by David Whitehouse of the GWPF
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 3 December 2010
If the media headlines are to be believed 2010 is heading to be either the warmest or in the top three warmest years since the instrumental global temperature records began 150 years ago, and proof that the world is getting ever warmer. But looking more closely at the data reveals a different picture.
2010 will be remembered for just two warm months, attributable to the El Nino effect, with the rest of the year being nothing but average, or less than average temperature.
With November and December¹s data still to come in (that will account for 16% of the year¹s data) the UK Met Office estimates the temperature anomaly (with respect to the end of the 19th century) for 2010 so far as 0.756 deg C. As it has been cooling for the past 4 months we can expect that figure to decline below the 2005 0.747 deg C level and the El Nino influenced 1998 of 0.820 deg C.
2010 will therefore be no higher than the third warmest year, possibly lower.
Warm Spring
What has made 2010 warm is March and June due to El Nino, a short-term natural effect and nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming.
January was cooler than January in 2007, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 1998.
February was cooler than February in 2007, 2004, 2002, and 1998.
March was exceptionally warm at a temperature anomaly of 0.971. However it was, given the errors, statistically comparable with March 2008 (0.907) and March 1990 (0.910).
April was cooler than April 2007, 2005, and 1998.
May was cooler than May 2003 and 1998.
June was exceptionally warm at 0.827 deg C though statistically identical to June 2005 (0.825) and 1998.
July, when things started to cool, was cooler than July 2006, 2005 and 1998.
August was cooler than August 2009, about the same as 2005, and cooler than 2001 and 1998.
September was cooler than September 2009, 2007, 2005, 2001 and 1998.
October the last month for which there are records was cooler than October 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 1998.
The pattern is therefore of an unexceptional year except for a Spring/early summer El Nino that elevated temperatures.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the lack of warming seen in the global average annual temperatures seen in the last decade has changed.
Check the figures for yourself here.
Once again folks get into “back and forths” over the average telephone book number. What a dumb statistic and a dumb argument for or against it. Somewhere on Earth, temps were warmer, and somewhere on Earth, temps were cooler. The regional-based picture is far more instructive than the global telephone book number.
Were the discussion parametrized by region, we could all have an intelligent and instructive discussion related to drivers. But having discourse over this single number is just senseless and devoid of intellectual content.
Whilst in the UK, apart from June and July, this has been a cold year, I consider that the comparisons set out in this post tells us nothing as to whether 2010 globably as a whole was a particularly warm year. As Wouter notes, it is an invalid exercise making a comparisoon with cherry picked months all from different years.
I myself do not believe the data sets in view of the homogenisations/adjustments made and given the unreliability of the data sets, it is impossible to know which years were truly the warmest years experienced and hence I take these proclamations as to the warmest this or that with a pinch of salt.
@Anonymous Howard
“Why, January was the COLDEST January this DECADE, not counting 2001, 2006, 2007 & 2008.”
Err so 1 out of 10 was the coldest (all caps) if you exclude 4 out of 10? So January was something like the 5th out of 10 in terms of coldness?
The same news release from Cancun cherry picked Canadian weather as well as having a record warm winter and commented on the globally warm decade.What the WMO conveniently neglected to mention in their latest news clippings about Canadian weather is that the main reason for the anticipated record temperatures in Canada during 2010 and the warm 2010 winter is the 2009/2010 El Nino . Also we have had 4 El Nino’s during the last 7 years .This is more frequent than in the past when they happened once every 4-7 years. Eight of the last 10 years have been affected by the natural occurring El Nino to some degree. Thus the prime reason for the warm decade and the warm the 2010 winter in Canada is the El Nino. This has very little to do with global warming or increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite the record 2010 warm winter in Canada , if you exclude the El Nino winters of 2003,2005, 2007 ,and 2010 the Canadian winter temperature departure [ anomaly] from the 1948-2010 norm has actually been dropping during the last 10 years since 2000 from 2.5 C in 2000 to 0.3C in 2009, the last very cold winter. Some regions like the Prairie Provinces and Northwestern region have seen as much as 7.1 C drop in winter temperatures from the 2006 to 2009 winter .The warm El Nino’s greatly warm Canadian winters because of the close proximity to the warmer Pacific Ocean .The 2009/2010 El Nino is what accounted for the record 2010 warm winter and why there was less snow during the last Olympics, not due to global warming as many alarmists claimed. The snow prediction for the 2011 winter in my region [Ontario] is for 130 -160 cm of snow over this winter. That is about 4-5 feet. So there is no unusual warming taking place in our winters despite the isolated warm past winter. I expect our winters to continue to cool to the late 1970′s and early 1980′s levels during the next several decades
Whether or not we’ve broken any records this year, what is the average global temperature SUPPOSED to be with the business as usual emissions of CO2?
I mean, a teensy weensy bit higher in a period when we’re supposed to be warming naturally anyway?
@PaulM – thanks, very helpful.
Here is a nice chart which clearly demonstrates that an El Nino or La Nina has to be taken into account when one is trying to talk about temperature trends.
The UAH/RSS satellite average for the Tropics and the Global versus the ENSO lagged 3 months. This is probably the clearest, self-explanatory chart you will see.
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/931/ensol3vsrssuahtropgloba.png
I didn’t hear any climate scientists talking about the warmest year ever in the spring of 2008 when the La Nina had dropped temperatures below average. But when temperatures drop to normal or below in the spring of 2011, you can expect them to continue talking about the warm year of 2010 over and over again without mentioning the low spring temperatures that will occur.
I just read that they say it will also be the warmest decade yet – any word on that?
“Warmest Year Ever”? Look, for the past 4 million years my family has seen some pretty hot and cold times and I wouldn’t say 2010 was anything but average, very average, for an Interglacial Year on good old planet Earth. I don’t know what planet these people are from but it must be just as wierd as they are.
Anonymous Howard, get a grip.
Anonymous Howard says:
“This is awesome — global warming is total fiction! …Why, January was the COLDEST January this DECADE, not counting 2001, 2006, 2007 & 2008. March was NOT the coldest March ever:…Every other month this year set similar records for LOW temperatures when compared to a small list of very recent years.”
As the global warmers used to say: “weather is not climate”, and so you should be comparing decades with decades.
There have been 15 decades of reliable-ish records, so we have 15 decades to compare with each other
Three of these decades appeared to show warming of around 0.1C/decade … a run which is perfectly within the normal expectation when decades show around 0.1C warming and cooling as “normal”. Yet for the last decade we’ve had idiot trying to say that three decades of warming trend are unusual, and that somehow one or other of the decades was “unusually warm”
… isn’t it nice when the tables are turned and the global warmers have to go eat snow!
Yes, this is all very well and it may well turn out to be an unexceptional year. But what the majority of people the world over will be the statement “globally third warmest year” on record. Then what can be argued is – it’s a local effect and your memory which makes you think that it was cold in the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand etc – just look at the fires in Russia and Israel, the droughts/floods/hurricanes here there and everywhere you just can’t deny it any longer.
Probably a case of get your retaliation in early by the Met Office amongst others.
Just a thought
Anonymous Howered,
Let me see if I understand your point:
It used to take big el ninos to cause global temps to be this high (eg 1998). Now only unexceptional el ninos are needed. Therefore, in formal terms we can write –
Temp(big el nino + lower co2) = Temp(unexceptional el nino + higher co2). This must be true because everybody knows that temperatures are controlled solely by el ninos and co2 forcing. Therefore, the fact that temperatures haven’t got any higher in 12 years is proof of manmade global warming.
Have I got that right?
Models can be right….as long as nothing out there inconveniently changes. It is time to begin dealing with reality, to analyze the current Solar Minimum, how is it going compared to Dalton Minimum or Maunder Minimum.
Have anyone of you felt colder than usual lately, or may be warmer?
I meant to say there have been 4 El Nino’s in the last 9 years [2002 -2010]not in the last 7 years. Sorry for my typo error. During that time there was only one La Nina. The second one just got underway in the middle of 9th year
Didn’t Met O announce they were going to make large adjustments to HadCRUT data because they agree with Hansen’s method, or something to that affect?
S. Geiger says:
December 6, 2010 at 6:01 am (Edit)
wow, is this what passes for blog analysis these days? Should be titled “the art of cherry picking”? Shouldn’t the obvious point be that just another ‘el nino year’ can now give rise to one of the top 3 warmest on record?
Actually, it was quite a big and long sustained el nino. However, there are a few points to note:
Unlike the ’98 el nino, this one won’t be followed by a rapidly rising solar cycle headed for a historically maximum. This means the ocean heat content released by the el nino isn’t going to be replenished. This means we are in for one big la nina.
Brace for a very cold N.H. winter. I just chopped enough wood to keep me warm until march if the gas supply in the UK gets cut. I advise others to do the same.
“2010 will therefore be no higher than the third warmest year, possibly lower.”
You forget these people are experts at data manipulation.
It would be great if all the world could warm up to reach Cancun’s temperature.
I must say, this isn’t exactly the best analysis i’ve seen.
It’s interesting as perhaps a ‘coffee table piece’, but it does seem a bit weak so far.
As someone mentioned, it appears the el ninio was weaker in 2010 than 1998, yet the temperatures are similar (so far) – even as a ‘skeptic’ this would suggest that something else is shoring the temperatures up (not saying it’s co2, but it would seem that something ahs to be acting on temp).
2013 should be warmer.
ATTN: PaulM
Temperature is not measured to +/- 0.001 deg C.
“The monthly numbers for 1998 were:
0.492 0.756 0.548 0.647 0.596 0.606 0.671 0.647 0.393 0.420 0.351 0.444
with a year-average of 0.548”
should be:
0.5 0.8 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.4 o.4 0.4 0.4
with mean (+/- avg. deviation): 0.5 +/- 0.1
“The monthly data for 2010 so far are:
0.498 0.491 0.587 0.579 0.511 0.533 0.534 0.475 0.389 0.392
with a ten-month average of 0.499.”
should be:
0.5 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.5 o.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4
with mean (+/- avg. deviation): 0.5 +/- 0.0
It is most likely that 1998 vs 2010 will be a draw.
I suspect that temperature measurements are not all that accurate. In Canada temperature in weather station records is now reported to +/- 0.5 deg C.
If you round temperature measurements to the nearest whole deg C, global warming vanishes.
sharper00 says: (December 6, 2010 at 6:14 am)
Actually, I believe that makes it the 4th coldest year on record, not counting the 120-odd years prior to this decade. And they certainly were odd; I’m guessing an extended La Nina event caused them all to be below normal temperatures.
Fortunately, this decade has returned to normal, proving that El Nino events are unexceptional and that whenever they happen, they cause record high temperatures. Which is why record high temperatures prove that global warming is false!
Western Australia’s monopoly daily newspaper, The West Australian, showed no restraint on December 1, 2010, when describing the heat of the spring months just past.
“… the State sweltered its way through the hottest spring on record.”
See http://www.waclimate.net/imgs/west-australian-newspaper-1-12-2010.gif
Trouble is, it wasn’t the hottest spring on record.
To quote the Bureau of Meteorology seasonal statement for the state of WA (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/wa/summary.shtml) …
“When averaged over the whole state, spring 2010 was near average.”
November was above average but the seasonal average had to overcome the 7th lowest maximum (and the third wettest) September recorded across WA since records began.
Ongoing drought in the lower south-west may have caused the highest temperatures recorded since 1950, but the remaining two million square kilometres of WA were below or well below average. However, the press has stated that WA had its hottest spring on record so the dye is cast.
Australia’s BoM doesn’t need to exaggerate temperature trends when the media can turn average seasons into sweltering records.
Matt says: “I just read that they say it will also be the warmest decade yet – any word on that?”
In 2001 I read the CRU saying: “in a few years time children just won’t know what snow is”.
I think the same word applies CR*P!
Snow is as they say like a guest … fun for the first few days, but any longer and you just want them to leave. But these last two years, we’ve had unwelcome visitors for weeks on end and all I can say is thank goodness for the internet, because I don’t know how on earth I would have kept our children entertained .
… THEY ARE BORED OF THE SNOW, BORED, BORED, BORED, FORGET “NOT KNOWING WHAT SNOW IS” … there’s only so much fun children can have with snow and they’ve had it!
PS. I’m grumpy because (according to the Met Office “forecast”) we were supposed to be getting “fog”, but instead we got inches of snow, the schools are off and even if they weren’t I couldn’t do anything because I couldn’t drive anywhere today.