#29- 2016-The Year in Climate Change
2016 burned through heat records, and the year is poised to be the hottest year since recordkeeping began 122 years ago, by a significant margin. At only the halfway point of 2016, NASA had announced that each of the first six months (from January to June) set new temperature records. Also, July and August were tied as the hottest month the world has seen in the last 136 years. By November, global temperatures had averaged 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The Copenhagen Accord in 2009 stated that warming should not increase by more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) this century, to hopefully avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
- Scientists predicted that this year the global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration would pass the 400 parts per million mark, permanently. In September, a month when carbon dioxide is typically at its lowest, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 ppm for the first time. The 400-ppm milestone is largely symbolic, a sign of modern civilization's devastating impact on the planet, climate scientists have said. Since the industrial revolution, humans have been adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than plants can take up. This process has driven carbon dioxide levels higher, adding to the greenhouse gas effect and increasing temperatures, along with many other climate change impacts.
- The report found that in 2016 ice levels showed the strongest, most pronounced signal of persistent warming due to climate change. In fact, the Arctic has continued to warm at twice the rate of the planet as a whole. With winds pulling warmer air up from the south, some areas of the Arctic experienced temperatures 14 degrees F (8 degrees C) above average this year, according to the Arctic Report Card.
