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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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There will be big changes for you but you will be happy.
(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.