The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for June 2015 was the highest for June in the 136-year period of record, at 0.88°C (1.58°F) above the 20th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.12°C (0.22°F). This was also the fourth highest monthly departure from average for any month on record. The two highest monthly departures from average occurred earlier this year in February and March, both at 0.90°C (1.62°F) above the 20th century average for their respective months, while January 2007 had the third highest, at 0.89°C (1.60°F) above its monthly average.

The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years.

One necessary note of caution: Hansen’s study comes via a nontraditional publishing decision by its authors. The study will be published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, an open-access “discussion” journal, and will not have formal peer review prior to its appearance online later this week. The complete discussion draft circulated to journalists was 66 pages long, and included more than 300 references. The peer review will take place in real time, with responses to the work by other scientists also published online. Hansen said this publishing timeline was necessary to make the work public as soon as possible before global negotiators meet in Paris later this year.

Under the plan, the EPA will adopt a rule that regulates carbon pollution from existing power plants for the first time, and in the video, Obama called it “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”
Compared to the proposed rule, the new final version cuts more carbon pollution from the power sector, does it with more renewable energy and less natural gas, while providing more flexibility along the way to states trying to meet their targets.
The final version of the regulation, according to a senior administration official, will actually reduce power sector carbon pollution 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. This is more ambitious than the 30 percent reduction over the same period in the proposed rule.

The World Glacier Monitoring Service, domiciled at the University of Zurich, has compiled worldwide data on glacier changes for more than 120 years. Together with its National Correspondents in more than 30 countries, the international service just published a new comprehensive analysis of global glacier changes in the Journal of Glaciology. In this study, observations of the first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010) were compared to all available earlier data from in-situ, air-borne, and satellite-borne observations as well as to reconstructions from pictorial and written sources.

"The observed glaciers currently lose between half a metre and one metre of its ice thickness every year -- this is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century," explains Michael Zemp, Director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service and lead author of the study. "Exact measurements of this ice loss are reported from a few hundred glaciers only. However, these results are qualitatively confirmed from field and satellite-based observations for tens of thousands of glaciers around the world."

The NWFSC has built an experimental state-of-the-art facility for growing animals in conditions that mimic pre-industrial, current, and future ocean carbon dioxide levels to observe changes in animal growth, survival and behavior.

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July 2015 was the highest for July in the 136-year period of record, at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.08°C (0.14°F). As July is climatologically the warmest month of the year globally, this monthly global temperature of 16.61°C (61.86°F) was also the highest among all 1627 months in the record that began in January 1880.

The first seven months of 2015 comprised the warmest such period on record across the world's land and ocean surfaces, at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09°C (0.16°F).

China is the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, and a large portion comes from burning coal for electricity. For reference, an 8 percent reduction in coal use over the first four months of the year resulted in a nearly 5 percent drop in the country’s overall carbon emissions — equal to the total amount emitted in Great Britain over the same time period.
The sheer scale of the electricity grid in China offers unique opportunities, for deployment of green technologies and for research. One Chinese solar company predicts that China will install 17.8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity this year. The United States just passed the 20 GW milestone for all installations.