Federal officials say July was Earth’s hottest month on record, smashing old marks.
July’s average temperature was 61.86 degrees Fahrenheit, beating the previous global mark set in 1998 and 2010 by about one-seventh of a degree. That’s a large margin for weather records.
Records go back to 1880, but nine of the 10 hottest months on record have happened since 2005.
The first seven months of 2015 are the hottest January-to-July span on record.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist Jake Crouch says it is quite likely that 2015 will end up the hottest year on record, beating last year.
Crouch says this reaffirms that the Earth is warming, with a boost this year from an El Nino warming of the Pacific Ocean.
(AP)
4 Responses
The records go back only a few generations. Their is archoelogical evidence that temperatures have varied widely in the past (e.g. records of which crops go where, which rivers freeze in winter, etc.). It was “warm” during Bayis Sheini and the time of the Rishonim, followed by colder periods. The illusion of rapid climate change comes from using the last cold period as a base (similar to deciding that January whether is “normal” and being shocked how warm it has gotten in the last seven months).
And in general, “warm” periods have greater economic activity and prosperity, probably because crops prefer it to be warm, and die off when it gets cold.
Actually good worldwide records go back to around 1880.
Warm periods have had greater economic activity in cold climates. But today most of the world’s population lives in warm climates near sea level. Climate change has already triggered the “Arab Spring” in Egypt and it could trigger massive population movements should sea levels rise.
I don’t have to worry about sea level rise. I live on high ground in the Bronx and look forward to a beachfront view. Folks in South Brooklyn, South Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island might want to consider moving unless the climate change deniers lose their influence.
Despite all this malarkey average temps haven’t risen by anything sufficient in over twenty years.
Charliehall:
Thermometers are only two centuries old. Good records only go back to the late 19th century. If thermometers were invented last January, and go temperature records only went back to last February, you would conclude that the daily temperatures were rising at a rate of over five degrees a month, and by 2020 would reach the boiling point killing most life on earth.
Crop records go back to the time of Avraham Aveinu. They tell a different story. They tell how wine grapes were growing in Britain when the Romans came, and weren’t growing when they left, but were growing again in the high middle ages (period of the Rishonim), and weren’t again in the early modern period (period of the early Achronim), but are again growing. The historical record suggests the putative global warming is cyclical.
If you hold by paleontology, the cycles are more dramatic. At times northern Canada had trees and Greenland had crocodiles – and at other times Brooklyn was covered with ice — and that at some points in the past even Antartica supported forests and if there were people around would have been good farmland.