Dramatic 26-Second NASA Video Documents Planetary Heating
Using temperature data from all over the planet, spanning from 1880 to 2011, NASA scientists have created a 26-second video showing a global map of the Earth, with its colors changing over 130 years to reflect the above-average temperatures that are becoming increasingly prevalent as greenhouse gases rise in our atmosphere. The effect is most obvious from the 1970s forward. Around this time, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels increased worldwide as populations and human industry expanded. Furthermore, the enactment of clean air laws resulted in the decrease of soot, which had, since the 1930s, regionally cooled the United States and other temperate countries, masking some of the increased planetary heating from rising greenhouse gases. The decrease in soot removed this mask of global warming, which since then has become quite obvious and dramatic, as this animated temperature map illustrates. Locate the map by googling the phrase “NASA finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record” and looking for the entry under the NASA.gov topics section. That fact about 2011 alone is dramatic, but pales in comparison to the visual punch of the NASA global heating map.
Source
NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record, January 19, 2012, Steve Cole, NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html
Also: http://www.climatecentral.org/videos/web_features/nasa-finds-2011-ninth-warmest-year-on-record/ offers the same map as well as related content. Climatecentral has proven to be a reputable website for the dissemination of the science of global warming and climate change.
