What a Way To Close Out a Decade

It's widely reported that the United States, Japan and Australia subverted the recent Madrid climate summit, deftly blocking any meaningful action to fight climate change.

Australia, isn't that ironic. The Land Down Under is enduring its 2nd consecutive day of record heat and summer is just getting started. The local met office warns that worse temperatures lie ahead. Meanwhile Australia is being swept by brush fires of near Bibilical proportions. At least they're making big money flooding China and India with thermal coal.

Leaving schadenfreude aside, we're less than two weeks away from closing out what has been the hottest decade in the history of human civilization.

Deadly heat waves, wildfires and widespread flooding in 2019 punctuated a decade of climate extremes that, by many scientific accounts, show global warming kicking into overdrive. 

As the year drew to a close, scientists were confidently saying 2019 was Earth's second-warmest recorded year on record, capping the warmest decade. Eight of the 10 warmest years since measurements began occurred this decade, and the other two were only a few years earlier. 

Arctic sea ice melted faster and took longer to form again in the fall. Big swaths of ocean remained record-warm nearly all year, in some regions spawning horrifically damaging tropical storms that surprised experts with their rapid intensification. Densely populated parts of Europe shattered temperature records amid heat waves blamed for hundreds of deaths, and a huge section of the U.S. breadbasket region was swamped for months by floodwater.

And wildfires burned around the globe, starting unusually early in unexpected places like the UK. They blazed across country-size tracts of Siberia, fueled by record heat, flared up in the Arctic and devastated parts of California. Again and again, scientists completed near real-time attribution studies showing how global warming is making extremes—including wildfires—more likely.

Okay, enough. Out of respect for the festive season there's no point getting into what's coming - tipping points, climate departure, and so on - in the coming decade.  Prepare to be surprised which, given our levels of education and free access to more information than ever, is a surprise unto itself.

Oh, by the way, Winter Solstice arrives Saturday.