
Warmest March in Global Recordkeeping - splawn
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/warmest-march-in-global-recordkeeping-2016-roars-ahead-of-pack
======
willholloway
I've decided to become the guy that on every HN climate change post promotes
the only technology that can restore the climate we had.

There is a way to get us down from 408ppm back to a safe level like 350ppm,
and that is Bio Energy with carbon capture and storage:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-
energy_with_carbon_capture...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-
energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage)

~~~
zxcvvcxz
Tell that to up-and-coming countries like China. Go ahead, see if they want to
slow their economic growth for the "environment", let alone the breathing air
of their people. And after you tell them off, take a trip to Africa (e.g.
Nigeria) as well.

By all means, we should work to make it an economical alternative. I suggest
that a higher proportion of GDP in first-world countries go towards this type
of basic research. But until then, it's not going to happen.

~~~
willholloway
I have a filter that ignores pessimism.

Here's why you are wrong.

China is adopting solar on a massive scale. In fact it's the Chinese solar
industry that broke the grid parity barrier.

And yes, their people are and will demand cleaner air.

And most importantly, new solar is cheaper than new coal plants, even in
India.

And as far as countries like Nigeria, I propose that the developed world
begins to enact sanctions against reckless polluters to incentivize social
nation state behavior.

I think that we will find, just as transnational oil companies have found,
that the governments of countries like Nigeria are easily swayed by outside
money.

And this idea that controlling carbon will slow economic growth is ludicrous.

What do you think having NYC and Miami flooded will do to growth? What about
100 million refugees from Bangladesh. Look at the problem of Syrian refugees
for Europe.

We did one thing right, and we got solar pv cheap just in the nick of time.

------
hackuser
Coverage in The Guardian as well:

[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/15/march-
tem...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/15/march-temperature-
smashes-100-year-global-record)

It's very disappointing this isn't a major story (outside the remaining
climate denial outlets, such as Fox/Murdoch/WSJ). I don't recall seeing it
covered in the NY Times, for example. Perhaps I overlooked it, but it should
have been a big enough story that overlooking it was very unlikely.

~~~
ChuckMcM
What would be the story? Climate change is real? I think that is pretty well
understood by most of the NY Times readers. The story is now "This week in
Apocolpyse Forecasting." Two things make this challenging, one is that the
highest/lowest/largest/smallest in recorded history is like 150 - 200 years
usually, and folks know that in human history at least people were living near
gaciers and munching on Mammoth and Sabertooth. So clearly there are
temperatures that are both "previously experienced by humans" and "not part of
the recorded human record".

I think climate change news now that would get coverage would be actions being
taken (as opposed to observations being made). What actions will Texas take
after this season to mitigate the risk of flooding? What actions will
California take to insure reliable water sources across both drought and
excess modalities? I think we've reached the "Ok, so what?" phase.

~~~
cryptoz
The main problem with that thinking is that if the story is just about
adaptation topics, we're going to be fighting a losing war for centuries.
Adaptation is urgent to save human lives, yes - but vastly more important is
to reduce greenhouse gas output. There is only one story right now for the US
News to focus on:

Donald Trump thinks climate change is a hoax.

Ted Cruz also thinks climate change is a hoax.

Hillary Clinton thinks climate change is not a problem and that we should
increase our greenhouse gas output as fast as possible.

Bernie Sanders considers climate change to be of critical importance and will
act as a leader to curtail our greenhouse gas output. He is also the _least
likely_ leader in the race right now.

The story is not just about adaptation. The story is about how the US
political leadership is passionate about increasing the rate of climate change
and calling the entire science of climate a 'hoax'.

~~~
Snargorf
Have Trump or Cruz ever used the word "hoax", or is that your reinterpretation
of their position?

Have either one of them ever said that there is no such thing as climate
change, as your statement seems to imply? Or, do they just question the
details of how the evidence is presented and emphasized, the tradeoffs in the
proposed responses, and the perverse incentives involved?

~~~
Analemma_
[https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/721460062355468289](https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/721460062355468289)

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385)

I suppose you _could_ interpret these as not necessarily saying "there is no
such thing as climate change", if you wanted to be denser than a neutron star.

~~~
rybosome
> CO2 is what every human breathes out; every plant, in turn,consumes CO2

That tweet from Ted Cruz is bizarre. We've removed 3.6 million square miles of
forest (from the original 6 million)[1], not to mention the billions of tons
of CO2 produced annually through fuel combustion. What does the fact that
humans expel CO2 have to do with it?

[1]:
[http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/rainforests/in...](http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/rainforests/index.htm)

------
hackuser
The same was true of January and February:

[https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?e...](https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3239)

[https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?e...](https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3264)

~~~
dsp1234
FTA:

 _The JMA measurements go back to 1891 and show that every one of the past 11
months has been the hottest ever recorded for that month._

~~~
philliphaydon
I wonder how the results would look if we used the same tools for those
100years. No doubt more accurate ways of measuring temp only skew results.

~~~
wang_li
It doesn't help that the official US temperature record has been adjusted and
readjusted to make the past cooler.

~~~
hackuser
I wonder if there is a Conspiracy Theory of Gravity, similar to the Conspiracy
Theory of Climate Change. There's this, I suppose:

[http://wiki.tfes.org/Gravity](http://wiki.tfes.org/Gravity)

~~~
Zuider
This particular Flat Earth Society is a satirical group where they entertain
themselves with ingenious rationalizations such as the one you linked to. I
wouldn't imagine that there is a single true believer among them.

------
joshuaheard
I really don't see the point of these "warmest on record" articles. Since we
are coming out of an ice age a mere (on the geologic time scale) 12,000 years
ago, we should expect increasingly warm temperatures. Also, the "record" in
this case only goes back 130 years, and the earth is 4.5 billion years old, so
to try and make some sort of global warming generalization based on
.00000000028% of the evidence is fallacious.

~~~
cryptoz
Another climate change story on HN where the top comment is a denier citing
logical fallacies about how statistics and science work. :(

As crass as it may sound, I _really_ wish Hacker News would talk about all the
money that can be made by building startups that aim at mitigating the effects
of climate change, about the routes to renewable, sustainable energy sources
(also worth untold trillions of dollars), etc.

Instead, HN seems to mostly be composed of climate change deniers.

\-------------

Edit: HN tells me I'm not allowed to reply to rsync's comment below. Here's my
reply:

> You don't have to be a "denier" to be annoyed by hearing that the "most (X)
> ever" is based on ~150 years of observations.

The post author was not expressing annoyance. They expressed that the climate
is not changing due to human activity:

> Since we are coming out of an ice age a mere (on the geologic time scale)
> 12,000 years ago, we should expect increasingly warm temperatures.

That is not "a reasonable comment and a reasonable sentiment." It's an
extremely damaging falsehood that does not have a place here on HN.

~~~
zxcvvcxz
Please point out why the logic in the OP is fallacious. You shouldn't just
call someone out like that without having some substance in your post.

Plus, it would help undecided people like myself have more data points and
logical arguments to consider on both sides.

~~~
cryptoz
Sure.

> Since we are coming out of an ice age a mere (on the geologic time scale)
> 12,000 years ago, we should expect increasingly warm temperatures.

No we shouldn't expect this kind of temperature rise. Not like this. This
quote is entirely nonsensical, it has no logical backing at all. The rates of
temperature rise we are seeing right now are _not_ to be expected based on our
last ice age receding. The fallacy here is "made shit up and pretended it was
truth".

> Also, the "record" in this case only goes back 130 years, and the earth is
> 4.5 billion years old

The record is a real record. Putting it in quotes implies that it isn't a
record. That's false. Also, this implies that the age of the earth is relevant
to how we act today. Does NYC or SF care about the temperature of the Earth
during the formation of our solar system? No. It's not relevant.

> so to try and make some sort of global warming generalization based on
> .00000000028% of the evidence is fallacious.

Nobody is making that generalization, or using that scale of evidence. This is
a fallacy because the post author has pretended that the IBM article quoted
said that they (Weather Underground) used .00000000028% of available evidence
to draw their conclusion. Again, this is false.

~~~
James001
Again, you didn't cite any actual facts. Repeating something doesn't make it
true. You should reply with a citation proving that the rate of temperature
rise is an anomaly. Cause right now you're ironically "making shit up and
pretending it was truth", in your own words.

Also, noting the fact that the record only goes back 130 years is merely
pointing out how little statistical significance climate models based on "the
record" have.

Your post is rank with hypocrisy.

~~~
soundwave106
Longer sets of data exist that are not global in scale. The longest is the
Central England Temperature set, going back to 1659.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature)

Beyond that, people have attempted reconstruction from other evidence. For
instance I found an attempt at a 2000 year reconstruction using tree ring data
here:
[http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.ht...](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html)

Assuming this reconstruction and others is sound, it is apparent that there
definitely is a fair bit of natural temperature variability. But the recent
temperature rise in the last 50 years certainly seem like aberration, in terms
of rate of change.

------
nikolay
Every month and year will be the warmest. You don't need an extraordinary
intelligence to see where we'll be 10-15 years from now if we don't do
something drastic about it! But I doubt there's much we can do at this stage -
it's too late! Just imagine the migration flows of humans and animals from the
soon uninhabitable areas like Africa and the Middle East toward the poles. You
can foresee pandemics, civil wars, or even a world war. There are already a
few tropical diseases that came to Europe like the Bluetongue disease, the
West Nile Virus, and others - and this is just the beginning. Our livestock is
not prepared, imagine the costs. With this in mind, I think Siberia, Canada,
and Alaska are going to be the best locations for my near-future residence...

~~~
edgyswingset
I think that's quite the over-exaggeration. While I agree with you in
principle, it's a far more nuanced problem.

But I will say this: we will have a crisis on our hands in places like
Bangladesh. Investing in ways to remedy this will benefit us all.

~~~
nikolay
Not an exaggeration, unfortunately - this is what even some NATO officials
have been discussing. That's why the migrant crisis is so important - it's a
test and it also shows how unprepared the EU for something like this is!

------
visakanv
I'm in Singapore (we're right smack on the equator) and it's seriously
sweltering here. Really, the hottest it's ever been in my entire life (25yrs).
It's unbelievably intense.

~~~
kcarter80
I'm no denier, but take care not to conflate climate with weather.

------
andrewvijay
We are going to suffer. I'm worried that my children are going to suffer too
;(

~~~
taberiand
Don't worry too much - our children's children won't suffer.

They'll be dead.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I think you're overdoing it.

In the history of Earth there were periods where climate were much hotter,
with more greenhouse gases, yet life did not stop.

Yes maybe we will suffer (maybe not so much), but don't over-dramatize the
issue because drama does not last.

~~~
andrewvijay
I think you are not realizing the scale of the impact its gonna create.

------
pink_dinner
temperature != climate. This is what all of the same people writing articles
like this chirp out whenever someone talks about current temperature changes
having anything to do with climate change.

~~~
splawn
How do global temp avgs not have anything to do with climate? I must admit
though "Global Warming does not mean Global Warming" is at least a new one I
haven't heard before, lol.

~~~
sickbeard
The thing is when it gets unusually warm everyone cries climate change and
when it gets unusually cold it's completely dismissed. That's what OP is
pointing out

~~~
pink_dinner
Exactly. These popsci articles aren't really based on any scientific facts.

~~~
splawn
"Popsci" Says the troll with -4 karma. This story was directly taken from NOAA
[0].

[0]
[http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201603](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201603)

