Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution.<p><a href="http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/sources-overview.png" rel="nofollow">http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source...</a><p>By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a dent in 58% of this pie.<p>There are people who simultaneous worry a tremendous amount about global warming who will actively protest against nuclear power.<p>All while an extremely large amount of pollution is being burned all around us. Be reasonable we need a now solution or there wont be a when.
I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year.<p>Its funny how people you would consider uneducated and poor in my country would understand that there is clearly something going wrong with the world around us, while some people with lots of money, influence and education choose to believe that this is all a conspiracy by a foreign government.<p>It's just nuts, really, something is terribly wrong with our world, and we need to fix it.<p>Please, if you have the time, please join a local group that helps conserve the environment, learn how you could help reduce your carbon footprint, even a little could go a long way.
Is anyone aware if there is reliable data prior to say 1880? [1]
Is there any possibility that large scale climate trends could be outside of the observed window of time available? For instance, some large scale natural state-shifting appears to occur on the order of hundreds of years (reference is about earthquakes, but maybe relevant?) [2].<p>Based on everything I've heard/read/etc about this, it seems unlikely that humans are not impacting climate, but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/ytd/12/1880-2015" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/...</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-...</a>
If this keeps up, I have no idea how countries are going to deal with displaced migrants. We barely have the capability right now to properly deal with Syrians and African refugees.
So next year, when there's a modest decrease in global temperature (as per regression to the mean, even if the mean is monotonically increasing), the climate skeptics will be out in force with their 'I told you so - it goes up and down'. Such a huge record seems like good news for climate change deniers, just deferred.
Incredible. If we continued to break records at this pace we'd be at 2C above preindustrial in 2019.<p>Not that we will, but it gives a sense of how close we've come to the precipice, if indeed we have any < 2C carbon budget remaining.
I usually question conventional wisdom and was stuck on the part of co2 being the root cause of recent global warming based on the co2 lag but this helped me clear it up a bit -> <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-interme...</a>
It sounds bad but I'm very unoptomistic about our chances of stopping this. There is just too much pollution and too little meaningful global cooperation.<p>Just imagine if Trump did get into office as well...
Okay - help someone that doesn't truly understand this.<p>Earth's surface can gain heat through 4 ways I can think of (and this is just what I can think of and is likely wrong):<p>1) Geothermal brings more heat from core/mantle up. I don't think this is currently any larger than normal, nor do I imagine this varies much.<p>2) Oceans can give up heat they are storing and provide it on the surface. I don't know if El Nino is this, or if that just means "surface" ocean temperatures are up from whatever source.<p>3) Solar radiation (including infrared) can be higher than normal. I honestly have no idea if there's any significant variation in this, ever.<p>4) Earth can retain more heat that it was previously (global warming, be it man-made or not)<p>When they say the annual variation is usually hundredths of a degree, that sounds to me like 1-3 are generally non-factors, but that's all gut interpretation. Can someone with actual knowledge validate this?
What if all these guesses & models are WAY OFF?? What happens when the average temperature change is 10C, not 2C?<p>A family member works at Nasa & he says that their model is written in Fortran.<p>And those models do not really take into account feedback loops. (like Siberia thaws & releases giga giga tons of methane.. Greenland disintegrates instead of melting slowly)
I'm recently come to US and currently live in (rented) apartments where gas stove with pilot light is used. 24x7 small fire inside stove turns gas into heat and CO2 with water. I was very surprised - it is waste of energy. I never seen pilot light before (in other countries).
I like to look at the State of the Climate: <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513</a>
My home country is suffering enormous climate anomalies, that are becoming usual for the population. We have big floods, forest fires, enormous heat waves and huge snow storms.<p>This is so obvious that people are having hard time to talk about it. First years this happened it was "just a nature glitch", but recently it is becoming more and more "climate has changed".
I wonder if there is a planned study of the melting of the permafrost, since I've seen on Cosmos that it will be one of the "irreversible" side effects of global warming.
My 3 wishes....<p>1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly.<p>2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains.<p>3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true.<p>;)
Ah yes, an El Nino "this proves global warming" versus a La Nina "weather is not climate" year.<p>I hate that this is the narrative. Can people just ... stop doing this? Maybe? If you try to use the "record breaking heat, it was warm this one year" argument to argue for acceptance of theories of climate change you are only going to be hoist by your own petard a few years later when natural weather cycles result in record breaking cold years. It's the wrong playing field to be on.
> "But this record, we literally smashed. It was over a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit, and that’s a lot for the global temperature.”<p>We literally smashed it Thomas? Literally? The record is broken into pieces and scattered around the literal floor?
2015 was a strong el nino, I dunno if it's gonna tell us much about global warming...<p>It's actually alarming to me that this post is being given any traction on here, when I <i>know</i> everyone here is smarter than to attribute one year to global warming. How many times have we mocked Fox News for saying shit like, "It was -10F outside today, so much for global warming!"<p>Climate change is clearly a big deal, and one of (if not the) biggest threats to <i>every</i> nation's national security, but it's not the cause of a warm 2015. Sorry folks, it just isn't.
What's a good book for someone who wants to know more about climate change? I recently bought the most scientific, written by scientists book I could find on Amazon, and the gist of the book is that any amount of warming that is happening is due to geologic cycles and not human activity. The consensus here seems to be that it is due to human activity, so if that's the case can you point me to a good explanation of what's happening? I'm not biased either way, I just want to know the truth according to science, which seems to be really hard to find for some reason.
There is a 10F difference in temperature between my upstairs and downstairs without any heat turned on. There is a 4F difference in temperature between the front of the house and the back of my house.<p>There are so many factors as to how temperature is calculated, how exactly can we take a temperature today and compare it to values from years ago? I'll buy that satellite imaging will produce values that are useful over large areas, but those only go back 20-30 years. To compare against values before that seems like pseudoscience at best.