“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
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18 de junio de 2015
This Year Is Headed for the Hottest on Record, by a Long Shot
We broke the record. Again. Last month was the hottest May on
record, and the past five months were the warmest start to a year on
record, according to new data released by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. It's a continuation of trends that made
2014 the most blistering year for the surface of the planet, in
records going back to 1880.
The animation below shows the Earth’s
warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea
over more than 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or
below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in
the 21st century, and 2015 is on track to break the heat
record again. It isn't even close.
Results from the world's top monitoring agencies vary slightly. NOAA and the Japan Meteorological Agency both had May as the hottest month on record. NASA had
it as tied for the second-hottest. All three agencies agree that there
has never been a hotter start to the year than the past five months.
The
heat was experienced differently across the world. People in the U.S.
Midwest had an unusually cool May. But most of the rest of the globe had
unusually warm to downright scorching temperatures.
Source: NOAA's National Climatic Data Center
The stifling start to 2015 may be just the beginning. The National Weather Service predicts that a pattern of unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean, known as El Nino, has an 85 percent chance of persisting through the 2015-2016 winter. And this El Nino could be a big one.
A strong El Nino doesn't guarantee record-breaking heat, but combined
with the general trend of global warming, that possibility is looking
increasingly likely.
The chart below shows global temperatures
since 1982, with El Nino periods highlighted in Red, La Nina in blue,
and neutral periods in gray.
Monthly temps compared to the 1901-2000 average. Graphic by Deke Arndt and Climate.gov
El
Nino conditions transfer heat that's been building in the ocean into
the atmosphere, affecting weather around the world. A protracted El Nino
could bring relief to California's unprecedented drought in the form of
heavy rains, but would likely add another year to the rising stack of
broken temperature records.
