While there’s been a lot of attention given to the recent NOAA and NASA press releases stating that 2010 was tied for the warmest year globally, it didn’t meet that criteria in the USA by a significant margin according the the data directly available to the public from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center. (NCDC)
Here’s the graph of USA mean annual temperature from 1895-2010 produced by NCDC’s interactive climate database and graph generator, which you can operate yourself here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
Note the rank highlighted in yellow. The pulldown menu gives you an idea of what was the warmest year in the USA from this data, arrows added:
Here’s the partial table output (you can use their online selector to output your own table) sorted by rank from NCDC web page. 1998 leads, followed by 2006, and then 1934. 2010 is quite a ways down, ranking 94th out of 116.
Climate At A Glance
Year to Date (Jan – Dec) Temperature
Contiguous United States
Year |
Temperature(deg F) |
RankBased on the Time Period Selected (1895-2010)* |
RankBased on the Period of Record (1895-2010)* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 55.08 | 116 | 116 |
| 2006 | 55.04 | 115 | 115 |
| 1934 | 54.83 | 114 | 114 |
| 1999 | 54.67 | 113 | 113 |
| 1921 | 54.53 | 112 | 112 |
| 2001 | 54.41 | 111 | 111 |
| 2007 | 54.38 | 110 | 110 |
| 2005 | 54.36 | 109 | 109 |
| 1990 | 54.29 | 108 | 108 |
| 1931 | 54.29 | 108 | 108 |
| 1953 | 54.16 | 106 | 106 |
| 1987 | 54.11 | 105 | 105 |
| 1954 | 54.11 | 105 | 105 |
| 1986 | 54.09 | 103 | 103 |
| 2003 | 54.02 | 102 | 102 |
| 1939 | 54.01 | 101 | 101 |
| 2000 | 54.00 | 100 | 100 |
| 2002 | 53.94 | 99 | 99 |
| 1938 | 53.94 | 99 | 99 |
| 1991 | 53.90 | 97 | 97 |
| 1981 | 53.90 | 97 | 97 |
| 2004 | 53.84 | 95 | 95 |
| 2010 | 53.76 | 94 | 94 |
| 1933 | 53.74 | 93 | 93 |
| 1946 | 53.72 | 92 | 92 |
| 1994 | 53.64 | 91 | 91 |
| 1900 | 53.53 | 90 | 90 |
*Highest temperature rank denotes the hottest year for the period.
Lowest temperature rank denotes the coldest year for the period.
Data used to calculate Contiguous United States mean temperatures are from the USHCN version 2 data set.
Of course there is no mention of the USA temperature ranking in the recent press release from NOAA. The only mention of the USA in that PR that comes close is this:
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.
There’s no mention of the 2010 ranking for the USA temperature at all, nor any mention of the fact that 2010 was not nearly as warm as 1998, or 1934. I find that more than a little odd for an agency whose mission is to serve the American people with accurate and representative climate data.
They couldn’t find room for a sentence or two to mention the USA historical temperature rank for 2010? Apparently not.
The trend in the US has been adjusted up by about +0.77F, so maybe about half of the total increase is adjustments.
If you want to see the numbers in a little more detail, this is a 12 month moving average of the monthly anomalies in degrees F – a 12 month moving average is required because there is too much variation. Trend is 0.068C per decade.
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4255/usmonthlyanomfdec10.png
Jimmi there are no bits, it was cold in South Africa , Australia, South America, Europe and the US, China got a mention also, regardless of the prophecies of the thermophobics the world is cooling, as it should with a quiet sun. Very natural and normal.
CET data degrees C same period 1895-2010 (HADCET)
1 2006 10.82
2 1990 10.63
3 1999 10.63
4 1949 10.62
5 2002 10.6
6 1997 10.53
7 1995 10.52
8 1989 10.5
9 2003 10.5
10 1959 10.48
11 2004 10.48
12 2007 10.48
13 1921 10.47
14 2005 10.44
15 1998 10.34
16 2000 10.3
17 1945 10.27
18 1994 10.24
19 1938 10.18
20 2009 10.11
21 1976 10.08
22 1898 10.07
23 1911 10.05
24 1943 10.03
25 1983 10.03
26 1957 10.02
27 1948 10.01
28 1975 10
29 1934 9.99
30 2008 9.96
31 1961 9.94
32 2001 9.93
33 1914 9.88
34 1992 9.86
35 1953 9.84
36 1982 9.84
37 1933 9.83
38 1913 9.8
39 1988 9.77
40 1960 9.73
41 1984 9.73
42 1926 9.72
43 1935 9.72
44 1899 9.69
45 1939 9.68
46 1971 9.68
47 1974 9.62
48 1967 9.61
49 1920 9.57
50 1928 9.57
51 1937 9.57
52 1944 9.57
53 1947 9.57
54 1970 9.57
55 1900 9.56
56 1973 9.54
57 1991 9.52
58 1918 9.51
59 1993 9.49
60 1977 9.48
61 1964 9.47
62 1946 9.45
63 1966 9.45
64 1906 9.43
65 1930 9.43
66 1897 9.42
67 1958 9.42
68 1978 9.42
69 1980 9.42
70 1950 9.41
71 1932 9.38
72 1912 9.36
73 1896 9.33
74 1903 9.32
75 1936 9.32
76 1968 9.3
77 1955 9.28
78 1908 9.27
79 1924 9.27
80 1951 9.27
81 1969 9.26
82 1981 9.24
83 1954 9.22
84 1927 9.2
85 1996 9.2
86 1972 9.19
87 1916 9.18
88 1910 9.17
89 1925 9.17
90 1905 9.13
91 1901 9.11
92 1952 9.1
93 1941 9.09
94 1923 9.08
95 1940 9.05
96 1942 9.05
97 1987 9.05
98 1929 9.01
99 1904 9
100 1931 8.99
101 1965 8.95
102 1915 8.93
103 1985 8.86
104 1907 8.84
105 2010 8.83 ——
106 1902 8.83
107 1956 8.83
108 1979 8.81
109 1986 8.74
110 1922 8.67
111 1895 8.65
112 1962 8.59
113 1909 8.55
114 1917 8.51
115 1919 8.48
116 1963 8.47
jimmi says:
January 14, 2011 at 4:28 am
Just as a matter of interest, since 1934 has been mentioned – that year is one of the warmest in the continental USA, but where is it in a list of global temperatures over the last century-and-a-bit?
Also, since 2010 was one of the warmest globally (in the top 3 if not the warmest), even though it was cold in the USA, that means there must have been parts of the world where 2010 was unambiguously the warmest – anyone know which bits?
A good question
I think that you will find that the area around the poles outside most actual measurements were assessed by interpolation from distant observation sites as several degrees warmer.
But it would be really useful to have a graph say of each degree of latitude and longitude – then their surface area and the atmospheric temperature at the surface in each.
Not of course that temperature is the correct metric for heat content, but it would be useful to see the methodology used to create the ‘global average’.
According to those data, the year in Holland was actually a cold year.
But the world average temperature was highest. There will be regions where the year was far record warm, but there are none where it was record cold. In fact the past decennium was the first for Holland having a coldest year still above +9° C.
Bill Gates and a hobo walk into a bar. What is their average income?
The average warming trend given above for the USA is 0.12 degF/decade (0.75 degC/century), which is in close accord with the IPCC FAR (0.74 degC/century).
NOAA serves the people in the same manner as the aliens in the famous Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. “It’s a cookbook, it’s a cookbook!”
Dan Maloney says:
January 14, 2011 at 3:52 am
The use of the word “consecutive” in the NOAA press release is a blatant lie.
con·sec·u·tive (k n-s k y -t v). adj. 1. Following one after another without interruption; successive
From the data it is obvious that this is not so unless you twist the meaning to be consecutive in terms of temperature instead of in year order.
Look at the graph at the top of the post. The black line is the long-term average. The black dots are the annual figure. The last 14 black dots, that is 14 following one after another without interruption; successive are all above the black line. Making 2010 the 14th consecutive year with an annual temperature above the long-term average. So, not a lie, just another contrarian unable to comprehend facts.
This data hasn’t been tortured enough.
Wonder if they have tried water boarding the numbers? It works for Hansen/GISS.
Frequent readers here will recognise a problem with the trend line in the graph – linear fit to a periodic function will more closely reflect the phase of start and end conditions rather than the underlying trend.
Kate says:
January 14, 2011 at 3:50 am
2.) Use their massive computing power to “massage” the 1934 temperature downwards while “massaging” the 1998 (or some other year) upwards.
=========================================================
Kate, that’s obvious. When you follow the trail of the old press releases, 1934 was adjusted down each time.
They are talking about 10th and 100th of a degree.
It’s not possible to get those temperature measurements from 100 years ago,
not even 50 years ago.
It’s all a scam………
They have had over 30 years to prove their “guess”..
.. they haven’t been able to prove it
I just saw something to the effect that 2010 was the 12th coldest in the UK since 1890.
This is probably because the USA uses more Air-Con that any other country, by a large margin, so it’s that much cooler.
I am confident that if their calculations showed the USA temperature to be a record and the global temperature to be 94th out of the 116, then the press release would have been all about the national temperature. They have an agenda to push and will emphasize what supports their agenda.
Speaking of the global temperature, the CAGW movement has frequently referred to the 2010 El Nino as a mild El Nino. This characterization is misleading. Not only was it a significant El Nino, its effect lasted an extraordinary time outside of the NINO 3.4 SST window.
A request to Anthony or posters: when a temperature series is the main point of a post, it would be great to have a little reference on what adjustments are made to that series. For example, GISS has its adjustment for UHI and TOBS. NCDC is adjusted for TOBS, but not for UHI.
Also, since 2010 was one of the warmest globally (in the top 3 if not the warmest), even though it was cold in the USA, that means there must have been parts of the world where 2010 was unambiguously the warmest – anyone know which bits?
—
Probably the parts that are 250km or more from a thermometer.
jimmi
All of these comparisons are made using wildly adjusted (read fudged or altered or faked) data sets. The entire warmth of 2010 is extremely questionable and largely isolated in the Hudson Bay area. It is not just the USA that is or has been cold.
In addition the constant retroactive adjusting of the historical data makes all of these comparisons completely meaningless propaganda exercises. The last decade is not particularly warm compared to the prefudged data of the 1930s. Your statement that 1934 was only locally warm is unsupportable in light of the known bias and post hoc adjustments in the data sets
rushmikey says:
January 14, 2011 at 4:03 am
….and exactly what percentage of the Earths surface is made up of the USA?
about 1.5% of the total earth surface, about 6% of the total land surface
The Man-Made Global Warming Conspiracy.!
We live in the age of conspiracies while at the same time being socially engineered to ignore them through the use of crafty language. Words like “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” are designed to make you feel bad about exploring deeper into the subject presented. You now instinctively turn away from the topic whenever you here these words out of someones mouth, as if you’ve been hypnotized to do so. No words will set your mind at ease and allow you to delve into the issue further. Through constant repetition of the feel bad words, you are very controlled. Not even when the words are corrected to indicate the true nature of the exercise with such words as “Conspiracy Researcher”, will your mind be put at ease. Continue reading at your own risk.
Senator Barbara Boxer adds this hyperbole in a desperate attempt to get her colleagues to push her cap-and-tax(trade) bill forward in the Senate, and the ridiculous claim that CO2 will somehow cause us more war;
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The awakening has arrived. Renaissance 2.0 has begun. The covers have been blown off one of the biggest conspiracies in the history of the world. The entire planet had been sucked into the greatest scientific hoax of all time. The man-made global warming conspiracy theory was proven with help from the release of Climategate e-mails from the University of East Anglia in England on November 20th 2009. To todays date, no one knows who the hackers are, but that’s beside the point. The blogosphere and alternative media crowd sourced the information at a rapid pace. It is one of the most researched conspiracies known to man.
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Accepters of the unproven AGW theory blindly accepted the notion well before many of the facts were in. They call me a denier. I am an accepter of the AGW conspiracy theory now that it has been proven, while I deny the theory of man-made global warming due to the flawed science behind it.
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(This is a work in progress) Any thoughts?
I can’t understand the table – why is the hottest year (1998) ranked as 116th? Surely it should be ranked 1st and so 2010 would be 23rd of 116 not, as you said, “ranking 94th out of 116”?
the warmists pushing this pack of lies no longer care if it has any relationship to actual facts. I think they have found it quite liberating not to be tied to any actual numbers, now they are free to make up anything they want whenever they want.
And that is all that comes out of them anymore. It is no longer possible for any honest, decent, person to buy into their idiocy. Which defines who is left.
that means there must have been parts of the world where 2010 was unambiguously the warmest – anyone know which bits? says jimmi.
Sure. Canadian Archipel, much of the Arctic; Antarctic Peninsula; region from Red Sea to Caspian Sea. To name but land areas.
“it didn’t meet that criteria”
The singular of “criteria” is “criterion”. “those criteria” would be apropriate if there were actually more than one criterion referenced.
“it didn’t meet that criterion”
And to put a significantly important and note-worthy width of a hair’s touch to your article, you should have stated that Trenberth says this rank could have been much worse were it not for global warming. And more immensely globally policy importantly, the rank of 94 instead of 95 is proof of global warming. And even though it is less worse than we thought, it is proof that it is much worse than we thought. Don’cha know.
While it may be that the US is a small part of the global land mass, it is also the portion with the most consistent and documented instrumentation (and even that documentation has problems). Much of the data for the rest of the world (Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand being exceptions) is simulated by statistically smearing the few sensors that exist over the land mass. So while it may be a small part of the globe, combined with the reliable sensors in western Europe and Australia and New Zealand, it gives a pretty reliable snapshot. If it is getting colder in US and western Europe, that gives a good idea of Northern Hemisphere activity. If it is getting cooler or staying fairly constant in New Zealand and Australia, that gives a good idea of the Southern Hemisphere. Now if we can work on getting the instrumentation more robust in the rest of the world, we will be able to make some good projections – and in about 1,000 years there will be enough reliable data to make some good time series statistics.