non-linear contribution by continental ice sheets comes into clearer focus (Bamber et al. 2019). So, if anything, sea level rise is becoming more of a problem than previously thought.
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Droughts more frequent and intense — No
Observed spatial trends in global hydroclimate over the past century have been consistent with those expected from human influence in the climate system (Marvel et al. 2019). In many mid-latitude and subtropical regions, this has indeed included an increase in the frequency/intensity of drought (Diffenbaugh et al. 2015; Williams et al. 2020)--but in other regions (such as the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes), this includes an increase in moisture availability and decrease in drought (as expected from climate model simulations). Therefore, it doesn't really make sense to make blanket statements regarding overall global drought trends, since only some places are expected to get drier (and others wetter) in a warming climate.
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Most extreme weather phenomena have not become more extreme, more deadly, or more destructive
There is an extensive and growing body of evidence showing that many kinds of extreme weather have increased in magnitude and/or frequency as the climate has warmed. Evidence is strongest regarding increases in extreme heatwaves and extreme precipitation events (Diffenbaugh et al. 2020), but there is also extensive evidence regarding increasing intensity of other physical event types such as droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes (especially in specific regions). Indeed, there is now an entire sub-field of climate science, known as "extreme event attribution," devoted to understanding how climate change is affecting the occurrence and intensity of extreme weather-related events (Swain et al. 202030247-5)).
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a study
It is important to note that the purported "study" that is the subject of this article is not actually a study in any meaningful sense of the word. It is written by a single author who is not a physical or climate scientist, contains no previously unpublished data, and has not been peer-reviewed.
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Area burned by wildfire increasing — No (area peaked in mid-19th century)
This is highly misleading, as it conflates different types of fire (many of which are not wildfires to begin with). Overall trends in area burned globally are strongly driven by decreases in intentional agricultural burning in tropical areas, which is not related to climate change.
In regions where non-agricultural fires occur naturally (including the western United States (e.g., Abatzoglou et al. 2016, Williams et al. 2019, Goss et al. 2020), eastern Australia (Abram et al. 2020), and the Siberian Arctic (Feurdean et al. 2020), for example) there is strong evidence that climate change has already increased the severity and extent of wildfire (Jones et al. 2020).
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Tornadoes increase and become more intense — No
There is relatively little evidence in either direction at this point in time regarding global or even regional trends in tornado frequency/intensity. This is largely due to sparse and temporally inhomogeneous historical records in the United States, and virtually non-existent records in other regions. There is some evidence of regional shifts in tornado frequency (Gensini and Brooks 2018), and perhaps an increase in overall tornado "power" in the United States (Elsner et al. 2018), but in general there is an absence of strong evidence regarding this claim.
Future projections regarding climate change and tornado risk are of somewhat low confidence, but there is evidence that atmospheric environments favorable for severe convective storms (which are the types of storms capable of producing tornadoes) may increase in the future due to climate warming (Diffenbaugh et al. 2013, Hoogewind et al. 2017)
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Cyclones/hurricanes more intense or frequent — No
While is true that there remains no strong evidence for an increase in tropical cyclone (hurricane) frequency on a global basis, there is evidence that the most intense tropical cyclones are indeed becoming stronger (in terms maximum of wind speeds and minimum central pressure (Kossin et al. 2020) and are producing more extreme rainfall (Liu et al. 2019).
In fact, these trends are consistent with predictions regarding tropical cyclone behavior due to global warming: there is a strong expectation that the maximum potential intensity of hurricanes will increase due to rising ocean temperatures, even as the overall frequency of such storms does not change greatly or perhaps even decreases (Knutson et al. 2020).
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More hot days and fewer cold days — Yes
This is essentially the only scientifically accurate claim I can discern in the entire article.
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- Jul 2020
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www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com
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Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
I cannot speak to this specific statistic, but I emphasize that it is largely irrelevant in context and certainly misleading, since it conflates both climate and non-climate related factors.
There are strong links between climate change and wildfire extent and severity in many regions globally. It's less clear whether there are links between climate change and wildfire frequency, but that's not really the relevant metric here. Instead, climate change is clearly modulating the characteristics of wildfire in many regions--broadly increasing the dryness and flammability of vegetation, and allowing fires to become more intense and to burn more extensive areas.
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The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
This is misleading and incorrect as stated. While the legacy of 20th century forest management policies, as well as urban incursion into the wildlands, are indeed relevant in some areas, research has shown that such non-climate factors cannot account for the enormous increase in area burned by wildfire both in the broader American West and California specifically.
In fact, drying of vegetation due to climate change is responsible for about half of the observed increase in Western U.S. forest fire area burned over the past several decades (Abatzoglou et al. 2016). More specifically in California, observed warming and drying more than doubled the occurrence of extreme fire weather conditions between 1979 and 2018--a trend that is attributable to human-caused climate change (Goss et al. 2020)
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Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
On the whole, this claim is incorrect. While there are clearly certain types of natural disasters unaffected by climate change (earthquakes and volcanic activity, for example), and certain kinds of disasters for which there is an absence of evidence regarding a detectable influence from climate change (tornadoes, for example), there is a long and growing list of extreme event/disasters types regarding which the scientific literature strongly supports links to climate change. These include, but are not limited to: extreme heatwave intensity and frequency, drought intensity, wildfire extent and severity, and the flood hazards associated with tropical cyclones/hurricanes (both from oceanic storm surge and freshwater flooding associated with heavy precipitation).
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- Jun 2019
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www.iflscience.com www.iflscience.com
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either annihilating intelligent life
As I climate scientist, I am unaware of any scientific research that suggests changes in Earth's climate capable of "annihilating intelligent life" over the next 30 years.
There is plenty of evidence that climate change will pose increasingly existential threats to the most vulnerable individuals in society; to low-lying coastal cities and island nations; to indigenous cultures and ways of life; and to numerous plant and animal species, and perhaps even entire ecosystems.
Such consequences are well-supported by the existing evidence, are already starting to emerge in certain regions, and should be of paramount concern. But even these very dire outcomes aren't equivalent to the "end of human civilization," as is claimed in the report.
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The knock-on consequences affect national security, as the scale of the challenges involved, such as pandemic disease outbreaks, are overwhelming. Armed conflicts over resources may become a reality, and have the potential to escalate into nuclear war. In the worst case scenario, a scale of destruction the authors say is beyond their capacity to model, there is a "high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end".
It seems that the eye-catching headline-level claims in the report stem almost entirely from these knock-on effects, which the authors themselves admit are "beyond their capacity to model." Thus, from a scientific perspective, the purported "high likelihood of civilization coming to an end by 2050" is essentially personal speculation on the part of the report's authors, rather than a clear conclusion drawn from rigorous assessment of the available evidence.
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- Jul 2018
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Climate change is supercharging a hot and dangerous summer
This is a reasonable title for the piece. While climate change is not the only factor in recent extreme and record-breaking heat, it is an important and pervasive one. The notion that climate change is "supercharging" heat extremes is an accurate one.
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The heaviest precipitation events will become more frequent and more extreme. Snowpack will continue to decline. Large wildfires will become even more frequent.
These statements have much more robust support that the previous one.
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Overall precipitation has decreased in the South and West and increased in the North and East. That trend will continue.
This statement is overly broad. Attribution of regional mean precipitation trends is still a challenging task in most places, with some exceptions.
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Gone are the days when scientists drew a bright line dividing weather and climate. Now researchers can examine a weather event and estimate how much climate change had to do with causing or exacerbating it.
The field of "extreme event attribution" has indeed become much more prominent in recent years. This is a result of a combination of better modeling and analysis tools, plus a longer period of observed climate data from which to draw conclusions. While it is not possible to make these kind of attribution claims for all types of extreme weather events, it is increasingly true that this has moved from the margins to the relative mainstream of climate science.
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Last year, scientists published evidence that the conditions leading up to “stuck jet streams” are becoming more common, with warming in the Arctic seen as a likely culprit.
There have indeed been several recent publications suggesting that certain high-amplitude jet stream patterns have been occurring more frequently in recent years. There are also some hints that this could be related to enhanced high-latitude warming, but the potential causal linkages remain the subject of considerable ongoing scientific debate. At this point, there's not yet consensus that the Arctic is a "likely" culprit, although it certainly is a suspect.
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The proximate cause of the Northern Hemisphere bake-off is the unusual behavior of the jet stream, a wavy track of west-to-east-prevailing wind at high altitude. The jet stream controls broad weather patterns, such as high-pressure and low-pressure systems. The extent of climate change’s influence on the jet stream is an intense subject of research.
This is accurate. So-called "atmospheric blocking" has occurred frequently this summer, and has historically been associated with extreme temperature and precipitation events.
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It’s not just heat. A warming world is prone to multiple types of extreme weather — heavier downpours, stronger hurricanes, longer droughts.
There is indeed scientific evidence that each of these types of extreme events is increasing (or will increase) in a warming world. However, the evidence is strongest for heatwaves and heavy downpours.
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The brutal weather has been supercharged by human-induced climate change, scientists say. Climate models for three decades have predicted exactly what the world is seeing this summer. And they predict that it will get hotter — and that what is a record today could someday be the norm.
Both of these statements are correct, and collectively emphasize two important points. First, the increasing frequency and intensity of heat extremes does indeed validate model-based and theoretical predictions from decades ago. Second, those same climate models suggest that what is today an extraordinary heat event could indeed become a "typical" temperature in future summers, depending on how much additional carbon society emits in the coming decades.
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www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
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Quriyat, in Oman, also recorded the highest nighttime temperature ever recorded on the planet, hitting 121.6°F (49°C) on June 26, falling just two degrees short of the all-time heat record for the country, which stands at 123.4°F (50.7°C). The latest records come months after Pakistan posted the hottest temperature ever seen on Earth.The sun was so intense, it took the mercury up to in excess of 120°F as it topped out at 122.4 °F (50.2°C).
This section is somewhat confusing, but in any case 123F is not the hottest recorded temperature on Earth. This error probably stems from April of this year, when Pakistan likely set a new global temperature record for the month of April: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/world/asia/pakistan-heat-record.html
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On the other side of the Atlantic ocean, climates are typically milder as a result of the cooling from the Gulf Stream.
While it is true that the oceanic current known as the Gulf Stream keeps western Europe milder than it would otherwise be, it actually makes the region warmer than it would otherwise be. So the relationship is actually opposite to what is stated here.
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While an isolated heatwave can be put down as an anomaly, the scale of this phenomenon points to global warming as the culprit, scientists said.
Here again: the implication is that the widespread spatial distribution of this particular heat event makes it characteristic of global warming. This is not a correct inference from climate science. Instead, it is the sustained long-term trend toward increased frequency/intensity of such events that links global warming to heatwaves in aggregate. (e.g., http://www.pnas.org/content/114/19/4881)
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he distribution of the heatwaves points to global warming as the culprit
This "key point" does not correctly convey the linkage between global warming and heatwaves. The implication here is that the widespread spatial distribution of this particular heat event makes it characteristic of global warming. This is not a correct inference from climate science. Instead, it is the sustained long-term trend toward increased frequency/intensity of such events that links global warming to heatwaves in aggregate. (e.g., http://www.pnas.org/content/114/19/4881)
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Global warming to blame for all-time heat records being set worldwide, as experts warn stifling temperatures will continue to soar
While it is true that global warming is contributing to the increased frequency/intensity of global heatwaves in general, it is misleading to claim that it is singularly "to blame" for the present heat extremes.
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- Sep 2017
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Geologists say that humans are now pumping the gas into the air much faster than nature has ever done.
"Ever" is a long time, and it's not clear this is strictly true for the entire length of Earth's history. But there is strong evidence that this statement is true for all human-relevant timescales: in other words, the rate of CO2 emissions caused by humans is unprecedented since the age of the dinosaurs (i.e., at least 66 million years ago).
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Two degrees is more significant than it sounds.
This is an important point. "Global mean temperature" (GMT) is a pretty abstract quantity, since any particular location on Earth is likely to experience it. Instead, GMT serves as a useful indicator of how much the Earth's climate has changed overall. While a helpful statistical construct, it masks that fact that the Earth is warming much faster than the global average in some regions (over land, in the Arctic) than in others (over the oceans).
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You can think of global warming as one type of climate change. The broader term covers changes beyond warmer temperatures, such as shifting rainfall patterns.
This is a good way to describe the difference in language. It would also be reasonable to say that global warming (the increase in Earth's average temperature) causes climate change (shifts in the location/frequency/intensity of weather patterns). In practice, the two terms are often used somewhat imprecisely and interchangeably (even in the scientific literature).
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In many other cases, though — hurricanes, for example — the linkage to global warming for particular trends is uncertain or disputed.
The question of whether global warming will affect the frequency of hurricanes is indeed an open one, and research continues. There is stronger evidence, however, that warming will increase the maximum "intensity ceiling"/intensification rate of the strongest storms, the maximum rainfall associated with tropical cyclones, and the magnitude of oceanic "storm surges" that occur in an era of rising seas.
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more frequent and intense. It is also causing heavier rainstorms
Indeed, there is now observational evidence that global warming has already increased the likelihood and magnitude of extreme heat and intense downpours across much of the globe.
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Some of it is
This is a reasonable short answer to an extremely challenging scientific question.
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The warming is extremely rapid on the geologic time scale, and no other factor can explain it as well as human emissions of greenhouse gases.
This accurate statement succinctly summarizes decades of scientific research across a wide range of disciplines.
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We’ve known about it for more than a century. Really.
As the author correctly notes, the underlying chemistry dates back to the late 1880s.
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Scientists have used both terms for decades.
Indeed.
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- Jul 2017
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nymag.com nymag.com
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The Uninhabitable Earth
The title itself is hyperbolic--there's not really a plausible climate change scenario in which the Earth becomes truly uninhabitable (even in the "six degrees of warming" scenario the author explores). That's not to downplay the very real and very large threat to human lives, economies, infrastructure, ecosystems, and species--and the author does a good job cataloging many of these later in the piece. But taken literally, the title implies a future bleaker than is warranted by existing scientific evidence.
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But no matter how well-informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough
It is quantitatively true--and often under-appreciated--that the likelihood of a "worse than expected" climate future is actually higher than a "better than expected" one. That is: the distribution of climate outcomes is not symmetrical, and as others have previously pointed out, "uncertainty is not our friend:" (i.e., http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/the-fat-tail-of-climate-change-risk_b_8116264.html)
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tornadoes will grow longer and wider
I'm not aware of any scientific evidence for this claim. There has been some work investigating global warming and atmospheric environments conducive to severe thunderstorms (and tornadoes), but to my knowledge there are no peer-reviewed studies that investigate changes in either "length" or "width" of tornadoes. In general, the net effect of climate change upon tornado activity/intensity remains uncertain (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6318/1419), with evidence for increasingly favorable atmospheric environments for tornado formation in some regions (http://www.pnas.org/content/110/41/16361.abstract?sid=89f90e2a-c65d-4424-a394-37c4256350e5).
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floods and droughts
There is indeed evidence that the frequency and intensity of floods/droughts is increasing over much of the globe (e.g., http://www.pnas.org/content/114/19/4881.abstract), and will continue to do so as the climate warms. This is not necessarily true universally--there will still be quite a bit of spatial and temporal diversity in the response of precipitation extremes to global warming, even in a six-degree-warmer world. But in general, it's true that there will be dramatically more flood and drought events on a global basis with multiple degrees of warming.
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hail rocks will quadruple in size
There is indeed evidence that maximum hail size in severe thunderstorms may increase with global warming (even while overall hail frequency may decrease): https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n7/full/nclimate3321.html and http://www.pnas.org/content/110/41/16361.abstract?sid=89f90e2a-c65d-4424-a394-37c4256350e5
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The strongest hurricanes will come more often
This is a plausible claim, especially in a "six degree warmer world:" https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
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constant swarm of out-of-control typhoons
While there is still some uncertainty regarding the response of tropical cyclones (i.e. typhoons and hurricanes) to global warming, there is now evidence that frequency in many ocean basins may actually decrease, but maximum intensity will likely increase: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
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- May 2017
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www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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satellites now show that in recent months global temperatures have plummeted by more that 0.6 degrees
El Nino events do indeed elevate global temperatures temporarily, and this is partly why global temperatures in 2016 were so extreme. But as the attached plot from NASA GISS shows, temperatures so far in 2017 have still been extraordinarily warm in a historical context and in fact would have been record-breaking if not for the large temperature spike which occurred in 2016. In any case, it is not scientifically meaningful to measure global temperature "trends" over a two year period; the large and statistically significant long-term warming signal overwhelms short-term variations on multi-decadal timescales.
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ever since December temperatures in the Arctic have consistently been lower than minus 20 C
It is indeed true that the Arctic is cold in winter--it's hard to argue with that. But this statement belies the fact that winter 2017 was actually extraordinarily warm by historical standards, and second only to the record-shattering warmth observed just last year (in 2016). The attached plot, created by Zachary Labe and available at (http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures) shows that the -20C temperatures this winter are nearly +10C degrees above the long-term average of -30C! Therefore, the the fact that temperatures were -20C this winter in the Arctic is actually a testament to just how much the Arctic has warmed in recent years.
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Furthermore, whereas in 2008 most of the ice was extremely thin, this year most has been at least two metres thick.
Arctic sea ice volume has actually exhibited record thinness so far during 2017--beating the previous record years of 2012/2016 by a wide margin. Another nice visualization by Zachary Labe illustrates this quite clearly:
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- Apr 2017
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inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net
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No convincing relationship has been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in extreme weather events.
This is not accurate. Substantial evidence suggests that certain kinds of extreme weather events (especially heat waves, droughts, and intense downpours) have already begun to occur more frequently over much of the Earth's surface due to global warming (e.g., Diffenbaugh et al. 2017). Further increases in extremes are likely as the Earth continues to warm, and such increases will most likely become detectable across broader geographic regions and for more event types (e.g. IPCC SREX, 2012).
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Best available data show sea-level rise is not accelerating.
This statement is false. A wide range of direct measurements (i.e. tidal gauges) and indirect measurements (i.e. gravity monitoring satellites) show that the rate of sea level rise has increased (i.e. accelerated) in recent years (e.g. Dieng et al. 2017).
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Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 18 years
18 years is generally too short an interval to quantify statistically significant climate trends; nevertheless, warming of both the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans is apparent in observational data between 1998 and 2016.
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It is quite clear that this document has been created with the intent to intentionally mislead educators and students regarding the causes, character, and even existence of global warming; as such, it has no place in the classroom.
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The causes of historic global warming remain uncertain
This is false. The majority (and most likely all) of observed global warming is attributable to human influence upon the climate system (i.e. Dieng et al. 2017).
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Extensive survey data show deep disagreement among scientists on scientific issues that must be resolved before the man-made global warming hypothesis can be validated.
This is not accurate. The importance of carbon dioxide in mediating the Earth's surface temperature via the greenhouse effect has in fact been known for well over a century (e.g., Arrhenius 1896), and an enormous volume of scientific research over decades has demonstrated that the primary cause of observed global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities (e.g., most recently, Ribes et al. 2016).
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www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
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Warm weather worsened the most recent five-year drought, which included the driest four-year period on record in terms of statewide precipitation. California’s first-, second- and third-hottest years on record, in terms of statewide average temperatures, were 2014, 2015 and 2016.
This claim is supported by a wide range of scientific research (e.g., Diffenbaugh et al. 2015, Williams et al. 2015). Record warmth during the recent drought has also been directly implicated in some of the most iconic drought impacts, such as extreme lack of Sierra Nevada snowpack (Belmecheri et al 2016) and a large increase in wildfire intensity (Yoon et al. 2015).
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Not everyone is convinced that the evidence is in that climate change is responsible for extreme swings between drought and deluge.
There is a considerable and growing body of scientific evidence (see above references) demonstrating that California will likely experience increasingly large swings between extreme wet and extreme dry conditions. The evidence that climate change has already caused such an increase is somewhat less strong--mainly because there are relatively few extreme events in the historical record from which to draw such conclusions.
Therefore, this statement is imprecise, and may be misleading if it is intended to convey that scientists substantially disagree regarding the likely future increase in California precipitation extremes. Whether such an increase is yet detectable in the historical record is indeed uncertain; there is much greater certainty regarding the likely direction of future change.
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And this winter’s near disaster at the overflowing Lake Oroville was in part caused by warm storms too.
The skewed rain-snow ratio this season certainly contributed to some of the precipitation-related impacts this winter. While winter 2016-2017 was not exceptionally warm in the Sierra Nevada, especially relative to recent record-warm years, it was still warmer than average. In middle elevation zones of the Sierra Nevada, precipitation fell as rain rather than snow more often that would have historically been the case--leading to a snowpack that significantly lagged overall liquid precipitation (although both were well above average). (See Dettinger 2017: https://eos.org/opinions/defining-snow-drought-and-why-it-matters)
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The extreme cycles of dry and wet weather appear to have been intensifying over the last three decades.
There is indeed observational evidence that California precipitation extremes--and the atmospheric phenomena that cause them--have occurred more frequently in recent years (e.g., Swain et al. 2016), although that signal has only recently emerged from the "noise" of natural climate variability. There is also an expectation that such swings between extreme dry and extreme wet will continue to become more pronounced as the climate warms e.g., (Diffenbaugh et al. 2015; Wang et al 2015; Yoon et al. 2015, Berg and Hall 2015, Gao et al. 2017).
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- Mar 2017
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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a warming planet causes our weather to become more stuck in place
This claim is somewhat overly confident given the available evidence. Observational studies (e.g., Francis and Vavrus 2015) do indeed suggest that the "waviness" of the jet stream and subsequently the propensity for weather patterns to become more persistent has increased in certain regions and during certain seasons, although this is not universally true. There is also emerging evidence that the rapid warming of the Arctic may be playing a role in creating the conditions favorable for weather patterns to become "stuck in place"--a hypothesis that the new Mann et al. 2017 paper discussed in the article supports. The connections between amplified Arctic warming and mid-latitude weather extremes remain a very active area of scientific research (Overland et al. 2016), however, and considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude and mechanisms of this effect persist.
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On the other hand, some of this isn’t all that complicated. The Northern Hemisphere jet stream flows in a wavy pattern from west to east, driven by the rotation of the Earth and the difference in temperature between the equator and the North Pole. The flow is stronger when that temperature difference is large. But when the Arctic warms up faster than the equator does — which is part of the fundamental definition of global warming, and which is already happening — the jet stream’s flow can become weakened and elongated. That’s when you can get the resultant weather extremes.
This is an accurate and succinct description of the primary hypothesized mechanism involved in the Arctic/mid-latitude weather linkage.
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This basic idea has sparked half a decade of criticism and debate, and at the cutting edge of research, scientists continue to grapple with it. And now, a new study once again reinforces one of its core aspects.
This is an accurate framing of the (sometimes contentious) ongoing scientific conversation regarding linkages between Arctic warming and mid-latitude weather.
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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El Niño is now waning, but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.
The fact that numerous high temperature and low sea ice records are still being exceeded in 2017, despite the lack of El Nino conditions the Pacific Ocean, is indeed a testament to the increasingly strong human fingerprint upon global weather and climate events.
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“The Arctic may be remote, but changes that occur there directly affect us. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is already contributing significantly to sea level rise, and new research is highlighting that the melting of Arctic sea ice can alter weather conditions across Europe, Asia and North America.”
There is indeed observational evidence that melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which contributes to global sea level rise, has accelerated in recent years. While scientists are still intensively investigating the details, it is also true that recent research suggests that the loss of Arctic sea ice will mostly likely influence weather patterns in mid-latitude regions (including much of Europe, Asia, and North America).
A recent reference on this latter point (Screen 2017): http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2924.html
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- Jan 2017
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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The warming in the Arctic has really been exceptional
The discussion of extreme Arctic warmth in 2016 here and elsewhere in the article is relevant and accurate. A multitude of high temperature and low sea ice records have been set in the Arctic over the past 12 months.
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Last year’s warmth was manifested across the planet, from the warm tropical ocean waters off the coast of northeastern Australia, where the Great Barrier Reef experienced its worst coral bleaching event on record and large scale coral death, to the Arctic, where sea ice hit regular monthly record lows and overall temperatures were also the warmest on record, at least from January through September 2016.
This section accurately describes major 2016 events that occurred in the Earth system and which most likely would not have occurred without global warming.
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But the differences between NOAA and NASA aren’t that significant, Schmidt further argued, in the context of the bigger picture. “Getting hung up on the exact nature of the records is interesting, and there’s lots of technical work that can be done there, but the main take-home response there is that the trends we’ve been seeing since the 1970s are continuing and have not paused in any way,” he said.
This section accurately portrays the overall context of the 2016 record, and that the modest differences between datasets do not change the "big picture" conclusion that the Earth is warming, and that 2016 was an extraordinary year even in that context.
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Climate change is real, it is caused by humans, and it is serious
This is an accurate and succinct encapsulation of the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding the existence and causes of global warming.
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