Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world’s leading climate research centers.
Scientists have also released what they described as the “best evidence yet” of rising long-term temperatures. The report is the first to collate 11 different indicators — from air and sea temperatures to melting ice — each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s.
The newly released data follows months of scrutiny of climate science after skeptics claimed leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia suggested temperature records had been manipulated — a charge rejected by three inquiries.
Publishing the newly collated data in London, Peter Stott, the head of climate modeling at the UK Met Office, said despite variations between individual years, the evidence was unequivocal.
“When you follow those decade-to-decade trends, then you see clearly and unmistakably signs of a warming world,” Stott said. “That’s a very remarkable result, that all those data sets agree. It’s the clearest evidence in one place from a range of different indices.”
Currently 1998 is the hottest year on record. Two combined land and sea surface temperature records from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC) both calculate that the first six months of this year were the hottest on record. According to GISS, four of the six months also individually showed record highs.
A third leading monitoring program, by the Met Office, shows this period was the second hottest on record, after 1998, with two months this year — January and March — being hotter than their equivalents 12 years ago.
The Met Office said the variations between the figures published by the different organizations are because the Met Office uses only temperature observations, NASA makes estimates for gaps in recorded data such as the polar regions and the NCDC uses a mixture of the two approaches. The latest figures will give weight to predictions that this year could become the hottest on record.
Despite annual fluctuations, the figures also highlight the clear trend for the 2000s to be hotter than the 1990s, which in turn were clearly warmer than the previous decade, Stott said.
“These numbers are not theory, but fact, indicating that the Earth’s climate is moving into uncharted territory,” said Rafe Pomerance, a senior fellow at Clean Air Cool Planet, a US group dedicated to helping find solutions to global warming.
The cause of the warming was “dominated” by greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, Stott said.
“It’s possible there’s some [other] process which can amplify other effects, such as radiation from the sun, [but] the evidence is so clear the chance there’s something we haven’t thought of seems to be getting smaller and smaller,” he said.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS