Here's the raw data, which shows April, 2010, to be the hottest April on record, and the previous 12 months to be the hottest year on record. (Yes, we had a long, cold winter here in Nebraska, but this graph is showing global temperatures.) This previous decade was also the hottest on record.
And we're in the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. You've heard global warming deniers claim that sunspots are the main reason for global warming? Well, if that's really true (it isn't - climatologists have already taken that into account), then we're really in for a world of hurt, because we're setting records even while sunspots have virtually disappeared.
So what about that canard, so popular with global warming deniers, that the Earth hasn't warmed at all in the past ten years? Take another look at that graph. Even global temperatures bounce around a lot. The recent trend is unmistakable, but if you cherry pick your positions - like starting from 1998, at that temporary high point on the graph - you could claim that temperatures have not gone up for a decade. Well, you could if you didn't mind lying through your teeth.
Yes, that's the kind of thing that global warming deniers do. Now tell yourself if that's really the side of the debate you want to be associated with, the side with people willing to use cheap tricks like that (since they don't have the evidence on their side). And if that doesn't bother you, how about the current witch hunt undertaken by right-wing politicians? They can't counter the science, so they simply try to persecute scientists. Shades of Galileo, huh? Does that make you proud?
As I've said before, I'm not a climatologist myself. So as a layman, the only rational move for me, in a scientific issue such as this, is to accept - tentatively, as all science is tentative - the consensus of the experts in this particular field. It is not rational to go with my gut, or some politician's or TV personality's gut, or someone's wishful thinking, or the latest conspiracy theory, always popular with lunatics, or even some minority view among scientists.
No, none of those things would be rational. They would not be smart. If I did that, if you did that, it would just be picking sides based on whatever you wanted to be true. That's not trying to determine the truth, it's just wishful thinking.
The consensus of scientists, those scientists who are specialists in this particular field, may be in error, but that's certainly not the way to bet. The consensus of climatologists is far more likely to be correct than the opinion of anyone else. There's no guarantee, of course. There's no such thing as "proof" in science, and no one is infallible. But if new evidence shows otherwise, the consensus will change quickly enough - far more quickly than any right-wing politician will ever change his mind, I assure you.
Total Earth Heat Content [anomaly] from 1950 (Murphy et al. 2009). Ocean data taken from Domingues et al 2008.
While I'm on the subject, here's another graph, from Climate Progress, showing where most of the heating is going, just as predicted. And so we're getting corals dying, due to higher ocean temperatures and more acidic ocean chemistry (because of increased carbon dioxide dissolved into the sea).
We are changing the composition of our atmosphere! We are changing the chemistry of our oceans! We are tinkering with critical parts of our only planet, without knowing for sure that it won't cause complete disaster. And Republican politicians call themselves "conservative"? I just don't get it.
Will any of this stop the global warming deniers? Of course not! After all, 150 years of evidence, every bit of it confirming evolution, hasn't stopped creationists. These people believe what they want to believe and that's that. But where are all the rational people? Are we really that outnumbered? Or are we just too apathetic to care?
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