Climate change again? Yep. Is this guy a fanatic or something? Actually, he really isn't. He is, first and foremost, a scientist who with regard to climate change believes in the objectivity of scientific data and information especially uninterpreted raw data. As Sergeant Friday used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am."

The scientific evidence that climate change is occurring is overwhelming. Most of us believers are aware that we are living in a period of climate change exacerbated by human activities, primarily the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from a variety of sources. However, a very vocal minority chooses not to believe the evidence. This minority can be divided into two categories, those that believe that climate change is not occurring, PERIOD, and those that believe that climate change may be occurring but that human activities are not contributing to it. The latter group is led by big oil and big coal both of whom have committed large amounts of advertising to support their position.

Could it be that they are concerned that the big bucks they are making might begin to dry up? They shouldn't be concerned, coal and oil usage likely will continue at some level as long as the resources are available.

Many unbelievers and of course some of us believers in human-impacted climate change will never change our minds – my mind's made up, don't confuse me with "facts." Nevertheless, I want to place some actual information before you that comes from an objective source and that are factual and not conjectural.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the foremost climate monitoring organization in the United States. On July 17, 2014, NOAA released a report compiled by the American Meteorological Society, State of the Climate in 2013. NOAA scientists from their National Climate Data Center were lead editors of the report. It is available on the internet; look it up. Here are some highlights:

1) Major greenhouse gas concentrations including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide reached historic high values in 2013. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 2.8 parts per million (ppm) to a global average of 395.3 ppm.

2) Four major datasets showed that 2013 was among the warmest years on record, ranking between second and sixth depending upon the dataset.

3) Four independent datasets indicated that the globally averaged sea surface temperature for 2013 was among the ten warmest averages on record.

4) Global mean sea level rose during 2013 continuing a trend of about 3.2 millimeters per year.

5) The Arctic continued to warm and sea ice extent in the Arctic remained low.

6) Annual temperatures at the South Pole were the highest since record keeping began in 1957. The extent of Antarctic sea ice was the greatest on record meaning that the Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up at an accelerated pace (my conclusion).

7) Tropical cyclone occurrences were slightly above average globally. Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Western North Pacific had the highest wind speed of any tropical cyclone on record with a one-minute sustained wind speed estimated at 196 miles per hour.

So there you have it, climate change is really happening. These data likely won't change the minds of the unbelievers. However, it is important to recognize that they are simply data. They represent the numbers that actually were measured and were not altered, manipulated or interpreted; they speak for themselves. I repeat, climate change is real and was occurring even as this was being written.