2016 candidates can't duck climate change
A thick blanket of smoke is seen against the setting sun as young ragpickers search for reusable material at a garbage dump in New Delhi, India on Oct. 17, 2014. A groundbreaking agreement struck Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014, by the United States and China puts the world's two worst polluters on a faster track to curbing the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming. Credit: AP / Altaf Qadri
We've known for months that 2014 was the world's hottest year on record. Now it turns out we're in hot water, too. Literally.
Ocean surface temperatures were the warmest in 135 years of record-keeping, and those historic levels of heat energy extend 2,300 feet underwater. The annual State of the Climate report released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society concluded that 93 percent of man-made heat energy from burning fossil fuels was absorbed by the world's oceans. That heat provided more fuel for tropical cyclones, among many strong weather-related effects.
The accumulation of data makes it clear that climate change, and how to deal with it, must be a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.
