Saturday, December 21, 2013

Putting a Myth to Rest

There's been no end of talk from climate science denialists that global warming has slowed in recent years.  Yes, global land surface temperatures have risen somewhat more slowly than they have in the past.  They've still been going up.

Yet when you look at the changes in a decadal context and add in both land and ocean surface temperatures you get a really clear picture of what's actually happening instead of what the denialism industry claims is happening.


Slowing down?  Hardly.

2 comments:

  1. The destruction of the oceans is particularly brutal - . If we could put our minds to it, I'm sure we could find a solution to clean it up and bring it back to life, but there's no money in it. We focus on what we can see - clear cutting forests and air pollution, but we're missing the big one.

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  2. Hi Marie. Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware of them before. We're effectively "clear cutting" our oceans too with everything from sea floor trawling to collapsing global fisheries and continuously fishing "down the food chain."

    We've kept the foreign industrial fleets somewhat at bay here. The RCAF P-3 Aurora patrol aircraft usually manage to detect drift nets when they're laid and the navy goes out to seize them.

    Climate change seems to be driving a northward migration of bait fish such as anchovies. Creatures that prey on them follow.

    There's now a permanent flock of pelicans that has moved into the Victoria/Race Rocks area. Huge herds of white sided dolphin are being seen. Two years ago, 300 vicious Humboldt squid, denizens of the Sea of Cortez, washed ashore on Long Beach near Tofino. Humpback and other whales have returned in large numbers. We're seeing large numbers of other creatures like the giant sunfish, sharks and so on. They've even spotted a southern sea turtle in the waters off Haida Gwai.

    Of course all these creatures that are moving in are also moving out of waters to the south so it's a net loss of marine habitat. Meanwhile some unknown disease is wiping out our own sun starfish.

    People in some parts of Canada don't recognize climate change happening. We certainly see it here.

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