Los Angeles Times (January 20)
“2015 was Earth’s hottest year on record, and it appears the planet is still getting hotter.” If the planet conforms with 2016 forecast from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it will “mark the first time the average global temperature reached record-breaking heights for three consecutive years.”
New York Times (October 10)
A study at the University of Hawaii finds that “by 2047, plus or minus five years, the average temperatures in each year will be hotter across most parts of the planet than they had been at those locations in any year between 1860 and 2005.” The researchers calculated the expected “climate departure,” the year when a location exceeds its historic temperature range, as 2046 for Beijing, 2047 for New York and Washington D.C., and 2063 for Moscow. Climate departure will come even earlier for tropical areas.
Tags: Beijing, Climate departure, Moscow, New York, Planet, Temperature, Tropics, University of Hawaii, Washington D.C.
Washington Post (June 12)
“The world is wildly off-target in its effort—if you can call it that—to limit global temperature rise to only 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels. Last year saw the highest level of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions ever, and the Earth is on a path to warm between 3.6 and 5.3 degrees, an outcome the World Bank recently warned would be very disruptive to human civilization.”
Tags: CO2, Earth, Emissions, Energy, Global warming, Temperature, World Bank
Washington Post (August 10)
The Earth is warming up as climate change creates increasingly extreme weather. “The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees — a full 3.3 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm for July. This follows the warmest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States, and it continues a long-term trend that is obvious to all except those who stubbornly close their eyes: Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine have occurred since 2000.”
The Earth is warming up as climate change creates increasingly extreme weather. “The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees — a full 3.3 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm for July. This follows the warmest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States, and it continues a long-term trend that is obvious to all except those who stubbornly close their eyes: Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine have occurred since 2000.”
Tags: Climate change, Earth, Global warming, Temperature, U.S.
BBC (August 20)
Global warming is directly impacting many species. “Animals and plants are shifting their natural home ranges towards the cooler poles three times faster than scientists previously thought.” The study of 2,000 species found that “on average organisms are shifting their home ranges at a rate of 17km per decade away from the equator.” In addition, it appears the quest for suitable temperatures is driving some species upward to higher elevations.
Tags: Climate change, Global warming, Species, Temperature
New York Times (July 19)
“It’s time to face the fact that the weather isn’t what it used to be.” Things are getting hotter and moister. Welcome to the new normal. Every decade, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recalculates normal climate data for over 7,000 U.S. locations based on 30-year averages. The latest numbers “show that the climate of the last 10 years was about 1.5 degrees warmer than the climate of the 1970s.” The seemingly small difference is massive. This trend means that summers like the “European heat wave that killed more than 30,000 people during the summer of 2003…. will likely happen every other year by 2040.”
Tags: Europe, Global warming, New normal, NOAA, Temperature, U.S.
Los Angeles Times (September 28)
“It was so hot Monday in downtown Los Angeles that the thermometer broke—literally.” Los Angeles hit 113 degrees at 12:15 p.m. on Monday. Then at 1:00, the official thermometer stopped working. (It has since been repaired). Los Angeles is just one of a string of cities and regions worldwide that have set record highs during 2010.
Tags: Heat, Los Angeles, Record, Temperature
