No hoax. No question. 2016 was the hottest year on record.
For the third year in a row, the global temperature was hotter than the year before and that’s the hottest since 1880.
“What follows are 137 years of diligently kept scientific records that show how humans are transforming Earth’s climate. The bright red line represents 2016—the third consecutive year to set a new record. The streak is the steepest and most sustained surge in planetary temperatures in the modern age,” reported an article from Bloomberg. Read the article to learn the details.
Although you may be thinking when you saw the dip in the last few months of 2016, “Hey! They say 2017 will be a bit colder because of La Nina! We did it!” – you shouldn’t be starting the high-fives just yet. The Arctic ice cap, the Greenland glaciers and the Antarctic Ice Sheet are all getting smaller. That means the temperature increase may rebound quickly because there is less reflective surface creating more absorption of heat.
The Great Barrier Reef is already 25 per cent gone. There are some streets in Miami that continuously flood, even on sunny days. In another couple years, the glacial ice-pack in the Himalayan Mountains, which feed much of northern India, will be a fraction of what they are now and almost a billion people will be searching for water.
So, the earth is warming and climate change is real, there’s no question, except: