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February 16, 2007
| January Smashes Warmth Record Worldwide | Environment |
January temperatures in the US were fairly normal, but not worldwide. January temperatures worldwide smashed the previous record for the warmest January on record. AP:
It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January [on record]. [...]Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.9 degrees Celsius) warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit (0.56C), which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.
"That's pretty unusual for a record to be broken by that much," said the data center's scientific services chief, David Easterling. "I was very surprised." [...]
The temperature of the world's land and water combined — the most effective measurement — was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit (0.85C) warmer than normal, breaking the old record by more than one-quarter of a degree.
Ocean temperatures alone didn't set a record. In the Northern Hemisphere, land areas were 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4C) warmer than normal for January, breaking the old record by about three-quarters of a degree. [...]
The world's temperature record was driven by northern latitudes. Siberia was on average 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5.1C) warmer than normal. Eastern Europe had temperatures averaging 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.55C) above normal. Canada on average was more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.88C) warmer than normal.
Larger increases in temperature farther north, compared to mid-latitudes, is "sort of the global warming signal," Easterling said. [...]
Temperature records break regularly with global warming, Trenberth said, but "with a little bit of El Nino thrown in, you don't just break records, you smash records." [Emphasis added]
Siberia's warmth can't be good news. As we've noted in the past, Siberia's permafrost harbors an enormous amount of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. As the world warms, the permafrost thaws, releasing methane, which warms the world further, causing more methane to be released, etc., etc., in a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
As I wrote previously:
The horrifying thing about these feedback loops is that at some point it's no longer going to matter much what we do — the process will have taken on a life of its own, accelerating out of control, leading finally to a new equilibrium in the form of a very different planet from the one we know.All of which makes our obsessive worrying about the threat of a possible terrorist attack seem grotesquely foolish. Survival depends on accurately assessing and prioritizing threats. But people seem to have a hard time mobilizing against a threat that doesn't have a human face. And of course war-profiteers are a whole lot better at playing the political game than are a bunch of climate scientists and environmentalists. But just imagine if the resources that have gone into selling us the "war on terror" had gone instead into informing us about the really important threats we face.
You often hear people say that dealing with global warming would be too expensive. Yet somehow we never seem to run out of money for war. Odd species, us.
Posted by Jonathan at February 16, 2007 02:28 PM
