Living in Bomb Time — 18

Climate Report, Part Three

Global Warming accelerated between 2010 and 2020

If it continues, it’s catastrophically bad news

Our rapidly warming planet, global temperature anomalies 2015–2020

Here’s a Climate Change trivia question, “What was the last year that global temperatures were lower than the 1951–1980 baseline i.e., what was the last cold year on record?”

This question occurred to me recently and to my surprise I realized I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember a year when the earth cooled down instead of heating up. I had to look the answer up and it both surprised and saddened me.

Because it was 1976.

1976 was the last “cold” year on our planet

Since 1976 our planet has continuously warmed year after year as the CO2 level in the atmosphere has climbed, year after year.

In 1976 the CO2 level was about 330ppm, now it’s almost 420ppm

Someone born in 1976 has lived their entire life in a rapidly warming world. A world where approximately 4 billion atomic bombs worth of energy has accumulated in the oceans.