This past July and August have tied each other for the hottest months on Earth since NASA’s record-keeping began in 1880. The past two months boast temperatures averaging 0.84 degrees Celsius (1.27 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the earth’s average temperature.
Records from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which uses different parameters and methods than NASA to record global temperatures, show the record-breaking temperature trend has been going on for 14 months.
“The scary thing is that we are moving into an era where it will be a surprise when each new month or year isn’t one of the hottest on record,” Chris Field, a climate change scientist at the Carnegie Institute and Stanford University, said according to News.com.
“Whether one year is 0.1 degree warmer than any other — it doesn’t mean too much,” Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s director for Goddard Institute of Space Studies told The Atlantic. “The main issue is the long term trend shows the planet is one degree Celsius — almost two degrees Fahrenheit — warmer than it was during the 19th century. That has a very large impact on polar ice, on agriculture, on coastal erosion, on water safety. It’s a century-long trend at this point.”
Additionally, a study published on September 26, 2016 in Nature contains global temperature records extending two million years into the past — the longest continuous data set ever published. The study examines data from ocean-sediment cores and climate models to estimate global average surface temperatures.
Lead author Carolyn Snyder and her team at the Climate Protection Partnerships Division of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. examined the relationship between past temperatures and carbon-dioxide levels from Antarctic ice cores. From this data, her team concluded that the long term damage by greenhouse gases may be a lot more severe than we expect. Even if the current carbon-dioxide levels were to stay approximately the same, average global temperatures may increase by approximately five degrees Celsius over the next few millennia.
If the pre-industrial CO2 levels double as they are expected to in the next few decades, the global average temperature could be boosted by around nine degrees Celsius.
Schmidt enjoys his research and the attention climate change is getting, but he hopes to see a real push for change in the next few decades.
“We like anniversaries and records, but what the world is doing while we talk is changing,” Schmidt told The Atlantic. “And that’s the big takeaway.”
