New Article out on Global Warming.

An atoll in the island nation of Kiribati, which is only a few feet above sea level
Photo credit: Kadir van Lohiuzen, Noor Images via National Geographic.

Reported by the National Geographic, here. (I know, it's owned by Murdoch now, but what can you do?)

An annual report that is sometimes called the planet's "physical" finds that 2015 was the warmest year since records began in the mid to late 19th century. The year also marked several other milestones, from a record carbon concentration to an unusual number of tropical storms. 

The 26th report, State of the Climate in 2015, released online today by theAmerican Meteorological Society  (AMS), was compiled by hundreds of scientists from 62 countries and was peer reviewed.

Speaking of tropical storms, yesterday here in New Orleans an afternoon pop-up thunderstorm cloud ended up behaving like a tropical storm, with lots of leaves and small debris blown this way and that.

Here are the five key points made by the report, according to NatGeo:

1. In 2015 Earth was about 1 deg C (1.8 F) warmer than it was in the 1880s. Warmer still in 2016, with January through June being 1.3 deg C warmer than the pre-industrial era in the late 19th Century. This is when El Niño has lost his strength.

2. Sea-surface temps are the hottest ever since records were kept, aided by The Blob in the Northeast Pacific, despite the freshening and cooling by the Greenland ice melt in the North Atlantic.

3. Carbon Dioxide atmospheric content has passed the 400 ppm milestone. This was last witnessed in the middle Pliocene Era, 2-3 million years ago, or perhaps even the middle Miocene, 10-15 million years ago.

4. Global Sea-Level Rise is the highest since records were kept. The global mean sea level rise is now about 70 mm (2-3/4") higher than the levels taken in 1993, which in turn was a little bit higher than the 1988 value which was higher than the 1929 value; the post-1929 rise actually varied from town to town, due to gravity, land subsidence, seismic pressures, crustal springback because of melting ice caps, etc., etc.

5. Many parts of the world experienced extreme weather. This weird weather is well documented on YouTube by LAST MESSAGES in his 2015 IS STRANGE and 2016 IS STRANGE series (and more dating back to 2011) and by others.

For more information, click here.