Earlier today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its monthly assessment of our rapidly degrading climate.
We’ll start with the good news: 2012 is on pace to be only the ninth-warmest year in recorded history! This is good news in the sense that, over the 133 years records have been kept, 2012 has so far been warmer than only 123 of them.
And now the bad news.
- Temperatures in August were 1.12 degrees F warmer than the 20th-century average.
- August was the second-warmest on-land August in recorded history. July and August were both the fourth-warmest months including land and ocean temperatures.
Click to embiggen.
- June through August was the warmest on-land period in recorded history.
- June through August was the third-warmest period in history when considering both land and ocean temperatures.
Click to embiggen.
Click to embiggen.
To get the point across (with a beat), here is a literal broken record.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R11fH1T-blA?rel=0]
Adorably, the person who posted that video thinks the flaw is with his turntable, not the record itself. But it doesn’t really matter since the melting point of vinyl is 160 degrees C. In a few decades, all of his records will be little puddles in cardboard sleeves that are on fire.
