Links tagged “avg”

UK Independent: Washington State University and the Technical University in Berlin study finds: "Being slightly warmer would also make a planet more habitable, with an ideal of about 5 degrees Celsius hotter than Earth thought to be the biggest improvement." ... "The new study looked for worlds that would be even more likely to foster life than our own – including those that are older, bigger, warmer and wetter than Earth – in the hope of informing future searches for life elsewhere in the universe."  ... "Researchers have found some 24 planets that are 'superhabitable', offering conditions more suitable for life than they are here on Earth."

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Climate Depot's Marc Morano: "So now 'scientists say' that a 5-degree celsius hotter planet is the 'ideal' temperature for life!? A 5 C hotter planet than Earth would be 'more habitable' than Earth?! But this flies in the face of all climate change claims! A 2018 so-called 'Hothouse Earth' paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led to claims that that Earth was 'dangerously close' to reaching 'unstoppable' warming. "The scientists warned the global warming tipping point to an uninhabitable 'hothouse Earth' was 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 'Fundamental societal changes' to create a 'stabilized Earth' are needed, according to the study’s press release." But relax, now we are being told to forget about 2 degrees C warmer, and seek out planets that are 5C warmer! Is this settled science!?" 

A Climate Depot reader reacts: "FYI the UK Independent just posted an article claiming that planets 5 degrees warmer than ours would be IDEAL, 'superhabitable' even!! LoL!!! This is a riot!!  My personal email also included a PDF of the article as of 2 hours ago, because I'm expecting them to rip it down as soon as they realize it undoes their editorial stance that warmer earth means DEATH TO HUMANITY."

In short, the US climate is in most ways less extreme than it used to be. Temperatures are less extreme at both ends of the scale, storms less severe and droughts far less damaging. While it is now slightly warmer, this appears to have been largely beneficial.

Wildfires now burn only a fraction of the acreage they did prior to WW2

Sea-level rise is currently no higher than around the mid-20th century

Tornadoes are now less common than they used to be, particularly the stronger ones.

Floods are not getting worse

Hurricanes are not becoming either more frequent or powerful.

Summers were hotter in the 1930s than in any recent years.

Little or no rise in temperatures since the mid-1990s.

Todd Myers: "The largest number of acres burned in the past five years was in 2018, when temperatures in E. Washington were cooler than this year. By way of contrast, 2017 was an extremely quiet fire year, but average temperature was 3 degrees warmer than the busy 2018 fire season. Additionally, 2014 was an extremely bad fire year, but average Summer temperatures were lower than the very quiet year of 2017. Precipitation was also very similar. Simply pointing to temperatures and even precipitation obviously doesn’t tell the whole story, nor is it a useful surrogate for fire activity."

Paul Homewood's polar report:

'Arctic sea ice extent, while low this year, is running well above the record low in 2012.'

'Arctic temperatures are not “rising twice as fast as the global average”. Indeed they have nor risen at all since 2004, and current temperatures are similar to those in the 1930s and 40s.'

'Greenland's growth in the ice sheet this year has been virtually in line with 1981-2010 mean, following one of the shortest melt seasons in recent years'

NOAA reported in 2019 that 'Greenland’s outlet glaciers have barely shrunk at all in the last eight years'

Antarctic 'sea ice extent is expanding well above the mean as it approaches its maximum extent'