love my life

This just in: 2022 effectively tied for the fifth warmest year since 1880, when our record starts. Here at NASA, we work with our partners at NOAA to track temperatures across Earth’s entire surface, to keep a global record of how our planet is changing.

Overall, Earth is getting hotter.

The warming comes directly from human activities – specifically, the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. We started burning fossil fuels in earnest during the Industrial Revolution. Activities like driving cars and operating factories continue to release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, where they trap heat in the atmosphere.

So…if we’re causing Earth to warm, why isn’t every year the hottest year on record?

As 2022 shows, the current global warming isn’t uniform. Every single year isn’t necessarily warmer than every previous year, but it is generally warmer than most of the preceding years. There’s a warming trend.

Earth is a really complex system, with various climate patterns, solar activity, and events like volcanic eruptions that can tip things slightly warmer or cooler.

Climate Patterns

While 2021 and 2022 continued a global trend of warming, they were both a little cooler than 2020, largely because of a natural phenomenon known as La Niña.

La Niña is one third of a climate phenomenon called El Niño Southern Oscillation, also known as ENSO, which can have significant effects around the globe. During La Niña years, ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean cool off slightly. La Niña’s twin, El Niño brings warmer temperatures to the central and eastern Pacific. Neutral years bring ocean temperatures in the region closer to the average.

El Niño and La Niña affect more than ocean temperatures – they can bring changes to rainfall patterns, hurricane frequency, and global average temperature.

We’ve been in a La Niña mode the last three, which has slightly cooled global temperatures. That’s one big reason 2021 and 2022 were cooler than 2020 – which was an El Niño year.

Overall warming is still happening. Current El Niño years are warmer than previous El Niño years, and the same goes for La Niña years. In fact, enough overall warming has occurred that most current La Niña years are warmer than most previous El Niño years. This year was the warmest La Niña year on record.

Solar Activity

Our Sun cycles through periods of more and less activity, on a schedule of about every 11 years. Here on Earth, we might receive slightly less energy — heat — from the Sun during quieter periods and slightly more during active periods.

At NASA, we work with NOAA to track the solar cycle. We kicked off a new one – Solar Cycle 25 – after solar minimum in December 2019. Since then, solar activity has been slightly ramping up.

Because we closely track solar activity, we know that over the past several decades, solar activity hasn't been on the rise, while greenhouse gases have. More importantly, the "fingerprints" we see on the climate, including temperature changes in the upper atmosphere, don't fit the what we'd expect from solar-caused warming. Rather they look like what we expect from increased greenhouse warming, verifying a prediction made decades ago by NASA.

Volcanic Eruptions

Throughout history, volcanoes have driven major shifts in Earth’s climate. Large eruptions can release water vapor — a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide — which traps additional warmth within our atmosphere.

On the flip side, eruptions that loft lots of ash and soot into the atmosphere can temporarily cool the climate slightly, by reflecting some sunlight back into space.

Like solar activity, we can monitor volcanic eruptions and tease out their effect on variations in our global temperature.

At the End of the Day, It’s Us

Our satellites, airborne missions, and measurements from the ground give us a comprehensive picture of what’s happening on Earth every day. We also have computer models that can skillfully recreate Earth’s climate.

By combining the two, we can see what would happen to global temperature if all the changes were caused by natural forces, like volcanic eruptions or ENSO. By looking at the fingerprints each of these climate drivers leave in our models, it’s perfectly clear: The current global warming we’re experiencing is caused by humans.

For more information about climate change, visit climate.nasa.gov.

moving in with the love of your life

tending to a garden together all summer long

being able to hear them sing in the shower, from outside the bathroom

having impromptu afternoon picnics with them

making pancakes for them to wake up too

cuddling every night whilst watching your fave shows

doing the groceries together 

holding hands in the park, in the subway, in the streets, everywhere

being able to hold them whenever they feel sad

Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.

Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”

Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.

Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.

Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.

Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.

Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”

The OCCUPIED stall next to me.

A furious and mesmerising cinematic achievement

(Review of ‘Parasite’. Seen in Biffen Art Cinema, Aalborg on the 2nd of January 2020.)

Ever since south korean film ‘Parasite’ took home the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in the Spring of 2019 it has been on everyone’s lips. It’s been deemed one of the most important films ever and an unreal film experience that was a must see for any lover of cinema. Luckily it has also been enrolled in a thick fog of m#ystery, because what was this film actually about? Director Bong Joon Ho was adamant about the necessity of keeping the film unspoiled and having seen it, I know exactly why. Because if you go in to this film knowing as little as possible you are in fact treated to an amazing film experience unlike anything else. SO this is where I stop you. If you have even the slightest desire to watch this film do not read any further; make sure to book a seat in your nearest cinema in stead!

With ‘Parasite’ Bong not only delivers an impeccably entertaining film that will cater to wide audiences, but also an awe-inspiring mash-up of cinematic genres that seamlessly woven together to form a sophisticated net of surprises, laughs and suspense. At one time hysterically funny and poignantly satirical, Bong suddenly takes a sharp u-turn and turns the film on its head a spine-tingling and furious thriller with well functioning horror elements. To make this mix of genres work on its own is worth quite the attention, but to make it work while telling an important and nuanced story of the modern, capitalistic society that not only makes you want to applaud the film afterwards but also makes you think and reflect on your own “role” in this society, is nothing short of a cinematic magic trick performed to perfection by Bong and everyone involved.

At the centre of the film are two families from very different parts of society. The Kim family who lives in a basement apartment where they desperately tries to catch wi-fi from nearby cafés or neighbours (because of course they still have smart phones), and the Park family, who lives on top of society (literally) in an architect’s dream of a house. Two families of mother, father, daughter and son. But whereas the Kim family stands together in every aspect of life, the Park family rarely spends time together: the father is busy at work all over the world, the mother is sitting at home in charge of all the service people, the introvert daughter is mostly in her room and the son, haunted by a mysterious incident early in his life, feels like the most human when he disturbs the perfect silence of the house with his US-imported Indian gear.  The two families lives are intertwined in a way that you never fully realise until it is too late and Bong has you caught in his web of disasters.

As the patriarch of the Kim family, Kang-ho Sang delivers a standout performance filled with wit, pride and a desire to do what’s best for his family no matter the cost. In a fascinating scene he talks to his children about the importance of not having a plan - because then nothing can go wrong. One of many iconic scenes that I still remember vividly. Woo-sik Choi as his son and So-dam Park as his daughter are full of mischief and youthful ingenuity that brings the Kim family to places they had never dreamed of. It is a joy to watch them - especially in the first hour - as they charm their way through each and every obstacle that meets them. Finally, Hye-jin Jang gives a strong performance as the hard-headed matriarch of the Kim family. She gets to deliver one of the most poignant one-liners of the film when she says that, “money is like an iron. It straightens all issues away.”.

In the Park family, Yeo-jeong Jo deserved to be highlighted for her performance as the blue-eyed and easily impressed mother, Park Yeon-kyo, who still possess a chilling and unpredictable side to her. In the Park residence, it is, however, Jeong-eun Lee as their maid, Moon-gwang, who takes the main attention in a transformative and mysterious role in which she gets to show both sinister and hilarious aspects of her acting throughout the film.

The characters are driven so much by the story and their increasingly connected relations, that it is difficult to talk too much about them without giving too much away, but it is acting of the highest quality from the entire cast. Performances filled with subtle mimics, comments and gestures that I cannot wait to see again to discover even more than what I caught in round one.

These characters are mainly found in one of two locations masterfully constructed by production designer Ha-jun Lee. As simple and “ugly” the reality of the Kim residence is, as lavish and over-the-top is the Park residence. This physical contrast between these locations play a central part in the story and especially one specific scene featuring a flood is so cinematically beautiful in its slow reveal of its devastating consequences, that it will stay with me for a very long time. That scene is the perfect co-operation between Lee’s production design, Kyung-pyo Hong’s cinematography and Bong’s screenplay, in which the different layers of society are strikingly summed up in their reaction to the rain showers causing the flood. One subtle comment from Park Yeon-kyo says everything here.

With the Park residence, Lee has created an intricately designed dollhouse in which every neatly detailed room has its own secrets that are masterfully unravelled one at a time throughout the film with an Hitchcockian sense of suspense by Bong. Finally, it all comes together through a score from Jung Jae Il that is as playful as the film’s mix of genres. It features everything from haunting strings and rumbling percussions to fine and simple compositions.

‘Parasite’ reminded me of ‘Get Out’ in the way it uncovers some of the deep issues in modern society through a surprising and striking mix of genres to present the absurdity of its topic. However, I feel like Bong’s film succeeds better with its mission. This is mainly due to the fact that even though Bong is furious and very clear in his allegory and use of symbols and metaphors, he never loses sight of one important thing: his characters need to be fundamentally human in order for his story to have the biggest impact possible. Here are no absurd heroes or villains and the character you root for in one scene turns on a table in the next one and vice versa. Bong highlights that this is something deeper. The rotten smell does not come from a certain person or a certain group of people, it comes from deeper within. It comes from the very basement of modern day society.

In that, ‘Parasite’ becomes a parable of how the modern, technological society muddles the differences between the different layers of society by making information widely accessible all the while the capitalism that drives said technological development forms a deeper and more drastic distance between the very same layers of society. As such, ‘Parasite’ seems like the perfect film to sum up the last decade and introduce the new one and it leaves us, the viewers, with a fascinating question: who or what is the parasitical presence in this society?

You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all. You know why? Because life cannot be planned.