Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather has analyzed the global temperatures for this past month of September and has catergorized it as "absolutely gobsmackingly bananas."
Link to an article in Wired.com here.
Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, read that post yesterday. "I've been sitting at my desk trying to think of a better way to describe that, but I can't," Dahl says. "It's just shocking."
"Concerning, worrying, wild—whatever superlative you want to use," says Kate Marvel, senior scientist at Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that fights climate change. "That's what it is."
This is not a gradual effect, and it's clear that we're running out of time. And Republicans are denying this is even happening, and blocking even the modest measures that are proposed to mitigate this.
[S]uch extremes are alarming to scientists, both in terms of how quickly we're approaching the Paris threshold and how gnarly the effects of climate change already are: fiercer rainfall, like the precipitation that flooded New York City in late September. More massive hurricanes, like this season's Lee and Idalia. More vicious wildfires, like the one that obliterated Maui's city of Lahaina in August. The proliferation of bacteria and fungi that thrive in a warmer world. Ever more extreme heat.
"This is not about our grandchildren, this is not about the polar bears, this is not about someplace far away. This is affecting us right now," says Marvel. "What the science says is that every tenth of a degree matters. Every ton of emissions that can be avoided matters. If the world passes 1.5, then you shoot for 1.6. If it passes 1.6, you shoot for 1.7. And I think we now know after this year how 1.5 is not safe."
