2015 looking like another world record year for the global warming trend.

[Sea of red]

Did life recover?

Couple points:

A)There existed no advanced society.
B)There existed no species dependent upon a stable ecosystem.
C)There existed no industry.
D)There existed no economy.

Kinda different.

[One Bad Pig]

Your English is incorrect by definition, or maybe heavy senseless sarcasm.

Whatev.

[Bill the Cat]

Couple points:

A)There existed no advanced society.

And the rest of life is unconcerned with our advances. If mankind disappeared tomorrow, within 1,000 years, there would be very little trace of our "advanced society", and life would continue.

B)There existed no species dependent upon a stable ecosystem.

I'm no expert, but didn't humans survive a few ice ages?

C)There existed no industry.

Industry can adapt if necessary. We are a wily species after all...

D)There existed no economy.

There will be damage to the economy no matter what we do, if we in fact do something. Do you know how many people the oil industry employs? And how many coal/oil fired pieces of equipment are out there?

Kinda different.

Not really. Adaptation is necessary if it gets hotter just like it was then. Those who adapt survive.

[Cerebrum123]

Then you do not know the English definition for anecdotal. I will post the actual data for each month when available.

My advise to you is brush up on your English.

Okay, okay...

Seriously, I'm done now.

[Darth Executor]

That was for May.

Not calling you a liar.

Summer here usually starts at the end of March (a least as far as I'm concerned) but this year March was still winter cold half the time and spring lasted until this month.

[shunyadragon]

Summer here usually starts at the end of March (a least as far as I'm concerned) but this year March was still winter cold half the time and spring lasted until this month.

Personal reflections on local weather remain anecdotal, and do not reflect global recorded air and water temperatures. In North Carolina where I live this the year has been warm and June very hot!, how warm compared to the rest of the world I do not know, except for a three or four day exceptionally cold period in the winter.

The Gulf Stream has been very warm, and shark attacks are more frequent inn North Carolina.

[Leonhard]

You're exaggerating (doubtless for effect). Or do you consider slime molds large animals?

I'm not sure we have enough fossil fuels accessible to hit on the order of 3,000 ppm CO₂. The Permian extinction also appears to have been exacerbated by mass quantities of sulfur dioxide.

Actually if they get crazy enough to start to drill into the underwater methane deposits we have more than enough to make it to that and beyond I'd think.

[Sea of red]

Actually if they get crazy enough to start to drill into the underwater methane deposits we have more than enough to make it to that and beyond I'd think.

Not to mention it's a much more effective GHG.

[Juvenal]

You're exaggerating (doubtless for effect).

That's what I thought I was doing, but apparently I was only drawing the foil.

During the Permian extinction, the world didn't burn to a cinder but life on land was cut back to slime molds.

"That's just fine," said BtC.

Did life recover?

So there you have it. Personally, I'd like to draw the line on acceptable consequences a bit shorter than that.

Or do you consider slime molds large animals?

I'm not sure we have enough fossil fuels accessible to hit on the order of 3,000 ppm CO₂. The Permian extinction also appears to have been exacerbated by mass quantities of sulfur dioxide.

Those are great links. Thanks.

I don't know how high we can drive it, but I'd imagine the best evidence that the biosphere can hit 3,000 ppm again is that it already has. We won't get there by burning fossil fuels alone, though. Over the last decade, we've averaged an additional 2.1 ppm/year. Though the pace has increased 0.2 ppm/year over the previous decade, even with constant acceleration we won't hit 5 ppm/year in less than a century.

Barring add-on effects, that would keep us comfortably under 1000 ppm, though it wouldn't keep us comfortable. At a conservative estimate, that would represent an average increase of 10˚ C. We might adapt, but we didn't evolve in that temperature regimen, and neither did most of our fellow flora and fauna. It seems likely that large portions of the biosphere that are currently human-habitable would pull up their welcome mats due to temperature increase alone.

But I don't believe fossil-fueled industry will last that long. We've passed breakeven for solar, the most reachable replacement, in most of the U.S., in much of Europe and Asia, and nearly all of Africa and Australia. Breakthroughs are still needed for energy storage and secure, advanced distribution grids. We can get there, I think, but the costs go up the longer we delay taking the minimum necessary actions to preserve what we still can of our civilization and the habitable biosphere around us. For some locations, it's already too late.

For reference, my general location, Homestead, Florida, like most of southern Florida, has a mean elevation of about 5 feet. Projected changes in sea level under various GHG scenarios are as follows:

p2001c3c5g244001.jpg

Source.

My particular location is about a foot lower than that. I'm between ten and fifteen miles from the Atlantic and the Gulf, respectively. While the best of these would still put me above water in 2100, the worst do not, and after Katrina, I was flooded out for about two weeks. Moving further inland would help, but it's not as if there are hills to run to.

At that, I'm fortunate. Unlike the other billion plus humans who live in coastal lowlands, I am personally, professionally, and above all financially capable of relocating without unduly rocking anyone else's boat.

[Truthseeker]

We've passed breakeven for solar, the most reachable replacement, in most of the U.S., in much of Europe and Asia, and nearly all of Africa and Australia. Breakthroughs are still needed for energy storage and secure, advanced distribution grids.

It should be noted that the "solar breakthrough" is in many minds supposed to include adequate energy storage--not what Lao was expounding.

[Cow Poke]

'If your head is in the oven and your feet in the freezer, your belly button would be average,' but of course the average is meaningless.

Unless, of course, somebody starts a Navel War.

[Raphael]

I'm no expert, but didn't humans survive a few ice ages?

No because the current ice age has been going on for 2.58 million years, and the previous one ended 260 million years ago.

[shunyadragon]

No because the current ice age has been going on for 2.58 million years, and the previous one ended 260 million years ago.

I believe this can be misleading to the layman without more explanation. Laymen often interpret what scientists describe as glacial periods as Ice Ages. This period beginning about 2.58 million years ago is the current Ice Age cyclic glacial advances and warmer interglacial periods with a cycle of ~40,000 to 100,000 years, The warmer interglacial periods may be ~12,000 to ~50,000 years.

Based on what we know of the cycles in the past we should be in a cooling period ending the warming interglacial. Projections for the advent of the next glacial period is ~20,000 to ~50,000 years in the future.

[TheLurch]

Incidentally, if people are interested in tracking this themselves, the simplest source of data is here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ta...LB.Ts+dSST.txt

Pretty much all the record warmth is in this century, so you can scroll straight down to the bottom. There's a lot of month-to-month variation, so it's often more convenient to go to the columns with 3 month periods, off to the right. Looking at these, you can see that each of the 3 month chunks of 2015 are the second warmest on record; the two that are warmer came in different years, leaving 2015 as the warmest on record so far.

Another good place to look for what to expect coming up is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation index, which tracks warming of the surface waters of the Pacific. It's a major source of short term variations in the global temperatures, and NOAA tracks it here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

There's some lag between El Niño heating up and the global climate following (the atmosphere is big, after all) but we're in a moderate El Niño phase which means that global temperatures are extremely likely to drop suddenly any time soon.

[shunyadragon]

Incidentally, if people are interested in tracking this themselves, the simplest source of data is here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ta...LB.Ts+dSST.txt

Pretty much all the record warmth is in this century, so you can scroll straight down to the bottom. There's a lot of month-to-month variation, so it's often more convenient to go to the columns with 3 month periods, off to the right. Looking at these, you can see that each of the 3 month chunks of 2015 are the second warmest on record; the two that are warmer came in different years, leaving 2015 as the warmest on record so far.

Another good place to look for what to expect coming up is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation index, which tracks warming of the surface waters of the Pacific. It's a major source of short term variations in the global temperatures, and NOAA tracks it here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

There's some lag between El Niño heating up and the global climate following (the atmosphere is big, after all) but we're in a moderate El Niño phase which means that global temperatures are extremely likely to drop suddenly any time soon.

Good source!! Thank you!