From NASA’s press release
NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years
From NASA GISTEMP- Click image for original source
WASHINGTON — A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.
Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years –1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 — for the second warmest on record.
“There’s always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year’s ranking, but the ranking often misses the point,” said James Hansen, GISS director. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated.”
January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.
In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.
“That’s the important number to keep in mind,” said GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt. “The difference between the second and sixth warmest years is trivial because the known uncertainty in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years.”
The near-record global temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures from the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while increasing its tendency to blow from north to south. The result was an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north. This left North America cooler than normal, while the Arctic was warmer than normal.
“The contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5 percent of the world area, so the United States’ temperature does not affect the global temperature much,” Hansen said.
GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station measurements.
Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic where monitoring stations are sparse.
Although the two methods produce slightly differing results in the annual rankings, the decadal trends in the two records are essentially identical.
“There’s a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends,” Hansen said. “In the last decade, global warming has not stopped.”
For more information about GISS’s surface temperature record, visit:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
* For more information about why the GISS data isn’t much to be trusted, particularly at the northern latitudes, see this article
GHCN – GIStemp Interactions – The Bolivia Effect
GHCN – Up North, Blame Canada!, Comrade
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Anthony
Re: NASA press release: ‘NASA Research Finds Last Decade was
Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years’
1. Pardon my repeating a point that I have made before!
2. I quote from the NASA press release:
‘GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct
its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more
than a thousand meteorological stations around the world,
satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and
Antarctic research station measurements.
Other research groups also track global temperature trends but
use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre
in the United Kingdom uses similar input measurements as GISS,
for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and
Antarctic where monitoring stations are sparse.
Although the two methods produce slightly differing results in
the annual rankings, the decadal trends in the two records are
essentially identical.’
3. What NASA does not say is that Climategate has so shaken
public confidence in the ‘different analysis technique’ of the
Met Office Hadley Centre that on 5 December 2009 eg the UK
Daily Telegraph reported:
‘Scientists may re-examine temperature data to prove climate
change
Climate scientists may re-examine 160 years of temperature data
after admitting that public confidence in the reality of global
warming has been undermined by ‘climategate’.
…
To try to restore public confidence the Met Office is talking to
other meteorological organisations around the world about
recreating the model using the same raw data but more modern
computers.
The whole process will also use any new information and be more
open to the public.
However, it could take up to three years for the study to
complete, meaning the scientific world would have to wait until
after 2012 to provide updated proof of the extent of global
warming.’
4. The Times reported the same story, but also added:
‘The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from
carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be
seized upon by climate change sceptics.’
and in a later story the same day the BBC reported:
‘An MO spokesman denied it would spend up to three years
re-examining the climate change data’.
5. But the UK Government has now survived Copenhagen. So
we can ask again: Did the words ‘the Met Office is talking to
other meteorological organisations around the world’ include
NASA GISS?
If so, NASA GISS can no longer rely upon the Met Office Hadley
Centre’s present analysis.
And NASA GISS was wrong, by the words ‘Although the two methods
produce slightly differing results in the annual rankings, the
decadal trends in the two records are essentially identical’,
to imply, without substantial qualification, that it
nevertheless does still rely upon the corroboration of the
findings of the NASA GISS analysis by the findings of the
Hadley Centre analysis.
Stephen Prower
Stevenage
Friday 22 January 2009
I have been living in NC for over 10 years …2009 was bookended by two cold winters and the mildest summer. Cincinnati, barely had any days that reached 90F this past summer, very unusual… The AGW joke continues
Why get excited about this? As Anna V mentioned earlier, the last decade of warming (if that’s what we’ve just had) would, by definition, be the warmest on record.
Besides, I thought 10 years was too short to draw conclusions from????
Hansen, Gavin & GISS . . reduced to using just one thermometer . . .[snip]t.
I see several comparisons to used car salesmen. Please folks. That group cleaned up a lot. They have laws to follow that don’t let them adjust mileage on the car to make it look like it was driven less. James Hansen would be compared with car salesmen that rolls back the odometer to help the car become newer.
We have documentation that CO2 was 400 ppm in the early 40’s.
We have proof it has been higher.
I’ve just been checking the decadal averages for both GISS and UAH over the past ~30 years. To provide a fair comparison I’ve used the satellite period (1979-1998) as the base period for the anomalies.
The respective decadal average anomalies for 1980s, 1990s & 2000s are as follows:
UAH -0.05 ; 0.06 ; 0.22
GISS -0.06 ; 0.08 ; 0.28
I am yet to be convinced that GISS are guilty of large scale fraud.
No surprise here.
What were you expecting them to say…
.03c of that .51 up in the right hand corner of the map is due to infilling up 1200km. Compare the 1200km map to this 250km infill map:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2000&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
Or how about looking at Polar view maps for 250 km:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2000&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=pol
Puh-lease.
As Kadaka has pointed out, the accepted corrections by McIntyre have somehow been forgotten.
In 2007
2006 was 1.23 and afterwards became 1.13
But now if you look at the values from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
you can see that somehow 2006 has become 1.31.
Also in 2007 the ranking was
Year Old New Today’s Temp accoding to the link above
1934 1.23 1.25 1.22
1998 1.24 1.23 1.31
1921 1.12 1.15 1.12
2006 1.23 1.13 1.31
1931 1.08 1.08 1.00
1999 0.94 0.93 1.07
1953 0.91 0.90 0.87
1990 0.88 0.87 0.91
1938 0.85 0.86 0.77
1939 0.84 0.85 0.80
Notice how temperatures for the earlier dates are now lower and those more recent are higher.
What are they playing at?
From the Laws page on the Number Watch Site:
Langmuir’s Laws of bad science
1 .The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the low level of significance of the results.
3. There are claims of great accuracy.
4. Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
5. Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment.
6. The ratio of supporters to critics rises to somewhere near 50% and then falls gradually to zero.
Wolf ! Wolf ! Wolf !
First of all, the LAST decade was from 1991 through 2000. The CURRENT decade started in 2001 and ends on December 31 (11:59:59 PM) of this year. The next decade begins at 12:00 AM on January 1, 2011.
Second, we all know GISS uses a different (lower) baseline, so the temperature anomaly is higher than other measurements such as UHA.
Third, the records back to 1880 aren’t complete enough.
“warmest” or really “not as cold”? In this data has the summer temperatures actually gone up? Or are the winters less cold? That’s what I’m finding. (see http://www.scribd.com/doc/25338819/What-Does-Averge-Temperature-Actually-Mean#stats)
I now have all of Ontario and will be doing a merge and analysis once it’s all imported into my database.
Anthony,
For more information about why the GISS data isn’t much to be trusted …”
What do you mean “more?” I don’t see any such information in the post. Did I miss something?
REPLY: Yes
Most respondents to this site have seemed to like Roy Spencer’s monthly satellite record of the global temperature anomaly at 14,000 feet, especially after it dipped down to essentially zero in year 2,000. Well, take another look at that chart. It certainly shows the past decade to have been the warmest in the thirty or so years satellites have been taking those measurements. When Spencer publishes the January, 2010 anomaly, brace yourselves for a shocker because the thing is sailing well above any comparable January in the past.
It is a mistake to let “Hansen hatred” addle one’s brains to the point that one forgets what the real controversy is all about. Which modern decade may have been the warmest is NOT the fundamental issue at stake in the AGW challenge. Although I see ample evidence the GISS numbers are not to be trusted, I see no such evidence against the satellite record. It seems to me the satellite record probably adds weight to Hansen’s most recent pronouncement and thus demonstrates the ancient truism that “Even a blind pig can occassionally find and acorn.”
CH
No surprises here. Just like the UEA-CRU, NASA-GISS have to provide the ‘evidence’ their masters want to hear. Climategate provides a great insight into the motivation behind perpetuating this fraud, and I’m certain more evidence of this will be coming out of the woodwork soon.
The data behind climate science has lost all credibility and the CAGW hypothesis falsified.
Have you guys forgotten this already?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html
Example from the link:
“It seems that stations placed in historically cooler, rural areas of higher latitude and elevation were scrapped from the data series in favor of more urban locales at lower latitudes and elevations. Consequently, post-1990 readings have been biased to the warm side not only by selective geographic location, but also by the anthropogenic heating influence of a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI).
For example, Canada’s reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991, with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to one. That’s right: As Smith wrote in his blog, they left “one thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.” And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to its unusually moderate summers.”
Bad science being exposed.
I suppose if they can cherry-pick ten trees, they can cherry-pick ten thermometers.
2009 El Nino was cooler than 2005, and tied for 1998 El Nino… how can we say that warming is going on unabated? That’s before you even start to question what happens in Hansen’s Kitchen. That guy is quite the bull-s artist.
BTW the values that Kadaka and I are questioning only relate to GISS US Temperatures but how can an accepted temperature anomoly such as 1953 which was 0.91,then after McIntyre became 0.90 and now is 0.87 be correct?
Why do the numbers change?
Thanks sunsettommy. But that doesn’t explain to me why pre 1990 values are now less than they were in 2007.
John Finn,
The fraud if it exists is in the ‘early’ records or more accurately…the comparison to the earlier records.
The Glaciers on Mt Rainier are the most studied glaciers in the world. The only thermometer I trust.
http://www.nps.gov/archive/mora/ncrd/glaciers.htm
Between the 14th century and A.D. 1850, many of the glaciers on Mount Rainier advanced to their farthest..Retreat of the Little Ice Age glaciers was slow until about 1920 when retreat became more rapid…Beginning in 1950 and continuing through the early 1980’s, however, many of the major glaciers advanced…Since the early-1980’s and through 1992, however, many glaciers have been thinning and retreating and some advances have slowed.
One has to wonder,
Are researchers contaminating their own data? Is the recorded temperature of Antarctica higher because of the heat the researchers generate? Are the coral dying because of the sunscreen researchers wear? Are frogs dying of bacteria brought to remote areas on the shoes of researchers?
Temperature goes up and temperature goes down.
But Deg/CO2=0.