Global warming update

Although many Americans and Europeans may not have experienced it, 2009 is going down in the record books as one of the warmest years ever according to NASA:

2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

So how much warming has taken place since modern records began 130 years ago? Not much:

In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.5°F) since 1880.

Furthermore, much of the warming has taken place in the coldest areas of the planet, such as the Arctic and Siberia, as evidenced by this graphic:

To give an idea of how cold it gets in some of those regions, the island of Dikson in Siberia is predicted to have a high temperature of -31 Fahrenheit on Thursday (and a balmy 19 degrees today). Mongolia, meanwhile, is currently dealing with cold weather so severe than an estimated 1 million livestock have perished. We should remember that extreme cold weather is a greater killer than extreme heat.

Meanwhile, a new paper says that another contributor to global warming might be the closing of the hole in the ozone layer:

That the hole in Earth’s ozone layer is slowly mending is considered a big victory for environmental policy makers. But in a new report, scientists say there is a downside: its repair may contribute to global warming.

It turns out that the hole led to the formation of moist, brighter-than-usual clouds that shielded the Antarctic region from the warming induced by greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, scientists write in Wednesday’s issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

“The recovery of the hole will reverse that,” said Ken Carslaw, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Leeds and a co-author of the paper. “Essentially, it will accelerate warming in certain parts of the Southern Hemisphere.”

Sometimes you just can't win.