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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Roger Otip sez:
1) “if you’re a scientist you can get your findings peer-reviewed and published in a journal”
No need (although I am a scientist)…
All the data sources I cite are already peer reviewed and published and I provided direct links to all the source data (most of it downloaded from NOAA). If you had bothered to examine my evidence, you would know that.
Or, perhaps you did examine the evidence and — finding said evidence far too “inconvenient” to even attempt to refute — chose the traditional alarmist diversionary tactic of attacking the messenger instead.
2) “whereas weather describes conditions as measured in hours, days or weeks, the climate is average weather conditions measured over the longer term: months, years or decades.”
A) You cite an unattributed article published in the purely political Far Left Guardian as your supreme authority for the definition of “climate”? ROTFLMFAO! You really are a purely political propagandist!
B) The purely political Guardian prefers that their victims look back no further than a few “decades” because looking back only as far as the 1930’s serves to completely demolish their propaganda.
Now, go back and address the evidence I previously submitted (we know you can’t).
Roger Otip says:
“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.”
The IPCC report writers consist of well under a hundred paid propagandists, whose remit was to find that human activity is responsible for global warming. Since their pay and benfits depended on it, that’s exactly what they found.
But it was based on pseudo-science, such as Michael Mann’s repeatedly debunked Hokey Stick chart, which attempted to erase the MWP and the LIA. Alarmists constantly accuse scientific skeptics of not accepting climate change, when Mann’s chart shows no change until the industrial revolution.
Skeptics have always known that the climate constantly changes, and that current changes are well within long term parameters. In other words, nothing unusual is happening. What we observe are natural fluctuations.
In his recent article, Bob Tisdale debunked the alarmist notion that humans are primarily responsible for natural fluctuations. If you want to learn something, pay attention to his analysis and graphs.
Next, you say: “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.”
Horse manure. Fabrication. Scare tactics. And your “vast majority of scientists” is an opium pipe dream.
The voluntary OISM Petition has already been signed by over thirty thousand degreed professionals, all in the hard sciences – over 9,000 of them with PhDs.
The Petition they co-signed reads:
I suggest you stop posting alarmist misinformation. We’ve been through this many times before, here on the internet’s “Best Science” site. We have the facts, and realclimate propaganda is impotent here.
Roger Otip sez:
“The vast majority of scientists agree that… [blah, blah, blah]”
1) The National Academy of Sciences long ago lost any and all credibility (right along with NOAA, GISS, et al). NAS is just another propaganda arm for an utterly out of control federal government providing an endless monetary gravy train to anybody willing to pimp for their purely political agenda.
2) You can file this bunk right alongside the rest of the fully debunked claptrap from the entirely discredited IPCC.
3) As for your mythical scientific consensus, click here and destroy the biggest lie of all.
Smokey (January 12, 2011 at 6:29 pm),
Paid propagandists indeed…
Roger Otip can read it and weep (as can we all).
“We have the facts, and realclimate propaganda is impotent here.”
Roger that!
Quoting PhD Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.:
“Our [peer reviewed] paper… has clearly documented an estimated warm bias of about 30% in the IPCC reported surface temperature trends. This bias also brings into question the claim that 11 of the 12 years in the period 1995 to 2006 were the warmest on record. Moreover, despite the claim in the IPCC (2007) report, the tropospheric and surface temperature trends have not NOT reconciled…
The lack of news coverage on this documented bias which has appeared in the peer reviewed literature on the Klotzbach et al (2009) paper is another clear example of the failure of most of the journalism community to cover news that conflicts with the IPCC (2007) perspective.”
The cited peer reviewed science is:
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D21102, 8 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009JD011841
An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere
An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere
Philip J. Klotzbach
Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Roger A. Pielke Jr.
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
John R. Christy
Earth Science System Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Richard T. McNider
Earth Science System Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama, USA
This paper investigates surface and satellite temperature trends over the period from 1979 to 2008. Surface temperature data sets from the National Climate Data Center and the Hadley Center show larger trends over the 30-year period than the lower-tropospheric data from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems data sets. The differences between trends observed in the surface and lower-tropospheric satellite data sets are statistically significant in most comparisons, with much greater differences over land areas than over ocean areas. These findings strongly suggest that there remain important inconsistencies between surface and satellite records.
Received 2 February 2009; accepted 10 August 2009; published 4 November 2009.
Citation: Klotzbach, P. J., R. A. Pielke Sr., R. A. Pielke Jr., J. R. Christy, and R. T. McNider (2009), An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841.
Roger Otip says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:10 pm
“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.”
You can get your findings peer-reviewed all you want but if you want to set public policy you can put your name on a ballot and get elected to public office.
Got that?
SBVOR
Your evidence? You just keep linking to some ignorant blog covered in right wing adverts. That’s merely evidence of your own political bias.
Brazenly dishonest propagandist Roger Otip sez:
“Your evidence? You just keep linking to some ignorant blog covered in right wing adverts.”
1) That’s my blog and there is NO ADVERTISING! I am an entirely unpaid volunteer.
2) Unlike your Guardian propaganda, my blog entries directly cite peer reviewed science and offer direct links to the associated data (primarily downloaded from NOAA).
3) So, let me summarize just two essential blog entries which you are obviously too terrified to address:
In my view, climate can only be assessed by examining — at the very least — 10,000 year trends. Personally, I prefer to examine trends over the last 423,000 years.
Click here and here and do both. Then come back and tell me what the directly cited peer reviewed science has to say.
What is obvious is that you are repeatedly avoiding addressing the FACTS as revealed by directly cited peer reviewed science because you know as well as I do that your purely political mythology can NOT stand up to even the SLIGHTEST little bit of scientific scrutiny.
Caleb says:
January 12, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Sorry NASA and Hanson, but 1934 was warmest, and the fact you adjusted it down can’t change the fact.
I don’t know who Hanson is but Hansen said the following:
“The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century. In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.”
1934 was only the warmest year in the contiguous 48 United States, which covers a mere 2 percent of the Earth’s surface. Globally, 1934 does not even rank in the top ten warmest years; not in NASA’s record, not in NOAA’s record and not in the entirely independent HadCRUT / UK Met Office record. In fact, 1934 doesn’t even get into the top 40. Sorry, Caleb.
People can believe what they want.
James Hansen is messing with the data.
BAM!!!
SBVOR, enjoyed your site, particularly when you helped Appell put on his ass-hat. Reading between the lines, it seemed that he was just trying to waste your time. I could also sense the bead of sweat running down his temple. They know we are standing right behind them.
Artful Dodger. Roger Otip sez:
“1934 was only the warmest year in the contiguous 48 United States, which covers a mere 2 percent of the Earth’s surface. Globally, 1934 does not even rank in the top ten warmest years”
PhD Climatologist Roger Pielke sez:
“Our [peer reviewed] paper… has clearly documented an estimated warm bias of about 30% in the IPCC reported surface temperature trends. This bias also brings into question the claim that 11 of the 12 years in the period 1995 to 2006 were the warmest on record. Moreover, despite the claim in the IPCC (2007) report, the tropospheric and surface temperature trends have not NOT reconciled…
The lack of news coverage on this documented bias which has appeared in the peer reviewed literature on the Klotzbach et al (2009) paper is another clear example of the failure of most of the journalism community to cover news that conflicts with the IPCC (2007) perspective.”
The cited peer reviewed science is:
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D21102, 8 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009JD011841
Click here and examine the rest of the evidence, including the directly cited peer reviewed science.
I think it apropos to say:
Quit pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining!
RE: According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year …
This preliminary analysis is prepared by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
I get the feeling this is the sound bite to be given to the news media. At a later date, they’ll issue a statement, “After careful analysis, we changed our rankings…” This will be followed by some sound bite like, “Even with the changes, we find GLOBAL WARMING is still occurring…”
The US has been warming at .12 F a decade since 1897 according to NOAA… I wonder how much of that is from urbanization, and an expandning human population in the US, versus actual globe warming in that same time frame. I think that the human impact from growing. expanding, and building roads is a lot of that
What happened to all that Global Warming?
It went on a Carnival Cruise to Space.
Pacific Northwest – summer late, winter early opens barn door to an icy New Year.
Southern Winter 2010 – Antarctic blast crosses Equator.
And who was it that said 1998 was the warmest ever, and now it’s 2005?
GISS overdose @ur momisugly 180 proof.
Winter 2010/11 – Northern Hemisphere looks more like a planet that got hit by an ice cream comet.
Everything looks warm & fuzzy when you’re falling down drunk. I suppose.
David Ball (January 12, 2011 at 9:21 pm),
I’m happy to hear you enjoyed my blog. David Appell is one of the least formidable CAGW alarmists I’ve ever faced. But, then again — just like Appell — they all run and hide. What else can they do? They know they don’t have the science on their side and their purely political propaganda is paper thin and crumbles under the slightest scrutiny.
Yes, ahem, well…
See! 2005 and 2010 are tied as the
warmest years this century !
Go forth and spread the hubris.
I love these press releases, they are almost timed perfectly to support ( To their minds scientifically ) the incoherent ramblings of the big news media: NYT, Time, Newsweek, etc… Was NOAA is saying basically is…. “Who are going to believe? Us or your lying eyes”or maybe ” Pay no attention to the man behind the Curtain “
Roger Otip says:
January 12, 2011 at 5:50 pm
David L
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?
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.”
And as a professional scientist, I say they are wrong. My research indicates they are incorrect.
All I can say is, don’t believe everything you read. Human history is filled with wrong beliefs. For how many decades was there mass hysteria over UFOs? People even had evidence, published books, ran TV programs, governments put together groups to look into it.
Ray says:
January 12, 2011 at 9:38 am
It’s global warming… that’s why it freezing cold everywhere. One can ask, “But where did the heat go?”
/sarc off
———————-
Living in Oxfordshire it’s 12 degrees C today, which is 5 degrees above the mean maximum of 6.6 degrees C.
I guess that’s just weather for you, probably what you’re experiencing too.
“Lies
Damn’ lies,
and statistics”!