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2016 was the warmest year since humans began keeping records, by a wide margin. Global average temperatures were extremely hot in the first few months of the year, pushed up by a large El Niño event. Global surface temperatures dropped in the second half of 2016, yet still show a continuation of global warming.
This is the third record-breaking year in a row.
Berkeley Earth's work has been published in Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1601207) (DX)
Also at NASA (Javascript required) and the Washington Post.
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2016 is the Hottest Year on Record
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Don't steal... the IRS hates competition!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday January 21 2017, @06:09AM
For the last few years we get this "Hottest year Evar!" headline and it evaporates under scrutiny. Rinse and repeat. Once we see you lying we ain't going to suddenly believe you when you double down, triple down and pinkie swear that THIS time you aren't lying. No, liars lie so there isn't a point in listening once you spot one. Especially in a subject where 1% of 1% of people can actually judge the science, the heuristic of judging the claimant and their allies in cases we CAN form a valid opinion on is the best we can do.
Bottom line guys, when Mann got caught cold cooking his numbers to generate the "Hockey Stick" chart and NOBODY in the Warming Industry moved to throw him under the bus it told me everything I needed to know. Then we got ClimateGate and a constant drip of new liars being exposed.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 21 2017, @06:14AM
global warming is bullshit.
This is the truth! [youtube.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:02AM
Encores, Legends, and Paradox --- FUCKERS.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday January 21 2017, @09:23AM
I noticed the first posts were all by a bunch of AGW deniers, and that the posts were all very loud about the denial, as if the deniers feel unsure and insecure and are blustering louder to compensate. Oh, and that they offered no convincing evidence, or no argument at all in support of their denials. Childish.
What exactly is deniers' problem with AGW? Do they hate America? Hate jobs? Because it will take a lot of work to convert the economy from fossil fuels to renewables. Or we could just sit on our butts and do nothing and not employ anyone.
Or look at it this way. 4 possibilities. 1) AGW is bullshit, and we do nothing. Result: we do fine. 2) AGW is bullshit but we do all this work to deal with it anyway. Result: we do fine. We create a bunch of jobs and save a huge pile of money because we made our infrastructure a lot more efficient. 3) AGW is real, very bad for us, and we do nothing. Result: we're screwed. 4) AGW is real, very bad for us, and we try to stop it. Result: maybe our efforts are enough, and we do fine. So, why take a chance on 3? Why not get busy on this problem, and never mind whether it's real, just do the stuff that's worth doing whether or not AGW is real. And there is a lot to do there! I for one am eager that my next car be all electric. Electric motors totally blow away combustion engines. They're more reliable, more efficient, simpler, cheaper, cleaner, quieter, smoother and faster at acceleration. The only thing holding them back is energy storage. Sort that out, and gasoline engines are so dead. When that day comes, why would anyone not want to switch? Let the deniers be wasteful idiots who enjoy paying 10x more at the gas pump than electric car users pay to recharge.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @10:29AM
Yeah the future is coming, and the US is hamstrung by a bunch of "traditionalists" in almost every aspect of life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @12:20AM
Almost every aspect, but at least women are allowed to drive here...for now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:27PM
What exactly is deniers' problem with AGW? Do they hate America? Hate jobs? Because it will take a lot of work to convert the economy from fossil fuels to renewables. Or we could just sit on our butts and do nothing and not employ anyone.
That's the broken window fallacy. You're proposing that we break our energy infrastructure merely because it creates a lot of jobs. For me, a key problem is all the terrible arguments made not for global warming, but for correcting it. But in doing so, we ignore: 1) the considerable uncertainty in our understanding of climate (factor of three error in the most critical parameter in climatology, the long term warming from a doubling of CO2), 2) the remarkable ineffectiveness of present and near future approaches to mitigating global warming, 3) that there are other problems than just global warming, 4) that there are other strategies than radical changing of our energy infrastructure such as adaptation, 5) the considerable conflicts of interests among the parties hyping global warming (Big Oil is not the only party in the world with money or a conflict of interest), and 6) obvious signs of a scam (the pressure to decide right now; just-in-time research that delivers desired talking points as they are needed; one-sided presentation of the evidence by a supposedly unbiased organization, the IPCC; and the immense amount of FUD in the media).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:37PM
> You're proposing that we break our energy infrastructure merely because it creates a lot of jobs.
I say we build a new energy infrastructure that doesn't involve importing oil from our enemies and/or require huge military expenditure to secure. I'd rather be building something new with that money than buying/blowing-up armaments and paying for the military.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:07PM
I say we build a new energy infrastructure that doesn't involve importing oil from our enemies and/or require huge military expenditure to secure.
Both are already true. The US doesn't buy oil from its enemies. And its huge military expenditures have nothing to do with securing oil resources.
I'd rather be building something new with that money
Like fifty year old wind turbine and solar cell technology? Or hundred year old electric car technology? We ignore here that we already have a vast fossil fuel-based energy delivery infrastructure. We also ignore that before subsidies, fossil fuels still have an advantage, particularly, petroleum which still remains the least costly means for transportation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @03:02PM
> Like fifty year old wind turbine and solar cell technology? Or hundred year old electric car technology?
Huh? If you think modern controlled-pitch, composite blade wind turbines are 50 year old tech, you need to get out more. And while there were some short range pioneer electric cars, lithium batteries that make for a somewhat acceptable range were still lab research projects in the 1970s, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Before_commercial_introduction [wikipedia.org]
Sheesh, talk about living in your own echo chamber...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Saturday January 21 2017, @11:07PM
While this is true, oil is pretty much a fungible commodity. It doesn't matter who you buy it from, using it drives up the global price and funds oil producing states.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @12:27AM
True, and while the US enjoys friendly relations with Russia, Iran, Canada and Saudi Arabia, those petrostates wreck havoc elsewhere with their petrodollars. Look at what they've done in the Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, and on and on.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday January 22 2017, @12:32AM
Second, who again is actually an enemy of the US? And why does harming them matter more than helping the US from the point of view of the US?
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:51PM
um, your presumption is that the present energy infrastructure that is so pwecious and has to be status quo'ed for ever and ever amen, is somehow an optimal system... we are not messing with a perfected system which is delicately balanced on a knife edge; we are replacing a system rife with corruption, inefficiencies, destroying competitors, and rent-seeking... it is NOT a perfected/optimal system in any way, shape, or form, EXCEPT for the oligarchs who control that sector...
unless you count mere existence as over-riding reason for never changing any man-made system...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:05AM
um, your presumption is that the present energy infrastructure that is so pwecious and has to be status quo'ed for ever and ever amen, is somehow an optimal system...
It doesn't have to be optimal. It merely needs to be better.
we are replacing a system rife with corruption, inefficiencies, destroying competitors, and rent-seeking...
No, we aren't. Look at the large businesses in the renewables sector. They rent-seek with the best of them. They take massive amounts of public funds and guarantees and turn it into mediocre energy projects combined with great profits for the parent company who isn't liable for the failure of the subsidiary taking on the risk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:04PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday January 21 2017, @06:17AM
Rule One: Climatologists Always Lie.
Rule Two: Climatologists Always Double Down.
Rule Three: Climatologists Always Project.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday January 21 2017, @06:29AM
To a great extent yes. Because most of them are also SJWs, pushing the same causes and share membership in the SJW political organizations. Is it just iron Party discipline or a root mental defect that causes an almost uniformly warped set of beliefs on the Left along with militant intolerance for any dissent? Who knows, who cares. But it is a certainty that if you spot one pathological position you usually get the whole set. Religious warmist? Almost certain to also support income redistribution, LGBTQ rights, feminism, critical race theory, exhibit religious bigotry toward Christianity (but never Islam), etc. Spot an animal rights activist? Also very likely a Warmist, LGBTQ supporter, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:04AM
Its very fortunate that all your enemies are the same people.
Have you considered the possibility that its not people but a single person?!
SJWs, Climate Scientists, Commies, Queers, Feminists, Egalitarians of all stripes
In reality they are all one person. Just constantly hounding you from behind multiple nyms.
Sometimes she doesn't even bother to create a nym and just posts as an anonymous coward!
It makes total sense. All of your enemies are mental defectives. So its totally natural that she would also have MPD.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:26AM
Have you considered the possibility that its not people but a single person?!
SJWs, Climate Scientists, Commies, Queers, Feminists, Egalitarians of all stripes
In reality they are all one person.
That would be me. I am jmorris's SJW. I am the one who knocks jmorris.
I have been assigned by SJW Headquarters to keep an eye on jmorris. We have Chinese operatives who for like $50 have collected everything there is to be known about jmorris. Curiously, jmorris seems to be located in Russia.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 22 2017, @12:30AM
They don't pay you enough for this shit.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday January 22 2017, @03:38AM
We in the SJW Corps think of it more as public service, for the greater good and Social Justice. It is really the least anyone can do, as a member of the human species.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:52PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:22AM
Is it just iron Party discipline or a root mental defect that causes an almost uniformly warped set of beliefs on the Left along with militant intolerance for any dissent?
The meteorological agencies of the UK, Japan, and the USA are in agreement, and your response is to dismiss their findings as part of a vast, leftist conspiracy. Well, I dismiss your response, not because belief in vast conspiracies is symptomatic of a "mental defect" but because you've offered no evidence of such a conspiracy happening. It's also implausible, because the governments of those countries aren't particularly leftist: the UK is ruled by the Conservative Party; the prime minister of Japan says he is "emotionally attached to 'conservatism'" and has visited a shrine to fascist-era war criminals; the USA just rid itself of a president who favoured "clean coal."
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/26/national/formed-in-childhood-roots-of-abes-conservatism-go-deep [japantimes.co.jp]
But it is a certainty that if you spot one pathological position you usually get the whole set.
That cuts both ways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:15AM
> Rule Three: Climatologists Always Project.
This is actually true, when you doubt them they say you must be paid by some fossil fuel lobby, as if there were no lobby in alternative energy sources (especially since they can't exist without subsidies), and as if it didn't benefit heavily to politicians.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by butthurt on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:43AM
> This is actually true, when you doubt them they say you must be paid by some fossil fuel lobby [...]
On what occasion, specifically, has that happened? Please quote an actual climatologist.
> [...] alternative energy sources [...] can't exist without subsidies [...]
Someone has written in Wikipedia:
Global fossil fuel subsidies represented 6.5% of global GDP in 2015.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies [wikipedia.org]
with a citation to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867 [sciencedirect.com]
I can't conveniently check it, but I invite you and other readers to do so.
The Wikipedia article also has 2013 figures for the United States, saying that 20% of U.S. federal subsidies went toward fossil fuels and 45% to renewable energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Allocation_of_subsidies_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
It's very plausible that the situation you allude to, in which alternative energy receives no subsidies but (I'm assuming) the subsidies for fossil fuels--a more established industry--continue, would mean financial difficulty for the alternative energy industry.
Am I reading too much into your post if I assume that you would advocate creating that situation, because you believe that global warming is a hoax ("created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive"?). If that's your feeling, I wonder what makes you confident in that belief, because the stakes are quite high. Even if global warming is indeed a hoax, ought we not conserve oil, gas, peat and coal for better uses than merely burning them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:33AM
> Rule Three: Climatologists Always Project.
This is actually true, when you doubt them they say you must be paid by some fossil fuel lobby, as if there were no lobby in alternative energy sources (especially since they can't exist without subsidies), and as if it didn't benefit heavily to politicians.
Obliviously, you must be a paid shill for the Big Oil! What are you still doing here? Did you not get a cabinet position in DC? Oh, you didn't? Sorry, I am sure it is just an oversight. You have been doing such a great job for the Corporation here on SoylentNews! Keep up the great work! The whole "alternative energy shills" meme is priceless, and it looks like it is working! So again, keep it up.
(Post-script: Don't show up in Washington just yet, though. You do not want to end up like poor Corey, when he got locked out of the Inauguration. So sad!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:21AM
The ten rules of butthurt, with apologies to jmorris!
Rule One: Butthurts Always Lie.
Rule Two: Butthurts Always Double Down.
Rule Three: Butthurts Always Project.
Rule Four: Butthurts always deny. Felonies, Misdemeanors, Global Warming, vaccines, all of it.
jmorris is much more familiar with the "Rules of Acquisition".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:12AM
I love that this is happening while we're having the coldest week in Europe in a very long time.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:26AM
And where I am it's been 20 degrees above normal for a couple months minus 3 days.
This summer it got so hot in India the lines on the streets ran into a puddle.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:56AM
"This die cannot be biased towards 6. I just got an 1!"
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday January 22 2017, @05:50AM
Not to mention...
http://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/index.php?satellite=t1&product=true_color&date=2017_01_15_015&overlay_sector=false&overlay_state=true&overlay_coastline=true [wisc.edu]
https://www.iceagenow.info/black-sea-freezes-first-time-62-years-video/ [iceagenow.info]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:22AM
Yep, every year people yell "IT"S NOT! IT'S NOT IT'S NOT! LALALALALALALALALALA" *stomp* *stomp* *stomp*
Same old lie.
Then we hear about how in 1623 Jim Smith recorded a higher temperature (after he dropped his thermometer in a fire) so it can't be the hottest.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday January 21 2017, @07:43AM
It is really a shame. The push to publish unverified results or results that stand actual peer review makes it difficult when they put forward actual data.
Because I like to see them proved wrong, wherever possible I give market based arguments for people to pay more attention to wasted resources. Even the most ardent redneck will make basic changes when they see it hit their pocket book and realize a little more recycling can help them afford another box of ammo.
A little too much doom and gloom and calling the deniers the devil, and a little too little making reasoned arguments that are money based. But I guess capitalism is evil so better the earth burns than use money to save it.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:04AM
Well, in that case you surely can show the scrutiny under which it evaporates, right?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:37PM
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:47PM
What image are you referring to? Because I can't seem to be able to find an image that fits your claim.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:17AM
Once we see you lying we ain't going to suddenly believe you when you double down, triple down and pinkie swear that THIS time you aren't lying.
Hey, look! jmorris is lying again! Surprise, surprise, surprise! Tell us another, jmorris! Tell us about the Rooskies! Please? C'mon, don't be shy! We promises to believe you this time, seriously!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @10:26AM
"Liars" "Gates" "Name Drop" "Hockey Stick"
Propaganda spewing jmo, doesn't even understand basic large scale systems. "What a sham, can you believe if you zoom to a normal temperature range that graph looks almost like a straight line! What a bunch of balooooney!" says the person who doesn't understand that a change of less than a degree over anything less than millenia is a huge shift that simply does not occur without some natural disaster. In this case the natural disaster is humanity, and we should start taking care of our messes lest this Earth becomes less hospitable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:01PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg [wikipedia.org]