It’s recorded sea temperatures that allowed us to track changes like this over time that I was referring to. I know that wasn’t super clear by the title.
Yes, that’s correct. We have not had the technology to accurately track this kind of data until 1982. Essentially the ~30 years of data from 1982-2011 is being used as a baseline. The past ~12 years or so have seen increasing levels of warmth compared to this baseline, and 6 standard deviations in statistics is usually “where did I fuck up my calculations” levels of absurdity. I think it is something like 1 in 500 million odds? I may be wrong, but it happening twice is not a miscalculation.
We could chalk it up to this being a natural phenomenon, but it’s more likely that we have reached tipping points in the climate that are now being seen in the data.
I know this isn’t politics or nation state news, but it is deeply troubling for all of us who live on planet Earth. Six standard deviations is mind boggling.
Mods, please remove this if you feel it isn’t news worthy. I know it breaks rule 1, but wanted to share.
Thank you kind internet person