Record Hot Years Could Be 'New Normal' By 2025

Following in the blistering footsteps of 2014 and 2015, this year is on track to be the warmest on record.  And we probably need to get accustomed to this sweltering heat. If carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate, these record hot years will be the “new normal” by 2025, new research shows. Even if we take action to curb emissions, the damage has already been done, warns the study, published Friday in the Bulletin of American Meteorological Society. Human activities have already ensured that the global annual average temperature of 2015 will be the norm “no later than 2040,” the researchers said. (The “new normal” was defined as being the point when “at least half of the years following a record year were cooler and half warmer,” according to the study.)  “If we continue with business-as-usual emissions, extreme seasons will inevitably become the norm within decades,” said lead author Sophie Lewis, an Australian climatologist. “That means the record hot summer of 2013 in Australia ― when we saw temperatures approaching [122 degrees Fahrenheit] in parts of Australia, bushfires striking the Blue Mountains in October, major impacts to our health and infrastructure and a summer that was so hot it became known as the ‘angry summer’ ― could be just another average summer season by 2035.” ‘Immediate And Strong Action’  Despite the dir...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news