FOOTLOOSE AND…
If you have, like me, friends who continue to insist that global warming is a myth, there is now new evidence to refer to in your next “discussion” of the subject. According to both the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, plus the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, the year 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded.
To become specific, 2015 was 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the previous record holder, 2014. “A lot of times when you break a heat record, you break it by a few hundredths of a degree,” said Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “But this record, we literally smashed it. It was over a quarter of a degree.”
Fifteen of the 16 hottest years on record have now occurred in this century, according to NASA. Except for January and April, every month in 2015 was the hottest for that month, on record, globally.
Global leaders agreed, last December, in a worldwide conclave in Paris, that the planet should not be allowed to warm 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures and, ideally, should be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Based on the 2015 temperature records, we are already halfway to 2 degrees.
Hello… is anybody home?
