NOAA: we're toast

As John Thune, Mike Rounds and Kristi Noem wonder whether to shit or go blind 2015 is on track to be the warmest year in human history.

The arrival of El Niño raises the chances of setting a new record-warmest global temperature for any time period. Just in 2015 alone, we’ve already broken or tied the record for the warmest 12-month stretches on record – four times. The climate is a complex system, with multiple influencers, with different timescales and degrees of impact. Bringing it back to this year, this El Niño event, as it continues to take hold, will definitely increase 2015’s chances to place among the warmest years, if not the warmest, on record. [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]

So-called 'Americans for Prosperity' a Koch-funded group with a lobbyist based in Sioux Falls signaled to legislators that they will lose campaign funding from the Kochs unless they act to reverse the progress the US Environmental Protection Agency has made in South Dakota.

As South Dakota's GOP governor denies human impact on climate change and the state's legislature ponders the end days some alarms are being sounded.

South Dakota state climatologist Dennis Todey spoke Tuesday during the Southeast Experiment Farm’s annual meeting, held at the Parker Community Center. He noted the long-range findings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) national climate assessment. “The NOAA says we’ve seen temperature change during the last 100 years,” he said. “Climate change is real.” Last year’s cool weather in the state actually contained warming in a different sense, Todey said. He pointed to the statistics for eastern South Dakota from last June, July and August. “The big difference is in the low temperatures, not the high temperatures,” he said. “We’re warming, but we’re warming differently. We’re seeing higher nighttime temperatures.” Midwest farmers could step in and start growing crops that are no longer going to be grown in California and other Western states, Todey said. “Can you do something here that they can’t do there?” he asked his Parker audience. [Randy Dockendorf, Yankton Press and Dakotan]

South Dakota voters need to be alerted to dark money efforts to end environmental protection in the state and the Democratic Party supports EPA's mission to protect South Dakota's waterways.

Dennis Todey is scheduled to appear on South Dakota Perspective.

Researchers from @NOAA, @CIRESnews have a commentary in Science on tougher #ozone standards and the need for science. http://t.co/dNADK42910

— NOAA Research (@NOAAResearch) June 5, 2015