The news on the climate is optimistic right now

[Suff]

Until you view the CO2 growth movie from NOAA.

This movie only goes up to Jan 2016. End year stats for 2017 will come out in the next month or so. But the reality is this.

In the 1990's CO2 growth rose by over 2ppm in only one year, 1998. Yeah, we all know about that one. Great Big El Nino driving it out of whack. Huge fires in Indonesia choking Singapore and Malaysia so much they complained to the UN.

Whacky year.

In the 2000's CO2 growth rose by over 2ppm in 3 out of 10 years.

In the 2010's, of the 7 years to end 2016, CO2 growth rose by over 2ppm in 5 OUT OF 7 YEARS and we don't know how 2017 will go but I expect it to be either 2ppm or slightly below.

Nice to know all those accords to reduce CO2 growth and keep global temperature rise below 2C are working. Very comforting...

[Suff]

The latest global average temp charts tell a consistent story.

The Paris accord is aimed at keeping global temperature rise, over the pre industrial average, between 1.5C and 2C.

The chart shows why there were 15 years of claims that there had been no temperature rise as the El Nino of 1997/98 created a huge spike.

Now we see the El Nino of 2015/16 and it's impact. 0.99C, only 0.51C to go before we're at the 1.5C threshold.

[Workingman]

You got there before me, Suff.

The 2017 numbers for CO2 might not be out, but the ones for temperature are, and they make grim reading.

Depending upon the way things are measured it is the second or third hottest on record, behind 2015-16, and they were El Nino years.

17 of the 18 highest recorded years have happened since the year 2000 - that is a trend and not a spike.

We are supposed to be aiming to keep temperature rises below 2.0C to 1.5C in order to avoid the disaster of all disasters yet we are already somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way there depending upon which figure you accept.

It will not be long before this problem is taken out of our hands.