Press release: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html
NOAA: 2010 Tied For Warmest Year on Record
According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average. For the contiguous United States alone, the 2010 average annual temperature was above normal, resulting in the 23rd warmest year on record.
This preliminary analysis is prepared by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., and is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions.
2010 Global Climate Highlights:
- Combined global land and ocean annual surface temperatures for 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record at 1.12 F (0.62 C) above the 20th century average. The range of confidence (to the 95 percent level) associated with the combined surface temperature is +/- 0.13 F (+/- 0.07 C).*
- The global land surface temperatures for 2010 were the warmest on record at 1.80 F (1.00 C) above the 20th century average. The range of confidence associated with the land surface temperature is +/- 0.20 F (+/- 0.11 C).
- Global ocean surface temperatures for 2010 tied with 2005 as the third warmest on record, at 0.88 F (0.49 C) above the 20th century average. The range of confidence associated with the ocean surface temperature is +/- 0.11 F (+/- 0.06 C).
- In 2010 there was a dramatic shift in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which influences global temperature and precipitation patterns — when a moderate-to-strong El Niño transitioned to La Niña conditions by July. At the end of November, La Niña was moderate-to-strong.
- According to the Global Historical Climatology Network, 2010 was the wettest year on record, in terms of global average precipitation. As with any year, precipitation patterns were highly variable from region to region.
- The 2010 Pacific hurricane season had seven named storms and three hurricanes, the fewest on record since the mid-1960s when scientists started using satellite observations. By contrast, the Atlantic season was extremely active, with 19 named storms and 12 hurricanes. The year tied for third- and second-most storms and hurricanes on record, respectively.
- The Arctic sea ice extent had a record long growing season, with the annual maximum occurring at the latest date, March 31, since records began in 1979. Despite the shorter-than-normal melting season, the Arctic still reached its third smallest annual sea ice minimum on record behind 2007 and 2008. The Antarctic sea ice extent reached its eighth smallest annual maximum extent in March, while in September, the Antarctic sea ice rapidly expanded to its third largest extent on record.
- A negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) in January and February helped usher in very cold Arctic air to much of the Northern Hemisphere. Record cold and major snowstorms with heavy accumulations occurred across much of eastern North America, Europe and Asia. The February AO index reached -4.266, the largest negative anomaly since records began in 1950.
- From mid-June to mid-August, an unusually strong jet stream shifted northward of western Russia while plunging southward into Pakistan. The jet stream remained locked in place for weeks, bringing an unprecedented two-month heat wave to Russia and contributing to devastating floods in Pakistan at the end of July.
U.S. Climate Highlights:
- In the contiguous United States, 2010 was the 14th consecutive year with an annual temperature above the long-term average. Since 1895, the temperature across the nation has increased at an average rate of approximately 0.12 F per decade.
- Precipitation across the contiguous United States in 2010 was 1.02 inches (2.59 cm) above the long-term average. Like temperature, precipitation patterns are influenced by climate processes such as ENSO. A persistent storm track brought prolific summer rain to the northern Plains and upper Midwest. Wisconsin had its wettest summer on record, and many surrounding states had much above-normal precipitation. Since the start of records in the U.S. in 1895, precipitation across the United States is increasing at an average rate of approximately 0.18 inches per decade.
- The year began with extremely cold winter temperatures and snowfall amounts that broke monthly and seasonal records at many U.S. locations. Seasonal snowfall records fell in several cities, including Washington; Baltimore, Md., Philadelphia; Wilmington, Del.; and Atlantic City, N.J. Several NOAA studies established that this winter pattern was made more likely by the combined states of El Niño and the Arctic Oscillation.
- Twelve states, mainly in the Southeast, but extending northward into New England, experienced a record warm June-August. Several cities broke summer temperature records including New York (Central Park); Philadelphia; Trenton, N.J.; and Wilmington, Del.
- Preliminary totals indicate there were 1,302 U.S. tornadoes during 2010. The year will rank among the 10 busiest for tornadoes since records began in 1950. An active storm pattern across the Northern Plains during the summer contributed to a state-record 104 confirmed tornadoes in Minnesota in 2010, making Minnesota the national tornado leader for the first time.
- During 2010, substantial precipitation fell in many drought-stricken regions. The U.S. footprint of drought reached its smallest extent during July when less than eight percent of the country was experiencing drought conditions. The increased precipitation and eradication of drought limited the acres burned and number of wildfires during 2010. Hawaii had near-record dryness occurring in some areas for most of the year.
Scientists, researchers and leaders in government and industry use NOAA’s monthly reports to help track trends and other changes in the world’s climate. This climate service has a wide range of practical uses, from helping farmers know what and when to plant, to guiding resource managers‘ critical decisions about water, energy and other vital assets.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Visit us online at www.noaa.gov or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/usnoaagov.
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“”””” Michael J. Dunn says:
January 12, 2011 at 1:23 pm
[George E. Smith says: January 12, 2011 at 12:22 pm]
I’m sorry, but I don’t quite follow the point that Mr. Smith is making.
True, the CO2 absorption bands at 2.7 and 4 microns would interact only with solar radiation. But these absorption windows are saturated, insensitive to current CO2 concentration. Their effect on insolation is essentially constant. As a result, there is no “cooling” effect, since an equilibrium temperature would be reached and would not change. (In any case, the term “cooling” should be reserved for processes that transport heat from the Earth into space.)
However, the CO2 absorption bands at longer wavelengths (notably 10 microns) are not saturated, and it is arguable that increases in CO2 concentration could shift the temperature equilibrium upwards, ever so infinitesimally.
Well Michael, you shouldn’t blame ME for YOUR lack of following.
Take THIS comment you wrote:- “”””” (In any case, the term “cooling” should be reserved for processes that transport heat from the Earth into space.) “””””
Now follow me carefully here Michael; I have nothing hidden up my sleeve. CO2 (and you admit this is true) in the atmosphere can absorb only SOLAR ENERGY, in the 2.7 and 4.0 micron spectral regions. Well Just for you, I looked it up, and found CO2 absorption bands at 1.3-1.5, 1.8-1.95, 2.25-3.0 microns as well as the 4 micron band. All of those shorter CO2 bands also are water absorption bands, so it is not easy to separate from measured data.
But there is NO IR radiation anywhere near those bands as a consequence of the earth’s surface or atmospheric Temperatures.
So the energy that CO2 absorbs FROM THE SUN at those near IR wavelengths, does NOT reach the surface at solar spectrum wavelengths; where it mostly would be deposited in the deep oceans if it did. So LESS sunlight reaches the surface as a result of that CO2. THAT is a surface cooling effect.
True it also IS an atmospheric WARMING effect. As a result of that atmospheric warming effect, the amosphere radiates ISOTROPICALLY in the LWIR region centered at about 10.1 microns; corresponding to a mean earth Temperature of 288 K (15 deg C or 57 deg F).
As a consequence of that isotropic thermal radiation from the atmosphere ONLY HALF of that increased atmospheric energy, reaches the surface; the other half, “”””” transport(s) heat from the Earth into space “””””
So even by YOUR definition of cooling, that IS a cooling effect; which is exactly what I said.
ANYTHING which interrupts incoming solar spectrum radiant energy in the atmosphere, reduces the ground level insolation so it results in a cooling of the SURFACE.
The concept of an isotropic radiation causing a cooling loss of energy from the earth surface to outer space, can be visualized by ANYONE who has ever flown commercially in daylight hours.
If you are flying at 36,000 feet down to Hawaii, in daylight, you will find that looking down, you DO NOT see the ocean. What you do see is the BLUE SKY due to Raleigh scattering by the atmosphere; it looks about the same looking down, as looking up. Looking up in daylight you do not see the black sky or the sun bright stars; you see blue Raleigh scattered sunlight. Looking down in daylight you do not see the black ocean, nor the bright “stars” either which consist of sunlit wind blown white caps, which are too small to be resolved by eye as anything other than bright points of light. They too are washed out by the blue Raleigh scattered sunlight. The view is nearly identical in either direction; and if you invoke the standard climatists 3:1 fudge factor range; the up/down skylight is well within that ratio.
So don’t waste your time trying to argue that thermal radiation from the warm or warmer atmosphere does not split about equally between up and down. If anything; that split actually favors the upward escape route to the downward return to earth direction.
I’m not even going to waste everybody else’s time explaining to you why that is so. Look up Doppler and Pressure Broadening, and the Wien Displacement Law; and figure it out for yourself.
And why do you invoke a “saturation” argument to claim that increases in CO2 do not result in increases in solar energy “entrapment”. The mean free path between molecular collisions near ground level (lower troposphere) is such that a solar excited CO2 molecule does not remain so, for long; that captured energy is promptly thermalized (and thereby warms the air) leaving the CO2 molecule ready willing and able to capture some more solar energy. The band is never saturated; just like the 15 micron CO2 bending mode band is never saturated. And there is NO CO2 10 micron band. There is a somewhat narrow O3 absorption band at about 9.6 microns, and H2O starts absorbing strongly at longer than about 10 microns, but below that is the so-called atmospheric window.
And as surface temperatures get hotter in the afternoon sun, (maybe +60 deg C or more), the surface thermal spectrum peak moves from about 10.1 down to 8.7 microns per Wien Displacement Law, and that results in the effect of CO2 15 micron absorption being even less significant.
The key point of my former post was simply that the whole man made global warming hualabaloo involves ONLY the Radiation Physics effects; and CO2 variations play absolutely no significant part in any oither thermal process on earth.
Although the miniscule 390 ppm of atmospheric CO2 “”””” IS “”””” a significant contributor to Atmospheric warming via the capture of 15 micron band thermal emissions; there is no way that that amount of CO2 measurably affects the thermal capacity, or thermal conductivity; or any other thermal process metric of earth’s atmosphere.
So most of the processes of climate or weather are unrelated to CO2 or any other non-condensing GHG in the atmosphere; only thermal EM radiation, and molecular absorption spectroscopy, show any influence of CO2, and that influence is on the ATMOSPHERE ONLY. Nobody has measured any effect of CO2 in the ocean or soil having an influence on the ocean or soil Temperature, as a result of changes in thermal conductivity or specific heat or any other non radiation physics phenomenon.
Roger Otip:
Tell me, Roger…
Is a 71 year USA cooling trend for the month of December climate or weather?
Or, is it merely galactically “inconvenient” to purely political propagandists such as yourself?
So with all the homogenising, adjusting, UHI, weather station culls, extrapolations and interpolations, and other tricks, the cli-myth transvesitites (eco-nuts dressed up in lab coats) have failed to push up 2010 to the status of the warmest year ever.
But not to worry, they equated it with 2005, just to impress the idiots, but not me. I can see through the scam, not that I’m some intelligent guy, but its just that the scam is so stupid. Everyone is seeing through it except for the king and his minions, (=the presidents/prime ministers, parliamentarians and journalists).
And so, after all the efforts by the cli-myth transvestites to artificially push up the temperature records for 2010, still they failed miserably; so it must have gone really and truly cold out there for the real climate to have neutralised and even beat the global warming scammers’ manipulated temps for 2010.
SBVOR,
Can we put the 45 trillion in a little perspective as it sounds like a lot of money.
45 trillion over 40 years
We, in the US currently spend 500 billion on coal fired electricity and 1.6 trillion per year on oil.
Bob sez:
“45 trillion… sounds like a lot of money”
Earth to Bob:
1) $45 trillion IS a lot of money!
2) It IS a lot of money to utterly WASTE on Kyoto, Act II. Kyoto was — by ALL accounts — a miserable WASTE OF MONEY!
Hell, even the New York Times admits that.
3) Whatever we (consumers) voluntarily spend on coal and oil (figures you failed to even attempt to substantiate), that is money voluntarily spent on something which is enormously PRODUCTIVE!
4) You and your ilk want to hold a gun to our collective heads and FORCE US to utterly WASTE $45 trillion. Are you NUTS or merely tyrannical (or both)?
Very nice post at Jo Nova’s site.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/half-of-the-energy-is-flung-out-to-space-along-with-the-model-projections/#more-12761
34th consecutive year with global temperature above the 20th century average”
Great. Cold sucks. It won’t be warm enough for me until the planet is green from pole to pole. I just can’t understand the rationale of the ice huggers. We should be so lucky as to never have to deal with an ice age again. The beltway denizens would have a whole different outlook with a mile of ice covering everything north of Washington, D.C. as it has 90% of the time in the last 3 million years and as it was just a scant 12,000 years ago. But what can you expect from a bunch of dolts who can’t see past the next election cycle to say nothing of past the end of the interglacial period.
They forget to mention that up until two years ago there had been 34 consecutive years with solar activity (sunspot count) far higher than the average of the last 400 years. In fact it’s the highest sustained level since records began.
Climate boffins are too willing to credit the warming on what humans are doing and too slow to credit it on what the solar furnace is doing.
A collection of numbers and meaningless stats. Means nothing. I tire of this drivel.
Imagine you’re a bug and your life span is a year. You’re born in early May and you start observing your climate. By the end of the summer you are making projections that the world just keeps getting hotter and hotter. You fit the temperature data to a line because that’s the only function you know. You find the end of August is the 5th warmest week and the 10th driest since June. In fact, most of August is warmer by 1.1423532C than 84.3% of the previous 31day run, averaged by a 5 point rolling average. Then an early snow flurry hits in October but that doesn’t fall on your linear projection, so it’s weather and doesn’t count. Yet its obvious your children’s children don’t stand a chance.
SBVOR says:
“4) You and your ilk want to hold a gun to our collective heads and FORCE US to utterly WASTE $45 trillion. Are you NUTS or merely tyrannical (or both)?”
Definitely NUTS. Off the deep end. Not playing with a full deck. Has a few screws loose. Not playing with all his marbles. A few sandwiches short of a picnic. And so on and so forth. The tyrannical use their real names because, well, you need to know who your new bosses are.
Roger Otip says:
January 12, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Dashiell
This is truely remarkable. 2010 tied with 2005 for the warmest year despite a moderate El Niño, a very strong La Niña and the lowest solar minimum in a long time.
I find it remarkable how people on this site are able to continue denying in the face of such evidence.
____________________________________________________________
Straw man arguement yet again.
Some of the posts maybe a bit over the top here, but with good reasons because people have little trust with the adjusting of raw data.
Thanks both of you for pointing out to us that you both don’t understand the timing of ENSO events with global temperatures and even what the strength of them is.
Error 1) The La Nina currently is weaker then the El Nino during 2009/2010, yet described this a moderate versus a very strong event.
Error 2) The El Nino was a strong event in 2009/2010 with the ONI peaking 1.8 and the event for La Nina so far is moderate with ONI peaking 1.4 so far. (should become strong soon)
Error 3) The delay in ENSO to Global temperatures has only just recently started to affect global temperatures and cooling will occur further this year for at least 6 months.
Error 4) 2005 started with a weak El Nino ending with a peak ONI 0.9 and the rest of the year was generally neutral. 2010’s El Nino didn’t finish until May but quickly La Nina set in by July. The La Nina didn’t start affecting global temperatures until November with the expected delay. With a stronger El Nino then 2004/2005 with this data set it would be expected to have higher temperatures than 2005, not equal them to maintain any warming.
Error 5) An extended solar minimum takes time to affect global temperatures with the energy content of the oceans. El Ninos warm the atmosphere, but hide the energy lost from the ocean with the solar minimum. Here is the difference between temperature and heat, where the energy loss from the water is the rise in atmospheric temperature.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
What are actually people denying?
Generally all accept AGW having some role, but none expect it to be a problem for later decades because there is no evidence to support a dangerous climate change. (with no long term change in hurricanes, floods, droughts etc) The current rate of global temperatures is no higher then 1c per century so what are the people on here denying? The rate is no different from the early 20th century
and the concern for dangerous climate is for values more than 3c per century which are only from the worst case senarios of climate models.
45 trillion is $7,500 from every man, woman, and child alive today.
Global average income is $7000.
How long does it take “Bob” to save an amount of money equal to one year of his wages?
This is what is being asked of the world by a delusional few to pay for something that will, in any honest evaluation, cause far more harm than good because everyone with a lick of sense knows that warm seasons and climates with lots of actively growing green plants are preferable to snow and ice and living things struggling to survive until it gets warm again.
Incredible. The phrase “over my dead body” comes to mind.
Roger Otip says:
January 12, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Arno Arrak
I do believe that the recent years since 1998 include the warmest on record.
Indeed, the last decade was the warmest ever recorded, according to all of the major temperature records, beating the record set by the previous decade (that beat the record set by the decade before that). This warming trend is significant and it is undeniable.”
Okay. You win. It’s warmer. So what? Who cares? Why is it so important to you? Are you absolutely sure 1) anthropomorphic CO2 is to blame and 2) it’s actually a problem? Humans are mammals. We like warmth. We need warmth. Plants need CO2. Can you guarantee that the climate isn’t on a thousand or ten thousand year cycle and it will cool again? No, you can’t. No one can. It’s all speculative BS. Designed up generate more taxes for the politicians and more funding for the researches. How do I know? Because I was an academic researcher years ago. I know how the game goes. Don’t be a naive fool.
SBVOR
You can examine what you like and if you’re a scientist you can get your findings peer-reviewed and published in a journal. If not, you’ll have to content yourself with posting on denialist blogs.
As to the definition of the word climate:
Bob says:
“We, in the US currently spend 500 billion on coal fired electricity and 1.6 trillion per year on oil.”
Yes. And we get excellent value for the money spent.
Furthermore, no government force is required; people willingly pay for the benefits of fossil fuels, without any government coercion. But if Bob wants to do without the benefits of fossil fuels, he is free to do so [but of course he won’t].
SBVOR is spot on in his response to Bob.
“”””” SBVOR says:
January 12, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Bob sez:
“45 trillion… sounds like a lot of money”
Earth to Bob:
1) $45 trillion IS a lot of money! “””””
Well !! Not exactly.
45 Trillion IS a fairly big number; but $$$ is basically not real money any more. Now if it was gold backed it might be worth something; but you should see some Zimbabwe bank notes to see what really big money is.
In the early 1920s, you could pay off the entire National Debt of Germany, with a single red American cent; and get change back. I believe the German currency was inflated about 1.6 Trillion times, in about a year and a half. Don’t hold me to those numbers; they are strictly from memory; and I don’t really recall much from that period in my life. So look it up; I believe it fits within the standard climatism 3:1 fudge factor ratio.
Why do these buffoons still have a job? Why are we still paying them?
Gary,
“This is how I recall the past year of 2010.’
The way I recall the year in Brisbane is cool Summer, cold Autumn, much colder than usual (for Brisbane) Winter, cool rainy Spring, cool and damned wet Summer.
But, hey, we should always ignore our own experience if it conflicts with the pronouncements of experts.
“David A. Evans says: Did I miss the new dust bowl?”
We’ve got it right here in rural Queensland. It’s just West of the mountains, under that water.
Roger Otip,
You can use the hugely biased Guardian’s pseudo-science definition of climate. But in reality, the word has been perverted to now mean the entire planet’s temperature.
The dictionary definition of climate has always been local. For example: “They live in a cold climate, which has been getting colder over the past century, and because of that the tree line is getting lower.”
The dictionary definition:
climate |ˈklīmit|
noun
• the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period : our cold, wet climate | agricultural development is constrained by climate.
• a region with particular prevailing weather conditions : vacationing in a warm climate.
Until the mid-60’s, the word climate referred to a region.
And NASA chimes in here http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110112/
And dumb and dumber here: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/137573-kerry-markey-hottest-year-a-wake-up-call-on-global-warming
In Oregon, I had more mice, more bats, more worms, more insects, and more owls in 2005. Since then, every year I see less mice, fewer bats, fewer worms, fewer insects, and fewer owls. These creatures all love warm soil, warm air, and warm on the ground temperatures as early in the Spring as possible. Hate to break it to you, but regionally (which is the ONLY way to measure weather pattern variation change) we are getting colder. I keep saying it here, again and again, while the researchers pour over the global temperature, they will miss the onset of cooling so dramatically and obviously, they will never see the light of day inside a peer reviewed journal again and will be relegated to basement level floor sweeping.
David L
1) The IPCC, in their 2007 report, concluded that it was very likely (ie. more than 90% certain) that human activity was the cause of most of the warming over the past half century.
2) The vast majority of scientists agree that increases in atmospheric CO2 above 450ppmv or temperature increases of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels are likely to have serious detrimental impacts on human societies: water shortages and droughts in some areas, leading to crop failures, increasingly severe floods in other areas, desertification, rising sea levels, an increase in extreme weather events etc..
Solomon, 2009
My cherry picked data said exactly what I wanted it to as well. when I found a measurement site that was colder I just eliminated it so only the warming sites would be the data I use.
Instead we need to look elsewhere to find the heartbeat of the ice ages. the milankovich cycle ice and ocean core data show clearly what is coming, global warming is for the useful idiots we want to tax, and kill. global cooling is the reality and it will catch them with their pants down and millions will die from starvation as planned. we will own all the useful land and make slaves of the remaining population.
If last year was among the “warmest years” on record, then there was an ice age in the 70s?
Sorry NASA and Hanson, but 1934 was warmest, and the fact you adjusted it down can’t change the fact.
I knew a man who grew up in Kansas during the Dust Bowl, (which he called the “dirt storms,”) and the tales he told of the heat are like nothing we’ve experienced recently. Since I met him, back in 1984, I keep coming across other accounts, from other parts of the country, where 1934 stands out.
I would like to read an account of the “adjustments” that were made to 1934, which shrank it’s temperature below 1998. I wonder if it would stand up to scientific scrutiny. Is the data “lost?” Has McIntyre ever had a chance to go over it properly?
One thing the old Kansas farmer told me that I remember is that he thought “dirt storms” were just the way the world was. When Kansas grew green in the early 1940’s he couldn’t believe his eyes. Because of World War Two he, (and other farmers who survived and didn’t lose their farms and become homeless “Oakies,”) became rich. He would drive at a high rate of speed over his frozen fields in a Cadillac, towing his children in a sled.