July 2015 the warmest month ever

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, August 21st, 2015 - 65 comments
Categories: capitalism, climate change, energy, Environment, global warming - Tags: , ,

It might not have felt like it if you live in Central Otago or Southland, but the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just declared July the warmest month ever when looking at both land and ocean together, in its 136 year history.

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July 2015 was the highest for July in the 136-year period of record, at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.08°C (0.14°F). As July is climatologically the warmest month of the year globally, this monthly global temperature of 16.61°C (61.86°F) was also the highest among all 1627 months in the record that began in January 1880. The July temperature is currently increasing at an average rate of 0.65°C (1.17°F) per century.

Temp percentiles

We’re entering the time when only radical or revolutionary restructuring of our economic affairs is going to save our children from a horrendous and unlivable future. Add in the depletion of cheaply accessible fossil fuels, an increasingly vicious oligarchic class, and increasing financialisation of…well, everything (and everyone), and we have a recipe for large scale fragility and failure.

So far though, our political class seem content with proposing carefully acceptable and limited variations on Business As Usual. Electric cars, emissions trading schemes and export led growth, anyone? Yet another case of ‘pretend and extend’ from the rentier class establishment.

65 comments on “July 2015 the warmest month ever ”

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  1. Glenn 1
    21 August 2015 at 5:39 pm

    “I don’t care I will be dead by then” is a comment that I have heard a number of times from relatives and friends (even my mother) when I bring the subject up. Then there are the “but we had hot days when I was a kid” brigade.

    I am a pessimist and think my grandkids and their kids will suffer greatly in the future because of shortsighted politicians and the ‘ me me ‘society they have produced.
    Bloody hell I hope I’m wrong.

    • Colonial Viper 1.1
      21 August 2015 at 5:49 pm

      We used to have a society which could think generations ahead, people who would plant an olive tree today not for themselves, but for their children and their grandchildren.

      It seems that society has become more self centred, infantile and immature over time.

    • weka 1.2
      21 August 2015 at 6:12 pm

      “I am a pessimist and think my grandkids and their kids will suffer greatly in the future because of shortsighted politicians and the ‘ me me ‘society they have produced.
      Bloody hell I hope I’m wrong.”

      You’re not wrong with the prognosis, but it’s not just the politicians at fault here. We the people are also culpable and we the people can change. Why aren’t we doing that?

    • maui 2.1
      21 August 2015 at 6:12 pm

      The scaremonger McPherson at it again.

    • weka 2.2
      21 August 2015 at 6:13 pm

      still part of the problem Robert?

    • Lanthanide 2.3
      22 August 2015 at 9:18 am

      Hah, the whole “September-October is the end of the financial world” scaremongering again.

      He has a very odd idea about ‘financial collapse’ occurring and resulting in 0 planes in the skies in a matter of days. The situation in Greece is pretty bad, right? And yet the majority of people still go to work, still go to eat out at restaurants, still go to school etc.

      • Colonial Viper 2.3.1
        22 August 2015 at 2:04 pm

        And yet the majority of people still go to work, still go to eat out at restaurants, still go to school etc.

        Yes people will continue to live their lives as best as they can. Those in the top 50% might even still be able to eat out now and then at a restaurant.

        Those in the bottom quartile of society are pretty fucked though. However, most people don’t pay much attention to them.

  4. Corokia 4
    21 August 2015 at 6:27 pm

    Business as usual- Tourism -duh. So dumb. That is touted as the fall back plan for our economy now that dairy is failing. Like hundreds of thousands of people are going to fly here and then drive around looking at the scenery for the next few decades.
    On so many levels we are living in the Age of Stupid (and Selfish)

  5. Foreign waka 5
    21 August 2015 at 7:35 pm

    Cars these days are very different from the stinkers of the old days and the western countries have exported their polluters to poorer countries using them as a rubbish heap. Besides all that the glaringly obvious is that the exchange of moisture is facilitated by trees. This in turn cools the globe.
    The amount of forest that is cut down every day is astronomical. Even “green” NZ has planned conversion of large forestry to cow pads.
    The consequences of this activity is known for decades and coupled with the population growth makes for grim reading.
    In the past 200 years the population has grown by more than 5 billion people and at the same time deforestation happened at a rate of 6 billion hectares. It is “recently” that we added carbon through vehicles which, given that there is no repository left to absorb this, exhilarates the heating of the atmosphere.
    I know many young people who say that they don’t want to have any kids as they feel the future is bleak and this should not be a surprise.

  6. AmaKiwi 6
    21 August 2015 at 9:55 pm

    To date we in NZ are not feeling the impacts the way others are. Decade long droughts and famines. Monster storms twice as destructive as anything experienced before. We read about the enormity of the potential problems but they have not hit us yet.

    When they do, our attitudes will change.

    Coming face to face with one’s own death has a way of focusing the mind.

  7. JonL 7
    21 August 2015 at 10:14 pm

    Well, we’re on course for a bumper El Nino this year as well……….

    check this out

    http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/elnino2015/1997vs2015-animated.gif

  8. weston 8
    21 August 2015 at 11:23 pm

    landcorp apparently is still flat out converting forrest to dairy on the central plateau area and what forbodings which may be being made in the light of a massive global overproduction of milk are muted by hopefull predictions itll come right .actually its highly likely the goverment wants to sell these farms and anything they say otherwise is probably bullshit

  9. johnm 9
    21 August 2015 at 11:54 pm

    2015 may well be the year that Climate Change is dawning on the general public due to the floods, droughts, wildfires and wildlife dieing off. The MSM at last are doing articles on the subject.

    ” What does a Monster El Nino look like? In two words — climate change. And by the end of August climate change’s Monster El Nino may have spawned two strong tropical cyclones and hurled their powerful remnant systems into the Arctic. The 2015 Monster The Equatorial Pacific is cracking wide open. Heat, at near new records for August, is oozing out. ”

    ” Unlike typical El Ninos, the high heat anomalies are not isolated to a band along the Equator. They extend upward across a vast pool that encompasses practically all of the Northeastern and North-Central Pacific. All of the Bering Sea and a chunk of the Arctic Ocean as well. It’s as if the typical El Nino heat has developed a great chimney that runs over thousands of miles from Equator to Arctic. One that encompasses millions of square miles of much warmer than normal ocean surface. An entire zone that, for the ocean, is a blistering 1-5 degrees Celsius hotter than ‘normal.’

    The Warming World’s Intense El Ninos’ Dance With Polar Amplification

    Scientists have long warned us about this. Warned us that increasing global temperatures through ongoing fossil fuel burning could greatly amplify the intensity and the frequency of strong El Nino events. A recent paper published in Nature has continued this line of research finding that, under human-forced global warming, the frequency of strong El Ninos is doubled. And, right on queue, the 2014-2016 El Nino is shaping up to be one of the nastiest, if not the nastiest such event we’ve yet experienced.

    But it’s not just a question of the intensity of heat boiling out of the Equatorial Pacific. It’s also a question of how a strong El Nino behaves in a world that has been forced to warm by 1 degree Celsius. According to Dr. Jennifer Francis, a significant portion of that extra heat has tended to focus in the Arctic. And this extra Arctic heat has, among other things, gone to work weakening the Jet Stream. In some regions, as we see today over the entire Northeastern Pacific, the tendency has been for powerful high amplitude ridges to form. The ridges often extend all the way into the Arctic — developing pathways for yet more heat to hit the high polar zones.

    Like El Nino, the ridge over the Northeastern Pacific is involved in an ocean-atmosphere dance. It’s a dance that includes widespread and abnormally warm water (see hot blob strengthens). And it’s a dance that includes the powerful impact of a Monster El Nino stalking the equatorial zones. ”

    http://robertscribbler.com/

    ” The awful truth about climate change no one wants to admit ”

    ” There has always been an odd tenor to discussions among climate scientists, policy wonks, and politicians, a passive-aggressive quality, and I think it can be traced to the fact that everyone involved has to dance around the obvious truth, at risk of losing their status and influence.

    The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles, humanity is in for some awful shit. ‘

    http://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change

    • RedLogix 9.1
      22 August 2015 at 3:06 pm

      Yes I’ve seen this effect in action. I’ve several good friends who are career professional scientists, one of whom could be rightly described as prominent in his specialty with directly links to climate change.

      What is obvious to me is the difference between what they will publish or say in public – and what they tell me in private.

      That vox article you link to is the reason why they remain so passive. Read it, absorb it. Yes it contains some graphs and numbers. But scientists have spent their whole lives surrounded by a majority of people who struggle with basic fractions much less the concept of integration over time. They know they can present endless data in numberless papers and they will be ignored.

      The problem was never a scientific one; it was always one of popular imagination and political will. And by instinct the scientists have known this was not a domain they had much influence in.

      We need a great story teller.

  10. swordfish 10
    21 August 2015 at 11:57 pm

    I can’t believe Britain’s temps were “near average” in July (white on map).

    It reached a deeply unpleasant 35 degrees while we were there in July. And frequently hit late 20s/early 30s.

    • weka 10.1
      22 August 2015 at 12:02 am

      Maybe the averaging out over the whole landmass drops the temp in the chart.

    • Robert Atack 10.2
      22 August 2015 at 9:48 am

      Swordfish, the UK temp is being affected by the Greenland ice melt, which is pushing cold water into the northern Atlantic, which in turn is sending the warm water from the east coast of the USA further south, so the UK gets colder, while Spain and North Africa gets hotter. It is something like minus 1 to minus 3C from the norm in the ocean around GB at the moment, as opposed to the parts of the Pacific that are +3C

    • Poission 10.3
      22 August 2015 at 12:20 pm

      can’t believe Britain’s temps were “near average” in July

      The uk was bounded by hot extremes at the start of the month,and closed with july record colds at a number of stations at the end.

      The uk weather (like nz) is dominated by synoptic weather events and the annular mode. In july the NAM or north atlantic oscillation went negative increasing the probabilty of northerly flows (colder polar air)

      http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif

  11. Paul 11
    22 August 2015 at 6:27 am

    Apocalypse Soon: 9 Terrifying Signs of Environmental Doom and Gloom

    Rising sea levels, earthquake threats and more reasons the world as we know it might be ending

    Read more
    http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/apocalyse-soon-9-terrifying-signs-of-environmental-doom-and-gloom-20150818#ixzz3jTXXOzHb

  12. amy 12
    22 August 2015 at 9:24 am

    Your headline screams ‘warmest month ever’. What the data actually says is warmest in 136 years. Totally different meaning. In other words, the longevity and dispersion of data is totally meaningless.

    There has been climate change since the beginning of time and will be to the end of time.

    • Robert Atack 12.1
      22 August 2015 at 9:52 am

      Yes Amy – There has been climate change since the beginning of time and will be to the end of time.
      It just that this human friendly (up to) 50,000 (?) year period is over.

    • Lanthanide 12.2
      22 August 2015 at 9:53 am

      Warmest month in recorded human history. There you go.

    • Draco T Bastard 12.3
      22 August 2015 at 9:56 am

      The difference in different climates is if we can live in them or not. For the last few millennia it’s been quite comfortable for us but we’re presently changing it so that we and most of the rest of life on Earth won’t be able to survive.

      You seem quite comfortable with that.

    • Colonial Viper 12.4
      22 August 2015 at 10:10 am

      Your headline screams ‘warmest month ever’. What the data actually says is warmest in 136 years. Totally different meaning. In other words, the longevity and dispersion of data is totally meaningless.

      You are full of bullshit Amy.

      The stats are clear: this is the warmest month for the globe known to modern scientific man. Not just here and there; but for the entire planet.

      If you think that milestone is not significant, you need to pull your head out of the sand and start paying attention.

  13. Nessalt 13
    22 August 2015 at 9:28 am

    Warmest month on record. Not ever

    • amy 13.1
      22 August 2015 at 10:03 am

      Not even that. Greenland, which is a huge land mass, had extensive farming until about 500 years ago. Then the climate adversely changed and the land became essentially uninhabitable.

      On the other side of the planet in xinjiang, where I was born and grew up, there is also much evidence of adverse climate change around 500-700 years ago which effectively undermined agriculture. And Xinjiang, along with Mongolia, forms the bulk of the china land mass. Huge.

      And before the extremist trolls kick in, yes I totally agree we need to address harmful pollution. I just abhor extremist nonsense based on little real evidence.

      • Colonial Viper 13.1.1
        22 August 2015 at 10:06 am

        Hi Amy,

        Look at the global temperature variation map I included in this post.

        Please explain what your reason is that you do not count that as “real evidence.” July was the warmest month in the last 1627 months. Why does that not count as significant to you?

        What are you afraid of acknowledging? Do you not accept that continuing rapid climate change will imperil the lives of billions as well as the (faulty) economic system we have created?

        • amy 13.1.1.1
          22 August 2015 at 10:37 am

          Hi cv and thank for polite reply.
          No that is no way a significant time frame. It’s a little like looking at a square mm of my carpet without looking at the rest of the carpet and then trying to extrapolate from that square mm what the rest of the carpet looks like.

          I accept climate change is occurring but that human influence is of localised impact only.

          And no the economic system is not broke. My country (of nationality) is corrupt and evil compared to the west. Yet even there in my life time (I an 40) we have gone from horse and cart to high speed train.

          Our striving for the freedoms of the west has given us in a generation a standard of living (not quality if life though) that was unimaginable in my childhood. The west needs to get back to TRUE free enterprise along with a socialist support system. Nz are good people but spend too much time finding g excuses for inaction. Yet they are in general better educated and better supported by health policies, welfare policies and freedoms that you do not take advantage of.

          • Colonial Viper 13.1.1.1.1
            22 August 2015 at 1:05 pm

            You are blind to the future, and you appear to be blind to the costs of progress.

            You also appear blind to the impending disaster mankind has created for itself.

            Man’s clever plans are not more powerful than the will of the heavens.

            My country (of nationality) is corrupt and evil compared to the west.

            Nonsense. The USA started a foreign war which killed over a million Iraqi civilians. When was the last time China did that to a foreign country?

            Both the USA and the UK kidnapped foreign citizens and had them tortured and disappeared. Western European nations co-operated. When was the last time China did that to a foreign national?

            Germany is economically crushing 12M Greeks and sending that whole nation into impoverishment. When was the last time China did that to a foreign country?

            It is clear to me that you do not understand the West at all.

            No that is no way a significant time frame.

            Says you.

            What are your qualifications or expertise in this matter?

            How do you justify that a peak period out of 1627 other periods is of no importance?

            Your thinking is nonsense. It also lacks curiosity and openness.

          • weka 13.1.1.1.2
            22 August 2015 at 1:47 pm

            “No that is no way a significant time frame. It’s a little like looking at a square mm of my carpet without looking at the rest of the carpet and then trying to extrapolate from that square mm what the rest of the carpet looks like.”

            You do realise that climate science isn’t just about measuring temperatures for the past century and a half right? That it does look at evidence from very long time frames.

            Climate changes all the time, so the examples you give aren’t really supporting your argument.

            I’m also curious why you think that your carpet analogy stands up against thousands of scientists?

      • RedLogix 13.1.2
        22 August 2015 at 1:37 pm

        Greenland, which is a huge land mass, had extensive farming until about 500 years ago.

        So you are telling us that the Greenland Ice Sheet which today are still almost 3km thick at their highest – all grew from nothing within the last 500 years? I don’t think so.

        Or what you may be talking about is of course the Norse settlement of Greenland at three relatively small coastal locations inside fiords offering micro-climates just capable of supporting agriculture.

        Their interesting and complex history was written about in some detail by Jared Diamon in his wonderful book Collapse. How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail. The whole book can be read here: http://cpor.org/ce/Diamond(2005)Collapse-HowSocietiesChooseFailureSuccess.pdf

        The reasons for the Norse departure from Greeenland are complex and only partially related to climate. The key thing to recognise is that the microclimates they were exploiting were always very marginal and it only took a very minor and quite natural change back to cooler conditions to undermine the fragile ecosystem they depended on.

        But the notion you are peddling that somehow Greenland was an ice-free “huge land-mass extensively farmed” just 500 years ago is of course a self-evident nonsense.

        • Lanthanide 13.1.2.1
          22 August 2015 at 1:52 pm

          (S)he may have been also muddling up Iceland, which was more agriculturally productive in the past than it is now. A lot of their very fertile topsoil has eroded away due to bad farming practices.

  14. Nessalt 14
    22 August 2015 at 1:10 pm

    Why, instead of looking at economically curtailing policies, are we not looking at ways to maximise the gains from a changing climate. warm periods are periods of prosperity historically, since long before temperature records were kept. they encouraged the spread and diversification of flora and fauna far more than static or cooling temperatures. Should we not be looking to adapt to reap the benefits that will allow us to feed a burgeoning world population rather than pronouncing doom and gloom and condemning the world to live as troglodytes?

    • Colonial Viper 14.1
      22 August 2015 at 1:14 pm

      The economy is a subset of the environment.

      As the environment destabilises and fails, so will the economy.

      You are the kind of prick who looks to profit off disaster. You are the one condemning future generations to an unlivable biosphere.

      • Nessalt 14.1.1
        22 August 2015 at 5:45 pm

        Jesus CV. I’m a prick because i think we should look around to work with what has, is and will continue to happen despite human interference? I agree that the rate things are changing is accelerated with our existence, but i don’t think you can belittle my suggestion just because it doesn’t fit with your fix. maybe this is why central labour don’t like you.

        Humans have proved far better at adaption than at fixing what has happened. but that would require technological investement and may maintain the economic systems we’ve adapted into. I know that hurts, but it doesn’t make anyone a prick for being a proponent off it. especially as you have no way of knowing that future generations will be condemned to an unlivable biosphere if my suggestions work.

        you behaviour is as bad as whaleoil. no one likes watching a keyboard jockey spaz when they are disagreed with

        • One Anonymous Bloke 14.1.1.1
          23 August 2015 at 6:30 am

          “My suggestion” is covered extensively by chapter seven of AR5. Can you explain where they have it wrong?

          Go on, ask your gut.

        • weka 14.1.1.2
          24 August 2015 at 9:19 am

          Nessalt, your idea is predicated on there being technology and an economy left that survives catastrophic CC. That’s not likely. Further, if we want to lessen the chances of catastrophic CC, we have to lessen industrial society. I can’t see a way of doing that under the current economic management, can you?

          The key word in what I have written is catastrophic. You are talking about adaptation. You can’t adapt to catastrophe. You might be one of the lucky ones who survives, and then you can adapt afterwards, but there won’t be a society the way you are thinking about it by then.

    • Foreign waka 14.2
      22 August 2015 at 6:53 pm

      I think the issues will focus on an increase of infectious disease, like lime disease, cholera, malaria, dengue fever etc…

  15. johnm 15
    22 August 2015 at 4:53 pm

    For Amy! 🙂

    Climate Change Deniers Present Graphic Description Of What Earth Must Look Like For Them To Believe

    “For us to accept that the average surface temperature of the Earth has risen to critical levels due to mankind’s production of greenhouse gases, we’ll need to see some actual, visible evidence, including a global death toll of no less than 500 million people within a single calendar year,” said spokesperson William Davis, 46, of Jackson, NJ, who added that at least 70 percent of all islands on the planet would also have to become submerged under rising seas before he and his cohort would reconsider their beliefs. “To start, we’re going to have to see supercell tornadoes of category F4 or higher ripping through Oklahoma at least three times a day, leveling entire communities and causing hundreds of fatalities—and just to be perfectly clear, we’re talking year-round, not just during the spring tornado season.”

    ““I don’t think it’s too much to ask to see a super hurricane destroying the Southeast U.S. and another one at the same time decimating the Pacific Northwest before I make up my mind about this,” said global warming skeptic Michelle Wilkinson of Medina, MN”

    http://www.theonion.com/article/climate-change-deniers-present-graphic-description-51129

  16. johnm 16
    22 August 2015 at 6:16 pm

    Climate Change is happening and increasing in momentum

    Don’t worry, CV, about the likes of Nessalt, probably one of those half wit idiot national Key suckers. They’ll turn your brains to mush mate!

    Right Guys listen to this interview and you’ll be up with the ball play you Rugby playing morons. otherwise just go back to your cannabis fuelled stupor and the boozing.

    http://guymcpherson.com/2015/08/real-news-network-interview/

  17. johnm 17
    23 August 2015 at 3:09 am

    A World on Fire: July Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded

    Record set for hottest month of the year puts 2015 on track to be hottest year ever recorded… and the consequences are mounting
    by
    Jon Queally, staff writer
    20 Comments
    Firefighters work to dig a fire line on the Rocky Fire in Lake County, California July 30, 2015. This week, three scientific agencies announced that July was the hottest month on Earth since records were started in 1880. (Photo: Reuters/Max Whittaker)

    The world is burning up.

    The previously available evidence for that statement is staggering and on Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. announced that July was the hottest month the planet has ever experienced since records began and that both land and ocean temperatures are on pace to make 2015 the hottest year ever recorded.

    According to NOAA’s latest figures, the July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average. As July consistently marks the warmest month of the year, NOAA said this most recent one now registers as having the all-time highest monthly temperature since records began in 1880, with an average global thermometer reading of 61.86°F (16.61°C).

    NOAA’s temperature analysis follows on the heels of similar findings by both NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) published earlier this week which also said July was a record-breaker in terms of heat.

    “The world is warming. It is continuing to warm. That is being shown time and time again in our data,” said Jake Crouch, physical scientist at NOAA’s National Centres for Environmental Information.

    “Now that we are fairly certain that 2015 will be the warmest year on record,” Crouch continued, “It is time to start looking at what are the impacts of that? What does that mean for people on the ground?”

    At least for those who experienced perilous heat waves in places like Pakistan, India, Iran, and Egypt in recent weeks and months, they know those direct impacts of record temperatures can be deadly. Meanwhile, climate scientists have spent much of the year—with a special eye on upcoming UN climate talks in Paris—warning that the collective impacts of increased temperatures, both on land and in the oceans, are resulting in severe consequences for human civilization and the natural world.

    More troubling than any one month, experts note, is the consistent and driving trend that has seen temperatures on a steady march upward since the beginning of the century. As Andrea Thompson at Climate Central reports:

    After 2014 was declared the warmest year on record, a Climate Central analysis showed that 13 of the 15 warmest years in the books have occurred since 2000 and that the odds of that happening randomly without the boost of global warming was 1 in 27 million.

    Even during recent years when a La Niña (the cold water counterpart to El Niño) has been in place, the year turned out warmer than El Niño years of earlier decades.

    Global carbon dioxide levels have risen from a preindustrial level of about 280 parts per million to nearly 400 ppm today. In recent years, CO2 levels — the primary greenhouse gas — have spent longer and longer above the 400 ppm benchmark. They stayed above this point for about six months this year, twice the three months of last year. It is expected that within a few years, they will be permanently above 400 ppm.

    The continued rise of CO2 levels will raise the planet’s temperature by another 3°F to 9°F by the end of this century depending on when and if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, scientists have calculated.

    That means that some, future years are likely to continue to set records, even if there will still be year to year variations.

    And according to Eric Holthaus, who writes about climate change for Slate, the mounting evidence and rising temperatures are painting an increasingly scary picture of the future:

    All this warmth on land is being driven by record-setting heat across large sections of the world’s oceans. The NOAA report notes that the warmest 10 months of ocean temperatures on record have occurred in the last 16 months. This is mostly due to a near-record strength El Niño, but the current state of the global oceans has little historical precedent. Since it takes several months for the oceanic warmth of an El Niño to fully reach the atmosphere, 2016 will likely be warmer—perhaps much warmer—than 2015. And that poses grave implications for the world’s ecosystems as well as humans.

    We’ve recently entered a new point in the Earth’s climate history. According to reconstructions using tree rings, corals, and ice cores, global temperatures are currently approaching—if not already past—the maximum temperatures commonly observed over the past 11,000 years (i.e., the time period in which humans developed agriculture), and flirting with levels not seen in more than 100,000 years.

    But this is the scary part: The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than at any point since humans first evolved millions of years ago. Since carbon dioxide emissions lead to warming, the fact that emissions are increasing means there’s much more warming yet to come. What’s more, carbon dioxide levels are increasing really quickly. The rate of change is faster than at any point in Earth’s entire 4.5 billion year history, likely 10 times faster than during Earth’s worst mass extinction—the “Great Dying”—in which more than 90 percent of ocean species perished. Our planet has simply never undergone the kind of stress we’re currently putting on it. That stunning rate of change is one reason why surprising studies like the recent worse-than-the-worst-case-scenario study on sea level rise don’t seem so far fetched.

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/21/world-fire-july-was-hottest-month-ever-recorded

  18. johnm 18
    23 August 2015 at 3:16 am

    ‘ State of Emergency Declared as Wildfires Create ‘Unprecedented Cataclysm’ in Washington

    Four other states also fighting massive blazes, including drought-stricken California

    Three firefighters were killed this week and President Barack Obama on Friday issued an emergency order over wildfires raging through central Washington state.

    Emergency workers from Australia and New Zealand have been flown in to help the crews currently fighting blazes in five states, including Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon.
    Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday called the fires “an unprecedented cataclysm.” ‘

    Seatower
    18 hours ago

    ” Welcome to the precipice of oblivion…all climate change deniers (and their paid corroborating “scientists” and so-called “experts”) need to board the train to hell or, even better, put on their firefighting gear and join the brigades of firemen battling the blazes. Mother Nature has had enough. Humankind needs to immediately change its ways or face the dire consequences. Think of all the wildlife/fauna that are dying from the fires and/or will die in winter without anything to eat. Think of all the rivers, lakes and streams filled with ash and other particulate matter suffocating the fish. Our house of cards is falling. ”

    Wereflea

    ” Imagine 20 more years of this and it will still keep getting hotter and hotter! Imagine 50 more years of this – hotter each and every year. I find it hard to imagine what the world will be like. All I know is that it will not be recognizable as the world I knew. Old folks like me have seen the majestic as something ordinary and familiar and expected at least some of ut would be preserved forever.. Vast forests and big animal fauna. Salmon coursing upriver, Cats padding silently through the world. Wolves and c’yotes howling out there beyond the campfire. Now we are nolonger sure. That National Park may have escaped the axe but not global warming.

    The young will see pictures and never realize how much we took for granted because it was already gone by the time it was their turn. A cabin in the woods! Your family was lucky. What was omce commonplace and ordinary will become extraordinary and rare at least where a few patches might still exist.

    But how can the fairy tale forest of Olympic National Park be saved when it is afire? This years fire. Only this years.

    God bless and preserve the fire fighters. May the flames not leap over them and come up behind them ”

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/21/state-emergency-declared-wildfires-create-unprecedented-cataclysm-washington

  19. johnm 19
    23 August 2015 at 3:47 am

    ” When scientists are compelled by circumstances, to recognize that the world is close to, if not already, terminally corrupt, their final resort is to become, themselves, activists, on behalf of future generations, whom our generation is murdering. Perhaps they’re voices in the wilderness. But now they are starting to shout. It’s their last hope. It’s also the last hope of future generations (if there still is, realistically, any hope at all, remaining). ”

    The Latest Science on Global Warming By Eric Zuesse
    http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse210815.htm

    ” Humanity faces near certainty of eventual sea level rise of at least Eemian proportions, 5–9m [16-30 feet], if fossil fuel emissions continue on a business-as-usual course, e.g., IPCC scenario A1B that has CO2 700 ppm in 2100 (Fig. S21). It is unlikely that coastal cities or low-lying areas such as Bangladesh, European lowlands, and large portions of the United States eastern coast and northeast China plains (Fig. S22) could be protected against such large sea level rise. Rapid large sea level rise may begin sooner than generally assumed. … ”

    Humanity at a Crossroads. Today…