Climate science

HERE is some recent data for those interested in climate science. January 2020 was the warmest January in the 141 year instrumental temperature data set that began in 1880. Interestingly it just eclipsed 2016, a year that had a large El Nino (hot-dry period).

January 2020 was 1.5 degrees warmer than the 1880-1920 January mean which is our best estimate of the pre-industrial era.

The six hottest global years since 1880, starting with the hottest were 2016, 2019, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2014. It is clear that the last six years have been the hottest six years out of the last 141 years and the probability of this is about one in seven trillion. Every six year old child on earth has lived every year of their life in the hottest recorded years.

Ninety per cent of the additional heat trapped by earth’s atmosphere as a result of our emissions has been and still is being absorbed by the ocean.

The ocean is essentially buffering us from the full effects of global warming, for now anyway, but don’t expect coral ecosystems to be around for much longer.

Thirty per cent of the total additional CO2 humans have emitted have also dissolved into our ocean which is now absorbing 22 million tonnes of CO2 every day. Our ocean is 25% more acidic than pre-industrial times. Some parts of the ocean are now dissolving the shells of marine organisms.

Atmospheric CO2 has remained at or below 300ppm for 2.7 million years prior to the year 1910. It is now 413pp which is an increase of 38%.

Greenland is now losing 234 billion tonnes of ice every year. In the mid 1990s it was losing 25 billion tonnes. Antarctica is losing about 254 billion tonnes of ice every year. In 1979 it was losing 40 billion.

A billion tonnes of ice is an ice cube 1 km long X 1 km wide X 1 km tall (One cubic kilometre).

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

GEOFF CASTLE, USQ research scientist