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24 thoughts on “Earth sets new personal best”

  1. Justin

    It’s going to have to get a lot hotter to get the death rate to exceed the birth rate. Lots of tourists running around making it worse. Plus, you know, war.

  2. Thyme Crisis

    But it was really hot somewhere a couple of decades ago, and also it snowed somewhere this winter! Ergo, global warming is a hoax.

    1. Jim B 55

      Human brains don't cope with stochasticity well. It is one of our big weaknesses. I don't know how we can combat it. Our brains are always looking for deterministic explanations. Hence, all sorts of invented concepts to try to explain things as deterministic, even when they ultimately don't make sense (and yes I do mean religions). So things that can only be seen statistically, can be denied by a deterministic mindset (because they don't always happen).

    3. csherbak

      To that point, and I'm nowhere near close to watching/understanding climate issues/thinking/research, but a recent "it's not all that hot" climate denier/skeptic in my socials (don't h8 me he's a cousin) posted a meme that pointed to 1933 as hotter than this "hottest." And I noted that Drum's graph starts at 1940. I suspect part of that is we only started tracking things in a certain way in 1940 but it's interesting that deniers are hanging onto even thinner threads than Senator Snowball.

      2. Gilgit

        I don't know why the graph starts at 1940, but it is easy to find the global temperatures as directly measured, going back to 1880. People have been recording things like temperature around the globe for a very long time. Jesus, the wikipedia page has data going back to 1850. Sheesh.

        I don't know who said this lie, but it isn't even a little true. Not in any way shape or form. Completely made up. It is an Un-Fact.

        I could give people the benefit of the doubt and say they are mixing it up with the Dustbowl, but come on. There is no other side here. After so many lies and deliberate attempts to mislead there is no need to cut anyone any slack.

        "Gee, I'll pick a year that was a long time ago so no one will know off the top of their head if what I'm saying is true. After all, it isn't like there are scientists that have spent decades on this. How can anyone know what the temperature was in 1933?"

      3. kennethalmquist

        Monthly, annual, and quarterly data going back to 1880 can be found here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

        This data is relative data; for example the value of 121 for June 2024 means that global temperatures were 1.21 degrees C warmer than the 1951 through 1980 average for the month of June. So it’s different from the data in Drum’s chart, but it’s enough to see than the meme about 1933 being hotter than today is total nonsense. 1933 was one of the colder years on record; every single subsequent year was warmer.

      4. Coby Beck

        1934 was the hottest day to date averaged over the continental US, which comprises roughly 2% of the global surface area. Standard denialist talking point for decades.

    4. jijovig651

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  3. Perry

    Calling destructive weather a “personal best” as if it were an accomplishment strike me as a bit callous and in poor taste.

  4. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    Accepting the award for her superlative performance is Mother Earth:

    "On behalf of all the inhabitable planets, I'd like to thank everyone for their help in making me as hot as I am right now. Obviously, mankind deserves the credit, but special thanks go to leaders of the fossil fuel sector of the world economy and short-sighted political leaders everywhere. I'd also like everyone to remember not only recorded temperatures of the past (shoutout to the makers of the Ice Age films -- I loved them all!), but also the many species now extinct due to rising temperatures, along with the many individuals who have died from forced migration due to climate change, forest fires, and heat exposure.

    Also, please help me celebrate everyone who has distracted citizens everywhere from dealing with rising temperatures by eschewing scientific thinking, producing mountains of unneeded products made of plastic and designer foods that contain virtually no nutrition (I'm looking at you, Beatrice and Hostess!), and political leaders who started wars or continued them heedlessly, especially Putin, Netanyahu and Hamas, because, really -- why? Just why? Anyway, thanks so much, and of course thank my Producer(s)! If those Creatives didn't have a sense of humor, how would we all survive? Well, those who are suviving, anyway! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I've got to go hang this plaque somewhere where it won't get too crispy."

    1. ConradsGhost

      Nice. Humans gonna do what humans gonna do. Only thing that's going to change this is repeated instances of massive external forcing. We are far, far, far less 'rational' and in control of ourselves and our actions than anyone wants to think or believe. If there's anything that's certain - shown through overwhelming evidence of what humans actually do - it's this.

      Apropos of Kevin's post, everyone with two neurons needs to read the Hansen, et al., paper on what's coming the next 10, 20, 30 years. Fun stuff.

      https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/Documents/PipelinePaper.2023.05.19.pdf

      1. Ken Rhodes

        This the last sentence of the Abstract:
        "These changes will not happen with the current geopolitical approach, but current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation."

        I fear the authors of this scientific paper do not appreciate how "crowd behavior" requires individuals to make the choice to join the crowd. When the crowd is measured in millions (not to mention billions) the vast majority of individuals assess their contribution to the outcome to be so small as to be essentially equal to zero. They therefore make personal choices based on a personal payoff matrix that ignores their minute share of the crowd payoff.

  6. Kevin B

    Off the topic of global warming and record setting, I'd like to know why the global surface air temperature is 4 degrees C higher in July than in January. Sure, it's warmer where I am, but it's winter down under. Anyone know how this works?

    1. Kevin B

      Hunted a little further and found this from https://www.miragenews.com/earth-experiences-warmest-day-in-recent-history-1282331/. Makes sense:

      The global average temperature tends to be warmest during northern hemisphere summer. This is because the large land masses of the northern hemisphere warm up faster than the oceans of the southern hemisphere can cool down during the northern summer months. As a result, the annual peak of temperature generally occurs between late June and early August. This year, the global average temperature was already at near-record levels, after being at record levels for the time of year for more than a year.

  7. golack

    It's getting a bit old now, but Climate Wars by the BBC were a good series of documentaries explaining how our understanding of the Earth's climate evolved and the politics that was going on.

    I should point out that we are still in an "ice house" world, i.e. we have polar ice caps. When some claimed we were going into a period of global cooling, e.g. the next ice age, in the 1970's, that happened shortly after we got the timing down for past glacial-interglacial cycles, but still didn't have full understanding of those cycles. This is where the first (series of 3) documentary started.

    And yes, somewhere in there you'll see the ad where both Nanci Pelosi and Newt Gingrich were both on board with dealing with climate change....

    Episode 1/3:

    https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/earth-the-climate-wars/

    Episodes 2/3 and 3/3:

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2w2rb4

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3klszs

    (sorry, direct links not included, you'll have to cut and paste)

    1. emjayay

      I took five college earth science classes in the 1990's and of course read and see (and because of those classes understand) a lot about this stuff. There was a two hour PBS program on a week or two ago that had more information and put some things together I really hadn't thought of before, including what you mentioned. The title of the show wasn't about current global warming per se, but it got there.

      Can't find it right now, but anyway keeping an eye on your local PBS station if not subscribing to Passport will get you this kind of thing.

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