Instead of focusing on emission reductions we need to be talking about the best way to capture and confidently sequester CO2 on the tens of gigaton scale. In terms of size -- the carbon atoms in a decades worth of anthropogenic CO2 equivalents could build a diamond mount everest. A few hundered ppm change doesnt sound like much until you remember you need to integrate across the volume of the atmosphere.
All of this to say, with enough stable overhead assets then most things can be detected that would cause possible impacts in climate.
1. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5453731/nasa-carbon-dio...
We have known about this for a century at this point and it's still being presented like a surprise. It's not a surprise. It's exactly what anyone who's paid attention has been expecting for decades.
Over a decade ago I decided not to have kids because I don't think they will have a world worth inheriting. I've mostly stopped following these kinds of news because it's depressing but it's not at all surprising.
They've been telling us this would happen for my entire life, and everyone has been sticking their heads in the sand thinking it'll be fine for the next few hundred years and looking at me like I'm a lunatic when I tell them it's happening during our lifetimes.
- search for all United States - excluded all 14,200 US stations installed since 1973 - average/median them the rest
Trend? Largely flat.
Did I jump the gun?
Were excluded stations like number 80238 (Arcadia, FL) being installed near heat-producing objects (air conditioning condenser unit, nuclear cooling towers, new parking lots) the cause? A valid cause?
- How many stations were you left with?
- Did that number decline over time (as you excluded replacement stations)?
- What was your scale?
- Are you willing to share your results?
- How is this still the top comment after 30 minutes?
But your comment touches on a common misconception, which is that heat islands must be excluded to accurately measure the overall temperature. You refer to the idea as "heat-producing objects", but I would argue that a parking lot is more of a heat reflecting object. More to the point, even heat islands must be considered as part of the worldwide climate, simply because they are part of this wide world. Their heat does not simply disappear (I hope you agree that would violate physics).
Imagine we want to measure the average temperature inside a single 30-foot by 10-foot room during winter. We have two probes: one near a burning fireplace on one end of the room, and one near a window on the other. If we excluded data from one probe or the other, do you believe we would get an accurate average reading?
Of course, when scientists are calculating a global temperature, they have to handle special cases in the data (like heat islands). This has been known for some time, and you can read more about it here: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/no-ma...
I fear that I've spent too much time responding to this, but I wanted to take it on in earnest.
Basically, it's something that's taken into account. The two main ways are calibrating urban stations relative to nearby rural stations, and by looking at the variation between windy and calm days, since the effects are larger on calm days (so if things are corrected well, there shouldn't be a difference)