September of 2016 was the warmest ever for Europe and Asia, the second most warm for Africa, and the third most warm for North America.
The NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information reported that this year’s September displayed a well 1.6°F above the median for the century. The sea surface temperature tied to 2014 for the second warmest of any September and the warmest in the whole year.
Global warming is still here
From another perspective, Earth has not enjoyed a month in 32 years that is cooler than average, meaning that global warming has all but disappeared. 2016 is expected to be the hottest year in over 100 years, seeing that even if the years’ last three months were average, it would still beat 2015 for the hottest year to be recorded.
It was also determined that the global average for land surface temperature was a record high for September and the year 2016 as a whole. The average Arctic sea ice extent for the month was 27.8 percent below the average that comprehends 1982 to 2010, one of the smallest records to date. For the Antarctic sea ice extent, it displayed a 2 percent drop compared to the same average.
In August, NOAA had announced that July was the hottest month on record, showing a 1.57cF above the average for the century.
2016 will surely beat 2015 for the hottest year on record, which in turn beat 2014 for that same title. The two latest records of the kind are by critically large margins. Although this doesn’t explicitly mean that global warming has worsened, researchers suggest that 2016 temperatures were under-predicted by computer models developed beforehand.
The Paris Agreements for climate conservation establish global objectives to try and curb the production of greenhouse gasses. The primary goal is not to allow Earth to increase its temperature over 1.5°C, although 2°C is the borderline limit.
Cities will sink unless global warming is tackled
The consensus is that the average temperature of Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8°C in 100 years. This has great implications for the ecology of our planet, as the changes in temperature come from human activity, land clearing, and the burning of fossil fuels. The current prediction is that global temperature should increase between 1.4 and 5.8°C in the next 100 years. This will result in the dramatic increase in sea levels, which would sink many human settlements in the oceans, New York City being one of the unlucky locations.
Floods in New York City have increased since 1800. Scientists analyzed the effects of Hurricane Sandy and measured data from 1856 to this day, being able to determine that rising greenhouse gas emissions cause the rise in sea levels.
“Our model for the first time pulls together probabilistic estimates for sea-level rise and storm surge to produce long-term predictions of flood stages. These two variables, although largely uncertain, are critical in determining the extent of coastal flooding from future hurricanes,” stated Ning Lin, author of the study at Princeton University to LiveScience.
Source: NOAA