2012: Top Ten Signs of a Warming World

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/2012-top-ten-signs-of-a-warming-world.html



1. Hot enough for you? Though it’s only mid-December, it’s already clear that 2012 will be the hottest year on record for the contiguous United States. “The warm November virtually assures that 2012 will be the warmest year on record in the U.S.,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently observed. “The year-to-date period of January-November has been by far the warmest such period on record for the contiguous U.S.-a remarkable 1.0°F above the previous record. ” The Web site Climate Central put it this way: “There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states.”

2. More hot air. Meanwhile, global carbon-dioxide emissions continue to climb. According to figures released earlier this month by the Global Carbon Project, run by the University of East Anglia and the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in the U.K., emissions hit a new record high in 2011. Global CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and cement production increased by three per cent, to 34.7 billion metric tons. “These emissions were the highest in human history and 54% higher than in 1990,” the project reported.

3. The future of ice. On August 26, 2012, the extent of the Arctic sea ice shrunk to a record low, breaking the previous record, observed in the summer 2007. By the time the Arctic melt season ended, in September, ice extent was 1.27 million square miles below the 1979-2000 average. “The Arctic is the earth’s air-conditioner,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the snow and ice center “We’re losing that." (In The New Yorker this week, Keith Gessen writes about a new shipping route where ice used to be.)


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/2012-top-ten-signs-of-a-warming-world.html#ixzz2GLuhaLf1