A New Global Temperature Record in Last Seven Months is Born at April

2017 will probably be cooler than 2016. There is currently an active El Nino, which always raise global temperatures. The El Nino is expected to be gone by 2017.This does not mean that 2016 wasn't a "real" record. It was still warmer than all previous recorded El Nino years, which does suggest that the Earth is generally is getting warmer.

If the temperatures keep rising, the ice cap at the north pole will melt. However, there's lots of methane under there. Methane as a greenhouse gas is about 20 times worse than CO2 (if we're talking about the same mass of gas). This will lead to a positive feedback loop where rising temperatures melt the ice caps which leads to a release of more methan which will lead to higher temperatures etc. Basically an unstoppable process once we triggered the loop (until the methane runs out).

The Earth will soon emit a massive amount of greenhouse gasses with a greater total warming potential than ALL of the emissions of the past century. In one or two decades, 8-12 degrees celcius global average temperature increase from pre-industrial baseline is expected.

People finally accept climate change, which means they have a moral imperative to take action. Then they decide to take all the worst possibilities and combine them all together. End result, they get to switch from 'the situation doesn't exist, I don't need to do anything', to 'the situation is so terrible, I don't need to do anything' without a sense of cognitive dissonance.

It's kind of terrifying reading these comments. People are denying it based off anecdotal evidence... "It was sooo cold this winter where I live..." And no actual numbers to back it up. Either that or making shitty puns. I know it's Reddit but I expected at least a little bit of intelligent conversation.