March Sets New Global Warming Record

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Via Joe Romm, NOAA reports a new record on the climate change front. Actually, we’ve set lots of new records recently, but most have been due to last year’s strong El Niño, which sent global temperatures skyrocketing. What about during a normal year with neither an El Niño nor a La Niña?

Well, the past couple of months have had neither. We have been “ENSO neutral,” in the jargon. And boy was it hot. According to NOAA, March 2017 marks “the first time a monthly temperature departure from average surpasses 1.0°C (1.8°F) in the absence of an El Niño episode in the tropical Pacific Ocean.”

Luckily for all of us, Donald Trump will soon defund NOAA’s climate research so we can pretend none of this is happening. I feel better already.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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