Global warming guru and head of the NASA Goddard Space Laboratory, Dr. James Hansen, now says he got it wrong when in 1998 he testified to Congress about the future that climate change would bring to our planet.
"I was too optimistic.
My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But
I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase
in extreme weather.
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will
be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in
the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for
not only our future but also for our present.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of
weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it
is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of
extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be
directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for
the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation
other than climate change.
These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could
bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability
created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds
would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the
bills.
Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of “climate dice” to help
distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability
of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal,
some mild. That’s natural variability.
But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal
climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent
cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides
would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season
after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.
But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with
only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than
normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal
summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you.
...The future is now. And it is hot."
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