Hot Times, Winter in the City....

"Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day."
--Anton Chekhov, 'Uncle Vanya' (1897)

For the better part of two months, ever since in late November/early December 2012 it was announced with great fanfare by the National Climatic Data Center that 2012 was officially the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States, right-wing conspiracy nuts went to great lengths to say “See?  It’s a hoax!  They talk about global warming, and then only produce local data!”

Well, brace yourselves.  Yes, the unexpected has happened.  The global data has been released, and sure enough, 2012 was not the warmest year on record for the entire Earth.  It was only the 10th warmest.  Aren’t we all feeling relieved now?

Snark intended.

Alarmingly, in addition to being a top 10 year for warm temperatures, 2012 was the warmest “La Niña year” on record.  Usually, La Niña cools global temperatures slightly, which suggests that if it were not for sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific Ocean, last year would have been even more of a scorcher than it already was.

Other highlights from the NCDC report:

• 2012 was the 36th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average.  “The last below-average annual temperature was 1976.”
• Most of North and South America, most of Europe and Africa, western, southern, and far northeastern Asia all experienced above average temperatures; Alaska, far western Canada, central Asia, and a few island nations experienced cooler than average temperatures.
• Ice melt in the Arctic was not only record breaking, it was record shattering; peak ice melt is usually measured in late September, but the record was broken by the 3rd week of August.
• The global annual average temperature was 0.90°C (1.62°F) above the 20th century average.  Contiguous U.S. temperatures were 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average, and we beat the old record for hottest year (1998) by 0.6°C (1.0°F).
• While precipitation averages were almost exactly statistically normal… extremes were more common, with some parts of the world experiencing extreme drought, and others experiencing record flooding.

The upshot, of course, is that global warming is real, and continuing.  Denialists will continue to spout nonsense every time a scientific survey is released, but we ought not to allow the background noise to drown out the cold (hot?) hard truth.

Meanwhile, there are numerous means of adapting to the warmer, more turbulent era upon which we are embarking, and this weekend we will elucidate on some of the reasons to be optimistic in the face of climate change.

Seriously, there are some reasons.  Unless you are from Vanuatu or Bangladesh, in which case, sorry, you’re fighting a losing battle, and will undoubtedly have to migrate soon.  Most of the world, though, can make some lifestyle changes, and live comfortable, productive, and even happy lives in the hot new world.

More on that later.  Anton Chekhov was not alone over a hundred years ago in seeing the danger of human disregard for the environment; unlike Russian novelists, though, it is our job to paint a picture of a more hopeful world, even if the facts are bleak.  We accept that challenge.  We’ll explain how after we finish our weekend chores.

Happy farming!