NOAA: La Niña, which is defined by cooler-than-normal waters in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean that affect weather patterns around the globe, was present during the first three months of 2012…. It was also the warmest year on record among all La Niña years. The three warmest annual ocean surface temperatures occurred in 2003, 1998, and 2010—all warm phase El Niño years.

Global surface temperature anomalies relative to 1951-1980. The Nino index is based on the temperature in the Nino 3.4 area in the eastern tropical Pacific5. Dark green triangles mark the times of volcanic eruptions that produced an extensive stratospheric aerosol layer. Via NASA.

What follows is a NASA news release.

NASA Finds 2012 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend

NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record.

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis Tuesday that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago.

The average temperature in 2012 was about 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.0 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis.

Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but on the current course of greenhouse gas increases, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous decade.

“One more year of numbers isn’t in itself significant,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. “What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it’s warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and largely controls Earth’s climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has been rising consistently for decades.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory, was about 315 parts per million. Today, that measurement exceeds 390 parts per million.

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Setback Could Set the Stage for Higher Department of Energy Standards

by Kit Kennedy, NRDC, via Switchboard

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has just retreated on important new energy efficiency standards for natural gas furnaces that were scheduled to go into effect in May and would have saved Americans an estimated $10.7 billion in lower heating bills over the next three decades.

By undoing these standards that were supported by manufacturers, consumers and efficiency advocates, states, and many utilities, American households are destined to waste more natural gas and money. In terms of energy, these standards would have saved 31 billion therms of natural gas over the next 30 years – enough to heat 62 million typical U.S. homes for a year. And the standards would have avoided the emission of somewhere between 81 to 130 million metric tons of global warming carbon pollution over the next three decades – that’s equivalent to the pollution generated by thirty or so coal-fired power plants.

Energy efficiency standards require our appliances and heating and cooling systems to operate efficiently while still providing the same or greater level of performance and comfort. DOE’s appliance efficiency program has a long record of success. Unfortunately, sometimes we encounter a setback, which is what happened Friday with the Department of Energy’s action in an ongoing lawsuit. In a motion filed in a legal challenge, DOE asked the court to “vacate” – or undo – these furnace efficiency standards, so that it can go back to the drawing board and redo them from scratch.

Importantly, consumer and low-income consumer groups agree that this is a setback.  “The Department of Energy’s retreat from long overdue natural gas furnace efficiency standards is bad news for consumers. Strong efficiency standards reduce winter heating bills, helping all families but especially those who have the least means to stay warm and save money,” according to National Consumer Law Center attorney Olivia Wein.

DOE couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to turn the clock back on natural gas efficiency. Just last week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration affirmed that 2012 was the hottest year ever in the continental United States, and the destructive impacts of global warming on communities and public health keep adding up, especially in light of Superstorm Sandy. Moreover, concerns over the environmental and public health risks of under-regulated fracking continue to multiply. If DOE succeeds in undoing these standards, it needs to sets things right quickly by setting new furnace efficiency standards at the same or stronger levels.

Here’s the story.

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The seat may have been hot, but the questions weren't.

Early this month, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made headlines when he ripped into his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives for allowing their political gamesmanship over spending and budgets to torpedo an aid package for Hurricane Sandy. Then last week, Governor Christie did the rounds on five different national television networks to discuss the GOP’s current dysfunction and the destruction the superstorm left throughout his state.

But despite the extensive coverage, there was one issue that was noteworthy for its complete and utter absence. After tracking the five interviews, Salon reporter David Sirota noted that Christie was not asked about climate change once:

Somehow, in interviews with every major national television news organization about an unprecedentedly severe weather event, Christie wasn’t asked about climate change. That’s right, he wasn’t asked about whether Hurricane Sandy changes his views on climate change or whether Hurricane Sandy means we should address climate change more urgently. He wasn’t asked whether homes should be rebuilt in New Jersey’s climate-change-threatened areas. He wasn’t even asked why he didn’t mention climate change in his first state of the state following the hurricane.

Indeed, he wasn’t challenged with a single question about the entire issue. Not one.

As Sirota notes, this latest punt on the issue of climate change is part of a larger media trend. A recent study by Media Matters found that coverage of the topic collapsed on both the Sunday shows and the nightly news after 2009. The nightly news reports have modestly improved since 2010, but remain severely depressed from their 2009 peak. Their more prominent Sunday competitors are still scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Christie himself is self-contradictory on the question of climate change. He’s bluntly stated that “it’s real,” that “human activity plays a role,” that it’s “impacting our state,” and that “it’s time to defer” to the 90 percent of scientists who agree with those assessments. But in May of 2011, Christie pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state alliance along the northeast and the Atlantic seaboard to set up a regional cap-and-trade system. Like Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, Christie took the political risk of stating climate change is a problem and humans contribute to it, but then torpedoed actual policy to address those human contributions under pressure from his fellow conservatives and the rise of the Tea Party.

Human-driven global warming raises sea surface temperatures, which in turn drives up the energy of these storms as they form over the ocean. The higher temperatures increase water vapor in the air, leading to 5 to 10 percent more rainfall and an increased risk of flooding. Even the unusual high pressure system that drove Sandy into the northeastern coast rather than back out to sea has been linked to global warming.

In December 2012, 69 percent of New York State residents told a Siena Research Institiutue poll that they blamed climate change for Sandy. And in November of that year, 57 percent of Americans told the National Journal that they thought climate change will make storms like Sandy more likely.

All that, combined with Christie’s politically heterodox, outspoken, and pugnacious nature, his own mercurial record on climate change, his governorship of the state devastated by one of 2012′s most extreme weather events, it’s remarkable that the networks didn’t pose him a single question on the matter. As Sirota observed, “It seems there is now an unspoken rule in television news mandating that the topic of climate change is to be eschewed when at all possible.”

Related Posts:

• Yes, Climate Change Contributed To Superstorm Sandy
• How Does Climate Change Make Superstorms Like Sandy More Destructive?

The Bulletin‘s Science and Security Board announces its 2013 decision to keep in place the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock: It will remain at five minutes to midnight. In this open letter to US President Barack Obama, the Board presents its views on the key issues that affected its decision and provides the president with recommendations to consider in 2013 and throughout his second term.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock “conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself.”  These means include “nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.”

This year, the Bulletin‘s Science and Security Board, “in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel Laureates,” left the clock at 5 minutes to midnight. The Board also took the unusual step of releasing a powerful open letter to President Obama. I’ll excerpt the climate change parts of that letter below:

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350.org news release

Eighteen of the nation’s top climate scientists released a letter to President Obama today urging him to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

“Eighteen months ago some of us wrote you about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, explaining why in our opinion its construction ran counter to both national and planetary interests,”  wrote the scientists. ”Nothing that has happened since has changed that evaluation; indeed, the year of review that you asked for on the project made it clear exactly how pressing the climate issue really is.”

Indeed the past year has shown that climate change is here. A few months after Superstorm Sandy flooded parts of the Northeast, NOAA announced last week that the average temperature for 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees above normal and a full degree higher than the previous warmest year recorded — 1998.

The State Department is expected to soon release its supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) required for the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. The department’s previous pipeline EIS downplayed climate risks by arguing that the tar sands would be developed with or without Keystone XL and therefore the project had no responsibility for the additional greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning tar sands oil.

But two of Canada’s largest banks, TD Economics and CIBC, have recently said that without added capacity, “Canada’s oil industry is facing a serious challenge to its long-term growth” and that “Canada needs pipe — and lots of it — to avoid the opportunity cost of stranding over a million barrels a day of potential crude oil growth.”

The Obama Administrations has promised action on climate change but if KXL is approved, the Administration would be actively supporting and encouraging the growth of an industry which has demonstrably serious effects on climate.

Thousands of concerned citizens will come to Washington, DC on February 17th, President’s Day weekend, to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline. Rally information is at www.350.org/presidentsday.

###

Full text of the letter:

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By Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

This afternoon the House of Representatives plans to debate and vote on a multibillion-dollar disaster aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims more than two months after the super storm devastated New Jersey and New York.

To placate conservative Republicans who don’t want to vote for the entire relief package, the aid provision is divided into two parts.  Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) will offer a bare-bones bill that allocates $17 billion in funding mostly to meet immediate needs, including aid for individuals, community disaster relief and emergency transportation funding for affected areas in the two states.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) will offer an amendment to add $33.6 billion to the Rogers bill.  His supplemental package includes money for both immediate disaster relief and future community resilience projects.  The latter programs are an essential investment to prevent or reduce damages from future climate-related extreme weather events. The just-released draft National Climate Assessment predicts that we face ever-worsening extreme weather.  The report – authored by dozens of the country’s top climate experts – concluded that

“Sea level rise, combined with coastal storms, has increased the risk of erosion, storm-surge damage, and flooding for coastal communities, especially along the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic seaboard, and Alaska.”

Some of the resiliency provisions in Frelinghuysen’s amendment bill will help communities harmed by one of the 25 major extreme weather events that occurred during the last two years. (A full outline can be found here):

• $19.8 billion to rebuild critical infrastructure and fund community development block grants for Sandy-affected areas and other places harmed by extreme weather events between 2011 and 2013
• $4 billion for coastal restoration and sustainability initiatives that would improve flood control systems for storm-damaged areas
• $1.2 billion for storm-damage repairs to national parks and other public lands, as well as water infrastructure upgrades
• $513 million to improve weather forecasting and hurricane predictions, and to support recovery efforts for coastal communities
• $218 million for restoration, flood prevention, and watershed repairs of damaged agriculture lands

Lawmakers proposed over 90 amendments to the bill, but the House Rules Committee voted to keep them most of them off of the House floor.  This included an amendment by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) that would have required the Army Corps of Engineers to consider “projected sea-level rise attributable to human-caused climate change” when assessing coastal flood risks.

One amendment that representatives will vote on is offered by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA). It would to cut $13 million designated to “accelerate the National Weather Service ground readiness project.” Notably, he sought funds for flood relief in Georgia in 2009.

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Skyscrapers are obscured by heavy haze in Beijing Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013. (AP Photo)

On January 12, Beijing’s air pollution reached unprecedented levels, even beyond the upper limits of the Air Quality Index, which reports daily air quality around the world, and it’s taking a serious toll on Beijing’s residents. [ThinkProgress]

According to one hospital official, the number of emergency room patients with heart attacks roughly doubled over the weekend. Hospitals are struggling to handle an influx of people suffering from respiratory and cardiac trouble….

China’s pollution disaster should serve as a warning for American lawmakers who claim environmental regulation hurts business. While US pollution levels are nowhere near China’s, cities like Los Angeles and Birmingham struggle to meet basic federal air quality standards. Despite Republican opposition, the Environmental Protection Agency recently issued more stringent soot standards projected to save roughly 15,000 lives a year, which was published in the Federal Register today. Still, Congressional Republicans have not given up on their long campaign to defund the EPA. As part of the impending “fiscal cliff,” the agency’s clean air program stands to lose more than $100 million in funding.

Several of Washington, DC’s recent summers were unusually hot, and its most recent year was the warmest on record. According to the new federal climate report, that’s likely to become business as usual in the future. [WaPo]

Global green energy investment fell to $269 billion in 2012 after hitting a record high of $302 billion in 2011, with the drop driven largely by reduced activity in the United States. The good news, however, is that 2012′s investment level is still the second-highest ever recorded. [Grist]

A coalition of climate groups just sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking the Obama Administration to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel development in the Arctic region. The letter comes on the heels of an announcement that the Interior Department will conduct a 60-day assessment of the Arctic offshore drilling program. [Summit County Citizens]

According to leak European Union documents acquired by The Guardian, the British government is seeking to water down EU regulations that would prevent oil and gas drilling projects that could leave ecologically fragile areas vulnerable to oil spills and other accidents. [The Guardian]

The first leg of an undersea power transmission line that would ultimately connect offshore wind farms between New York City and southern Virginia is officially underway. The segment will be 189 miles long and run from Jersey City to an area south of Atlantic City. [NYT]