All posts by Mitch Tobin

Mitch Tobin, the editor of ecowest.org, is owner of Sea to Snow Consulting and was previously communications director at California Environmental Associates. Prior to joining CEA, Mitch was a newspaper reporter at the Napa Valley Register, Tucson Citizen, and Arizona Daily Star, where he covered water, environmental, and border issues for five years. He was also a contributor to High Country News. Mitch's first book, Endangered (Fulcrum 2010), evaluates the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act and received a gold medal in the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Animation of global warming since 1880

NASA has produced a fascinating animation showing how global temperatures have been changing since the late 19th century. You can really see things heat up starting in the 1970s.

2011 was the 5th warmest year on record, as NASA’s James Hanson noted: “We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting . . . So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record.”