The Environmental and Conservation Issues Room
Three Headlines From Oct 13, 2014 on Climate Change
NASA: Earth Just Experienced the Warmest Six-Month Stretch Ever Recorded
Over the weekend, NASA announced that last month was the warmest September since global records have been kept. What’s more, the last six months were collectively the warmest middle half of the year in NASA’s records—dating back to 1880.
The record-breaking burst of warmth was kicked off by an exceptionally warm April—the first month in at least 800,000 years that atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, which keeps a separate record of global temperatures, this April ranked as the warmest April on record. Followed by the warmest May on record. Followed by warmest June on record. (July wasn’t quite as hot—just the fourth-warmest July on record.) But August—again, you guessed it—was the warmest August on record. The NCDC will release its numbers for September later this month.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_te...l?wpsrc=fol_tw
Last 100 Years' Sea Level Rise Unmatched In Geologic Record Of Past 6,000 Years - Guardian
The rise in sea levels seen over the past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a lengthy analysis of historical sea level trends. The reconstruction of 35,000 years of sea level fluctuations finds that there is no evidence that levels changed by more than 20cm in a relatively steady period that lasted between 6,000 years ago and about 150 years ago.
This makes the past century extremely unusual in the historical record, with about a 20cm rise in global sea levels since the start of the 20th century. Scientists have identified rising temperatures, which have caused polar ice to melt and thermal expansion of the sea, as a primary cause of the sea level increase.
A two-decade-long collection of about 1,000 ancient sediment samples off Britain, north America, Greenland and the Seychelles formed the basis of the research, led by the Australian National University and published in PNAS.
The 35,000-year span of the study was chosen as this comprises an interglacial period. Researchers could pick submerged sediments that may include tree roots, suggesting a previously lower sea level, or mollusks, which can be measured against the fossil record to determine the previous sea level.
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...global-warming
Paul Ryan skeptical on climate change
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Originally Posted by Captain Obvious
