Southern California sweated out record-setting triple-digit temperatures in July in places ranging from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Ana.
And 2018 is on track to be one of the hottest years since record-keeping began in 1880, fitting in with the past four years--2016 was the warmest year, 2015 the second-warmest, followed by 2017 and 2014.
And now scientists are using a new probability formula say the next five years will likely be "anomalously warm."
Oh, goodie.
Global warming is tracked over longer time spans than a year, since temperatures are variable in the short term. And the long-term trends have seen increasingly warmer temperatures that have melted glaciers, reduced ice caps at the poles.
And then there's the Arctic, which has seen astoundingly high temperatures for what is usually a frozen world. While some areas remained deeply cold, other places saw temperatures 43 degrees warmer than usual--and above freezing for several consecutive days. The maximum reach of the ice cap--which grows in winter and shrinks in summer--was near record lows, a function, according to one theory, of climate change altering the flow of the jet stream.
As more of the Arctic goes ice-free, more heat is released into the atmosphere, which exacerbates the impact on the ice itself. And so we get into a feedback loop as warmer temperatures--propelled by humans burning fossil fuels--lead to the release of more gases that then feed warmer temperatures.
Not that it matters, at least to the earth. It will survive, even if we don't.
Editorial on 08/21/2018