The first four months of 2015 were 0.8 degrees above the 20th century average for that period, eclipsing the same months in 2010 by 0.07 degrees, the US agency said.

The past 12 months also tied with the year to March as the warmest such period on record. All but one of the 10 warmest rolling 12-months periods have occurred in the past two years, NOAA said.

One of those periods was January-December last year, making it the hottest calendar year in records dating to 1880, eclipsing 2005 and 2010, NOAA and other agencies say.

The Pacific features prominently in terms of abnormal warmth for the first four months of the year, while north-eastern North America and the North Atlantic were notable patches of cold conditions.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/warm-seas-keep-planet-on-course-for-a-hot-2015-as-el-nino-builds-20150520-gh5h5h

A vast slab of Antarctic ice that was previously stable may have started to collapse, according to new analysis of satellite data.

Research published in the journal Science on Thursday found the Southern Antarctic Peninsula (SAP) ice sheet is losing ice into the ocean at a rate of 56 gigatons each year – about 8,500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This adds around 0.16mm per year to the global sea level.

The sheet’s thickness has remained stable since satellite observations began in 1992. But Professor Jonathan Bamber of Bristol university, who co-authored the study, said that around 2009 it very suddenly began to thin by an average of 42cm each year. Some areas had fallen by up to 4m.

“It hasn’t been going up, it hasn’t been going down – until 2009. Then it just seemed to pass some kind of critical threshold and went over a cliff and it’s been losing mass at a pretty much constant, rather large, rate,” said Bamber.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/21/stable-antarctic-ice-sheet-may-have-started-collapsing-scientists-say

Please would someone convert the ice loss into something we can comprehend like the standard unit of liquid stuff-ups, like the Olympic Swimming Pool universal unit? With mental arithmetics I would say that this loss is "equivalent" to about 21 million of the OSP universal unit. And let's not forget to add that this is INCREASING. 

GOVERNMENTS AROUND the world charge prices for energy that do not account for its harmful environmental, health and other side effects, amounting to a US$5.3 trillion "post-tax" subsidy this year, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on Monday.

The IMF said China in particular failed to charge its more than 1 billion consumers for the pollution that comes from heavy use of fossil fuels, adding up to a US$2.3 trillion subsidy this year.

The United States was the second-biggest offender, with an estimated US$699 billion subsidy, followed by Russia, the European Union, India and Japan.

The report comes as almost 200 nations are trying to work out a deal to combat global warming ahead of a summit in Paris in December. Getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies and setting policies to price carbon pollution are seen as key international measures that would help keep temperatures from rising.

The IMF has long urged governments to get rid of "pretax subsidies" that allow firms and households to buy coal, gasoline or other fuel sources below their cost of supply. Many governments, including Egypt, India, Indonesia and Jordan, have recently raised domestic prices to match those internationally, said the Washington-based institution charged with policing global economic and financial stability.

But the Fund said it had turned its focus to the post-tax subsidies that mean prices fail to reflect costs like unfair tax advantages and deaths from pollution.

In its last study on the subject in 2013, the IMF estimated these post-tax subsidies amounted to US$2 trillion in 2011, or 2.9 per cent of the world's gross domestic product.

With new data about the extent of environmental damage, the IMF says these subsidies totalled US$4.9 trillion in 2013 and were expected to rise to US$5.3 trillion this year, or 6.5 per cent of global GDP.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/05/20/4239153.htm

... some national security experts were surprised to learn that an important component of that effort has been ended. A CIA spokesperson confirmed to Climate Desk that the agency is shuttering its main climate research program. Under the program, known as Medea, the CIA had allowed civilian scientists to access classified data—such as ocean temperature and tidal readings gathered by Navy submarines and topography data collected by spy satellites—in an effort to glean insights about how global warming could create security threats around the world. In theory, the program benefited both sides: Scientists could study environmental data that was much higher-resolution than they would normally have access to, and the CIA received research insights about climate-related threats.

But now, the program has come to a close.

"Under the Medea program to examine the implications of climate change, CIA participated in various projects," a CIA spokesperson explained in a statement. "These projects have been completed and CIA will employ these research results and engage external experts as it continues to evaluate the national security implications of climate change."

The program was originally launched in 1992 during the George H.W. Bush administration and was later shut down during President George W. Bush's term. It was re-launched under the Obama administration in 2010, with the aim of providing security clearances to roughly 60 climate scientists. Those scientists were given access to classified information that could be useful for researching global warming and tracking environmental changes that could have national security implications. Data gathered by the military and intelligence agencies is often of much higher quality than what civilian scientists normally work with.

In some cases, that data could then be declassified and published, although Francesco Femia, co-director of the Center for Climate and Security, said it is usually impossible to know whether any particular study includes data from Medea. "You wouldn't see [Medea] referenced anywhere" in a peer-reviewed paper, he said. But he pointed to the CIA's annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which includes multiple references to climate change, as a probable Medea product, where the CIA likely partnered with civilian scientists to analyze classified data.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/cia-closing-its-main-climate-research-program

Bosses at the world’s big five oil companies have been showered with bonus payouts linked to a $1tn (£650bn) crescendo of spending on fossil fuel exploration and extraction over nine years, according to Guardian analysis of company reports.

The unprecedented push to bring untapped reserves into production, and to exploit new and undiscovered fields, involves some of the most complex feats of engineering ever attempted. It also reflects how confident Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Total and BP are that demand will remain high for decades to come.

The big oil groups are pressing ahead with investments despite the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimating that two-thirds of proven fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground to prevent the earth from warming 2C above pre-industrial levels – a proposed temperature limit beyond which scientists warn of spiralling and irreversible climate change.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/25/oil-company-bosses-bonuses-1tr-spending-fossil-fuels

See also: the world in their hands...