Friday, January 16, 2015

Warmest Year on Record

Source: NCDC
The National Climatic Data Center released their end-of-year global analysis today concluding that 2014 was the warmest year in the instrumented record, with a globally averaged temperature 1.24ºF above the 20th century average and 0.07ºF warmer than the previous front runners 2005 and 2010 (see graph above).  You can access their full summary here.  

I look at these year-to-year records or non-records as a bit of distraction as ultimately it is the long-term trend that really matters and it is clearly upward.  This upward trend is even more apparent when one takes a holistic view of the Earth's climate system (see Global Warming Hasn't Stopped).  2014 shouldn't get too excited about this record as it won't have it for very long.  
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2 comments:

  1. Tony CrockerJanuary 16, 2015 at 11:33 PM

    "ultimately it is the long-term trend that really matters and it is clearly upward."

    That may be, but even a casual look at that graph shows a strong increasing trend from 1970-2000, and a barely discernable increase since then. The explanations given for the trend change are not very credible, or as one commenter suggested, along the lines of "the dog ate my homework."

    Current temperatures are below lower confidence limits of what was projected 15 years ago. Until we get a good explanation of this, why should we believe what these same models project 50-80 years from now?

    I have no argument with the direct effect of greenhouse gases. I question the unsubstantiated large positive feedbacks in the models. It's more credible to believe that factors like negative PDO can offset greenhouse gases in the intermediate term. 1940-1970 shows a similar flattening of temperatures.

    So yes the long term trend is up but the magnitude of that trend is quite uncertain and likely substantially overstated by the current climate models.

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  2. Scot ChipmanJanuary 23, 2015 at 3:17 PM

    Not all is as it seems and the hype continues! The NASA climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/20/2014-the-most-dishonest-year-on-record

    Some biases and omissions from the report http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/17/on-the-biases-caused-by-omissions-in-the-2014-noaa-state-of-the-climate-report/

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/20/2014-the-most-dishonest-year-on-record http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/17/on-the-biases-caused-by-omissions-in-the-2014-noaa-state-of-the-climate-report

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