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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Assuming that Hansen et all are right, and that its all ‘settled’, I find it irritating when scientists (even if it is for a press release) blather about how its getting ‘warmer’ – and the actual numbers are tiny, like ~0.8F.
Yes, that would be ‘warmer’ than ~.2F – but how does it compare to the previous alarms about temperatures rising by 6C?
It is also irritating when those scientists just throw numbers around, without indicating the units they are talking about. There is, to my certain knowledge, a slight difference between 1F and 1C …
And I find it irritating when people go on about how ‘we’ put so much CO2 into the atmosphere.
I seem to recall that there is a lag of 800 years between a warm period and subsequent rise of CO2. So isn’t the rise we’re seeing the result of the MWP? Or am I missing something?
A year or so ago, perhaps two, a poster asked if the communications transmissions we all use would have any effect on the air temperatures. Anthony showed how weak those transmissions were and thus had no effect. Is it time to revisit that as communications have increased exponentially or are they still too weak to play a part?
“Warmest Decade” measured from ground based stations offers too much variability. Historically we have to account for the urban warming effect, loss of reporting stations in very cold climates, and “smoothing” to fill reporting holes that doesn’t account for altitude variability. The thermal inertia to warming of the oceans is potentially the only reliable source of comparison. What does that data set tell us?
Warmest decade on record? Absolute bollocks. These clowns at NASA should be tarred, feathered and run out of town.
They had to report something after the world finds out the numbers have beed doctored.This is nothing but recycled news after the longest cold snap since the 70’s and were not finisned with winter this year by no means.
Anthony,
Also I see they are mixing climate change, clean air (smog vs Co2) with energy independance and a need for more alternatives for energy that is domestically supplied which all of us support, Sincerely John
http://www.desmogblog.com/republican-pollster-confirms-americans-energy-concerns If you follow the links you can end up here http://www.edf.org/documents/10738_Language-of-a-Clean-Energy-Economy.pdf?redirect=language
Which really is a parsing of language used in the debate. We all want clean cheap energy sources and favor them even more if they are produced domestically. But to slap a huge tax or cost on dependable cost effective clean burning fossil fuels to save mankind from AGW is where we differnt deeply………John….
REPLY: It is useful to remember who funds desmogblog
– Anthony
So, people; Is it young Peter here being a fraud, or is it James Hansen ?
Anyone? ;
It was warm and steamy alright. The kind of warm and steamy my dog likes to sniff.
Global warming hits Arizona
http://134.114.127.22/jpg/hugesize.jpg
I have few questions:
– having the russians complaining about that preferrably stations showing increasing temperatures are used, how can one trust this red all across Siberia?
– the deep red north of Svalbard, is it measured or calculated?
– the deep red north of Alaska/ Bering strait, is it measured or calculated?
These 3 areas are significantly contributing to the warm image of the Northern part of the world.
Thank you for clarification.
After Ohio struggled to stay near 80 all summer, and indeed had a very very cool summer, I don’t really give a crap what GISTEMP says. I don’t buy it. Here is why. If I can experience the second coldest summer in the warmest decade* since time began, then I am not going to be concerned about anything. I think it is the Bolivia Effect. Weather isn’t climate, but when it comes to these jokers, neither is climate.
/rant
>>>>Wolf ! Wolf ! Wolf !
Indeed, and nobody is listening any more. But when will indifference turn to derision and anger??
.
RomanM (07:36:52) :
I believe the words for this are “Oh snap!”
One wonders if the word in the back rooms of the political rainmakers is really all about using public funds to subsidize alternate energy as the main strategy for the war on terror. It may simply be to impoverish the enemies of the west by no longer buying their oil. In order to scare the public so we accept the punitive taxes surely coming our way they demonize oil. I really can’t otherwise imagine why any reasonable person would so blindly embrace such wobbly science in the face of confounding data. Naw, couldn’t be.
For me this is one of the most important developments in this debate so far:
recommendation of a book that calls for an end to civilisation itself:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023339/james-hansen-would-you-buy-a-used-temperature-data-set-from-this-man/
Anthony there must be huge mileage in this?
John Theon speaks out:
“In a 37-year career at NASA, his titles included Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics, Radiation, & Hydrology Branch followed by a stint as Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA HQ.”
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote. “I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.”
“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.
“They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.”
WOULD YOU BUY A USED TEMPERATURE DATA SET FROM THIS MAN?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023339/james-hansen-would-you-buy-a-used-temperature-data-set-from-this-man/
Anthony,
I have always wondered why the RAWS system in the US is not incorporated into UHI evaluation checks. I would love to see a screen with overlays for weather data for ASOS locations and then compare to the nearest RAWS and the nearest long term surfacestation.
It provides a check for each of the official stations used. A way to view weather changes, by the reports from the different major systems not included in the climate models. It provides the best set of tools to measure “UHI”. The equipment is perfectly situated to show heating or cooling trends in wilderness interface locations.
The Remote Automated Weather System has been installed in about 2,200 remote locations all over the US. It is continuously updated and upgraded with new hardware as technology advances. The locations are specifically picked to provide timely information about the “Wilderness” for fire science.
If its good enough for evaluating the forest for fire conditions, it should be good enough to help check the accuracy of the equipment near by.
best,
Jack Barnes
http://www.fs.fed.us/raws/
It’s discussed in the link that follows Anthony’s sentence:
2005 was the warmest year on record and 2009 tied with 1998 (and cluster) as second warmest?
How do they expect to be taken seriously with statements like these?
This reads like propaganda.
I’d love to feel some of those warm yellows and reds at my house. I’m tired of the cold.
Re: Roger Knights (08:41:09) :
I continue to wait for someone to put in writing here precisely what is “not to be trusted” rather than to have me look somewhere else. I did read the two links provided at the very end. I did not find any evidence in those two links supporting the assertion that GISS data is “not to be trusted.”
My initial question to Anthony references that he wrote “For more information about why the GISS data isn’t much to be trusted” (emphasis added). That has me looking for something in the original blog entry which is his evidence. I repeat: what is the evidence in Anthony ‘s blog ?
This whole thing about the warmest year “ever” is so tiresome. How many times have you heard someone tell you the weather has never been so hot, never been so cold, never been so wet, etc? People have short memories and the data is not adequate to be able to really make these statements. And never mind the fact that it’s a “so what” kind of statement anyway. Yet the warmers continually pump this information out with menacing connotations. This is not neutral science, it’s agenda driven nonsense.
The only source to be trusted it seems is the satellite record. So that has 2009 as the 7th warmest year, but only takes into account the past 30 years. The last 10 years shows no significant warming or cooling.
kadaka (05:35:58) :
(…) resulting in 1934 being the hottest year on record (in 2007) with 2006 being number 4. Now this press release pegs 2005 as warmest on record, which wasn’t even in the top ten back then, just a few years ago.
“NASA – Prior decades much the same as last one”
Really wasn’t doing much for press momentum.