By Phillip Gentry, UAH
Globally, 2012 was ninth warmest of the past 34 years; In the U.S., 2012 sets a new record high temperature Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade December temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.20 C (about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year averagefor December.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.14 C (about 0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.26 C (about 0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
Tropics: +0.13 C (about 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
November temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.28 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.30 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.27 C above 30-year average
Tropics: +0.17 C above 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released Jan. 3, 2013:
Globally, 2012 was the ninth warmest year among the past 34, with an annual global average temperature that was 0.161 C (about 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 30-year baseline average, according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. 2012 was about three one-hundredths of a degree C warmer than 2011, but was 0.23 C cooler than 2010.
Eleven of the 12 warmest years in the satellite temperature record have been been since 2001. From 2001 to the present only 2008 was cooler than the long-term norm for the globe. Despite that string of warmer-than-normal years, there has been no measurable warming trend since about 1998. The long-term warming trend reported in the satellite data is calculated using data beginning on Nov. 16, 1978.
1979 through 2012
Warmest to coolest
1. 1998 0.419
2. 2010 0.394
3. 2005 0.260
4. 2002 0.218
5. 2009 0.218
6. 2007 0.202
7. 2003 0.187
8. 2006 0.186
9. 2012 0.161
10. 2011 0.130
11. 2004 0.108
12. 2001 0.107
13. 1991 0.020
14. 1987 0.013
15. 1995 0.013
16. 1988 0.012
17. 1980 -0.008
18. 2008 -0.009
19. 1990 -0.022
20. 1981 -0.045
21. 1997 -0.049
22. 1999 -0.056
23. 1983 -0.061
24. 2000 -0.061
25. 1996 -0.076
26. 1994 -0.108
27. 1979 -0.170
28. 1989 -0.207
29. 1986 -0.244
30. 1993 -0.245
31. 1982 -0.250
32. 1992 -0.289
33. 1985 -0.309
34. 1984 -0.353
(Degrees C above or below the long-term norm.)
While 2012 was only the ninth warmest year globally, it was the warmest year on record for both the contiguous 48 U.S. states and for the continental U.S., including Alaska. For the U.S., 2012 started with one of the three warmest Januaries in the 34-year record, saw a record-setting March heat wave, and stayed warm enough for the rest of the year to set a record.
Compared to seasonal norms, March 2012 was the warmest month on record in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Temperatures over the U.S. averaged 2.82 C (almost 5.1° Fahrenheit) warmer than normal in March; the warmest spot on the globe that month was in northern Iowa. The annual average temperature over the conterminous 48 states in 2012 was 0.555 C (about 0.99 degrees F) warmer than seasonal norms.
Compared to seasonal norms, the coolest area on the globe throughout 2012 was central Mongolia, where temperatures averaged about 1.39 C (about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. The warmest area was north of central Russia in the Kara Sea, where temperatures averaged 2.53 C (about 4.55 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for 2012.
Compared to seasonal norms, over the past month the coldest area on the globe was eastern Mongolia, where temperatures were as much as 4.55 C (about 8.19 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. The “warmest” area was off the coast of the Antarctic near South America, where temperatures averaged 3.79 C (about 6.82 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for December.
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
The processed temperature data is available on-line at:
vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAHuntsville, NOAA and NASA, John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data is collected and processed, it is placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.
— 30 —
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And as I always provide here on those monthly TLT update posts, here’s a link to the preliminary global and NINO3.4 sea surface temperature update for December 2012:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/preliminary-december-2012-sea-surface-temperature-anomaly-update/
Happy New Year to all.
With the third graph, if you were to flip it end for end so that the date 2012 would be in the upper LEFT hand corner would the “rate” of warming be the same ? what would it look like if the graph were extended back a few more years ?
“December temperatures (preliminary)”?
Apparently they know they will be revised later. If these figures are like the weekly US Unemployment figures, they are pre-skewed for political advantage and will be readjusted later (when not so many people are watching).
0.161 deg C! I’m melting, I’m melting! Hang on, no I’m not…
I’ll just take my pullover off, dang! Now I’m too cold. It’s hard adjusting to these wild temperature fluctuations… (Sarc obviously, well maybe not to Alarmists)
How does UAH account for snow cover?
[“By the end of 2012 the stupid meme of “global warming” stopping will be over.
Some things to note: several ‘skeptics” have stupidly forecast cooling it [sic] should be interesting to watch them respond as the sun goes quiet and the temps go up.”] (Steven Mosher, July 6, 2012)
Uh Uhhh! Sorry Steven, wrong guess, would you like to go for double jeopardy where the scores can really change? (With apologies to Bruce Willis…)
“9th warmest of the past 34 years”
So?????
What good are any of these numbers without error bars/analysis? Put in error bars and then tell me whether you can say anything about “rank”.
It would be interesting to see how this current 30 year average compares with the average of 1920 to 1950.
8th warmest of the last 10 years.
2012 in Perspective so far on Six Data Sets
This has three parts for a number of data sets:
1. Here I give the ranking of various data sets assuming the present ranking stays that way for the rest of the year.
2. Here I give the longest time the slope is flat for a number of data sets.
3. Here I give the longest time for which the warming is NOT significant at the 95% level.
1. Below, I am giving the latest monthly anomalies in order from January on. The bolded one is the highest for the year so far. I am treating all months equally and adding all anomalies and then dividing by the total number of months. This should not make a difference to the relative ranking at the end of the year unless there is a virtual tie between two years. After I give the average anomaly so far, I say where the year would rank if the anomaly were to stay that way for the rest of the year. I also show the warmest year on each data set along with the warmest month ever recorded on each data set. Then I show the previous year’s anomaly and rank.
The 2011 rankings for GISS, Hadcrut3, Hadsst2, and Hadcrut4 can be deduced at the following respectively:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.1.1.0.annual_ns_avg.txt
The present rankings for UAH were calculated from the revised data due to the new version 5.5. This data can be found at the WFT site.
The rankings for RSS to the end of 2011 can be found at http://motls.blogspot.ca/2012/01/rss-amsu-2011-was-12th-warmest-year-out.html (Others may also be found at http://motls.blogspot.ca/#uds-search-results)
With the UAH anomaly for December at 0.202, the average for the twelve months of the year is (-0.134 -0.135 + 0.051 + 0.232 + 0.179 + 0.235 + 0.130 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.333 + 0.282 + 0.202)/12 = 0.16. This would rank 9th. 1998 was the warmest at 0.42. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.132 and it will come in 10th.
With the GISS anomaly for November at 0.68, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.32 + 0.37 + 0.45 + 0.54 + 0.67 + 0.56 + 0.46 + 0.58 + 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68)/11 = 0.54. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.89. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.514 and it will come in 10th assuming 2012 comes in 9th or warmer.
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for November at 0.480, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.217 + 0.194 + 0.305 + 0.481 + 0.473 + 0.477 + 0.445 + 0.512+ 0.514 + 0.491 + 0.480)/11 = 0.417. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.340 and it will come in 13th.
With the Hadsst2 anomaly for October at 0.428, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.241 + 0.292 + 0.339 + 0.351 + 0.385 + 0.440 + 0.449 + 0.428)/10 = 0.336. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.273 and it will come in 13th.
With the RSS anomaly for November at 0.195, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.060 -0.123 + 0.071 + 0.330 + 0.231 + 0.337 + 0.290 + 0.255 + 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195)/11 = 0.200. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.147 and it will come in 13th.
With the Hadcrut4 anomaly for November at 0.512, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.288 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.525 + 0.531 + 0.506 + 0.470 + 0.532 + 0.515 + 0.524 + 0.512)/11 = 0.45. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.54. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.818. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.399 and it will come in 13th.
If you would like to see the above month to month changes illustrated graphically, see:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2012/plot/gistemp/from:2012/plot/uah/from:2012/plot/rss/from:2012/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2012/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2012
2. For the part below, I went from the latest date that data is available on WFT to the furthest date in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative. So if the slope from September is 4 x 10^-4 but it is – 4 x 10^-4 from October, I give the time from October so no one can accuse me of being less than honest if I say the slope is flat from a certain month.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 8 years and 2 months to 15 years and 11 months.
1. UAH: since October 2004 or 8 years, 3 months (goes to December)
2. GISS: since May 2001 or 11 years, 7 months (goes to November)
3. Combination of 4 global temperatures: since December 2000 or 11 years, 9 months (goes to August)
4. HadCrut3: since May 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to November)
5. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
6. RSS: since January 1997 or 16 years (goes to December) (December is not out yet, but there is no way that it will not be negative to December when it comes.)
RSS is 192/204 or 94% of the way to Santer’s 17 years.
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or an even 12 years (goes to November.)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.33/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.33/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/uah/from:2004.75/trend
3. For the part below, I went to the following site and determined the longest time that the slope is less than the 95% uncertainty range for various data sets. This indicates for how long the warming is not significant at the 95% level. http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
If you wish to verify any such as RSS for yourself, put in 1990 for the start date; put in 2013 for the end date; click the RSS button; then click “calculate”. The second number needs to be larger than the first number in order to have the possibility for a slope of 0.
For RSS the warming is NOT significant for 23 years.
For RSS: +0.130 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
For UAH, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For UAH: 0.143 +/- 0.173 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hacrut3, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.098 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hacrut4, the warming is NOT significant for 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.098 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For GISS, the warming is NOT significant for 17 years.
For GISS: 0.113 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996
Based on yesterday’s Alaska story and the graph which it included, I beg to differ with the following statement:
While 2012 was only the ninth warmest year globally, it was the warmest year on record for both the contiguous 48 U.S. states and for the continental U.S., including Alaska.
The graph http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/alaska_temps.png?w=960&h=666
clearly shows Alaska wasn’t that warm last year compared to many recent years.
No mention of the cold records last January, including the one that missed the all-time record low for the USA because the measuring device froze?
Out of curiosity, where does the claim come from that there has been no warming in the last 16 years, when the charts on this site’s own Global Temperature Page all show increases from 1996 to 2012?
Are all of these data within two sigmas of the mean? One sigma? Without knowing these parameters, I would guess that none of the 34 years averages are statistically different from the mean.
How about the deltas? Are the anomalies significantly different?
The temperature anomaly known as the ‘Arctic amplification’, as depicted in first illustration has an uncanny resemblance to the distribution of the Earth’s magnetic field
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GTSD.jpg
Is this a pure coincidence. Possible but unlikely?
Common cause Natural variability?
I would suggest so: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NV.htm
I’m sorry but maybe I’m missing something – why is this temperature comparison limited to the last 34 years? Is it because satellite temperature data have only been available globally for the past 3 decades or so? Can the satellite data be compared to surface measurements so that a trend (or lack there of) can be observed over a longer period of time?
Mr. Brozek:
Thanks for the analysis. You were answering at the same time I was querying.
G
2012 is the warmest year since 2011!
Matthew W says:
January 3, 2013 at 9:57 am
“9th warmest of the past 34 years”
So?????
And with 2011 coming in at 10th place and 2008 coming in at 18th place, three of the last five years were not in the top 8. That indicates to me that any warming that may be occurring for whatever reason is certainly NOT catastrophic!
To oldfossil:
The increases are not enough to be statistically significant.
Rob Dawg says:
January 3, 2013 at 10:06 am
8th warmest of the last 10 years
Does not that make it the 3rd coldest in the last ten years ???
Flint says:
January 3, 2013 at 10:38 am
—
The problem is that the surface measurements are so bad and so spotty, they you can’t compare today’s surface measurements with those of 30 or more years ago.
Still below the 15’C that used to be ‘0’ when Hansen started his crusade.
There was a report in the Herald-Sun yesterday from the Aussie BOM stating that 2002-2012 in Australia was the 5th warmest 10 year period on record and that 2012 wasn’t that warm here. Do you think I can find that article now? Nope, probably removed for being inconvenient.