NASA has released the global temperature estimate for February of 2016. It’s a new record for the hottest monthly anomaly yet.

The red dot at the end marks the latest monthly value.



Deniers like Ted Cruz like to start their temperature graphs in 1997 or 1998, to hide the context which makes continued warming obvious. But that trick won’t work any more; here’s a view since 1997:

Deniers like Ted Cruz also like to show satellite-based estimates of temperature in the atmosphere rather than at the surface (where we live), because it shows less warming than the surface temperature data. They also like to claim that it’s the “best data we’ve got” — which is ironic, because Carl Mears (lead scientist of the team that processes the data they use, from Remote Sensing Systems) thinks the surface temperature data is better. In any case, those tricks won’t work any more either; here’s a view of satellite data for the troposphere:

The red dot at the end marks the latest monthly value.

It’s often noted that a single month is a limited view of what’s happening lately, that there’s also value in seeing what’s happening on the time scale of an entire year, and that 12-month running means are a way to do that. Here they are:

I like to emphasize that what matters most is the trend:

It’s going up. Has been, steadily, no pause.

The continuing barrage of record-breaking heat is remarkable. That’s because of the trend. Of course there’s fluctuation too, but without the trend we wouldn’t see records getting smashed again, and again, and again, year after year, month after month. We’re sure to see times again — soon — when the fluctuations go the other way and we get a respite from record-breaking heat. But that respite will be brief, because fluctuations will turn hot again too; that’s what they do. When they do, they’ll be added onto an even hotter trend value, because the trend isn’t going to stop any time soon.

Any way you look at it, not only was it a scorcher of a February, the trend is rapidly taking us down the path to worse trouble than we’re already in. Except one way: if you put your blinders on and refuse to see reality, because you’re in the grip of an ideology that denies science when you don’t like it, you’ll believe what you want to believe regardless what the facts say. Like Ted Cruz. And Donald Trump. And Marco Rubio.

If you value this post, feel free to donate at Peaseblossom’s Closet.