After Warmest 12-Months On Record, U.S. Poised To See Warmest Year Ever In 2012

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/26/918361/after-warmest-12-months-on-record-us-poised-to-see-warmest-year-ever-in-2012/

By Joe Romm on Sep 26, 2012

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reports today that this January to August is the warmest year-to-date on record for the contiguous United States. As Climate Central shows in this chart, the U.S. will easily beat the previous record warm year, 1998 — unless the rest of the year is unusually cold:

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Finally, January through December is a somewhat arbitrary demarcation. We already blew past the record for warmest 12-months period in August, as NCDC shows in this chart:

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And for those who actually care about future generations, there is every reason to believe that the Earth would just keep getting hotter and hotter:

Science stunner — On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter: Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models.”