Fast on the heels of the second hottest June on record, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that July is also the second hottest on record.
NASA just quietly updates its data set (here). NASS GISS is much more low-key than NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which issues a major report on the climate every month (see NCDC: Second hottest June on record “” and once El Nino really kicks in, expect global temperatures “to threaten previous record highs”). I’ll wait for that report (out in a few days) for a longer discussion of July.
What I think is interesting about the NASA month-by-month data is that you can compare it to El Ni±o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) data and see that it typically takes 3 to 6 months before an El Ni±o seriously starts warming up the whole planet (see page 24 here). So we have a ways to go before we see the full effect of this El Ni±o.
Still it’s interesting that the NCDC reported that the ocean temperature in June was the warmest on record — a full 0.11°F warmer than the 2005 record. This certainly looks to be the new El Ni±o on top of the long-term warming trend. If indeed this is a moderate to strong El Ni±o, then it looks like we will be seeing record global temperatures this year or next, as NASA predicted back in January (see here).
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Joe: the bolded link has changed. The ENSO Report is now at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=enso
Ocean surface temperatures were also the hottest ever recorded.
Don’t expect capitulation from the deniers. For them, any high temperatures are a temporary anomaly, while any low temperatures are a long term indication that global warming is over.
Sometimes I wish I lived in their reality. In their reality I have Warren Buffet’s money and I’m married to Heidi Klum.
Anyone taking the bet at intrade.com? They have one for “Average Global Temperature for 2009 to be among five warmest years on record”(Under Climate and Weather, Global Temperatures).
The “Average Global Temperature for 2009 to be among five warmest years on record” presently is Bid: 27.1, Ask 37 and Last 30. As I understand the way Intrade works, that means the one who got a contract at 30 will get 100$ for every $30 they paid for their contract if 2009 is among the 5 warmest years. I have no connection, am not an intrade expert, and have not yet made a bid.
The NCDC report was posted Thursday:
NOAA Reports 6th Warmest July on Record Globally
[JR: Uhh, that would be the FIFTH warmest.]
Is there any significance to the reported fact that July was the coldest on record for six states in the midwest, including Illinois, where it was five degrees F cooler than average. Or is this just a local phenomenon independent of global warming?
[JR: Local. That is a tiny fraction of the globe.]
progressive: It’s Global Climate Change.
Global = not local.
Climate = not short term.
Change = not the same, although mostly warmer.
JR: Thanks for catching the typo in the link headline.
prog: It certainly is a local effect, although you certainly won’t hear that from the Anthony WashedUp crowd. If you look at the blue (cold) area on the NOAA map, it is swamped by the red (hot). Some parts of the South and Southwest, particularly Texas, have been smashing all-time heat records. Although these are both local effects, and it’s the long-term worldwide average that counts, Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel has done some interesting analysis which indicates that the types of “blocking” weather patterns which are related to these temperature extremes may in fact be produced by redistribution of air pressure linked to global warming.
An example of Ostro’s analysis is here:
A Connection Between Global Warming and Weather
It gets a little meteo-geeky, but it should be accessible to a general audience.
And if you delve into his 17MB pdf’ed PowerPoint,
A CONNECTION BETWEEN GLOBAL WARMING AND SYNOPTIC METEOROLOGY,
look at the remarkable similarity of the cold eastern and central U.S. in Sept. 2006 (p. 39) vs. the rest of the globe.
I have a question for anyone. It seems on the cold days questions come to me (it was chilly yesterday in Seattle; of course this has been an abnormally hot summer overall here). Aren’t humans well adapted to hot temperatures? We originated from the savannahs of Africa, and learned how to adapt to colder temperatures as we migrated north. My question is, which affects of global warming will really be crippling to our society? We can adapt to sea-level rise, changes in vegetation, and stronger storms. I guess a dust-bowl from Kansas to California would not be good, but I have trouble believing that will happen this century. Help me out…thanks.
[JR: An ice free planet takes us to 250+ feet sea level rise and no inland glaciers, a third of the habited land dust bowl, the oceans turned into a hot, acidic dead zone, and 10 billion people -- virtually all of whom settled where they did because of the climate. Not a pretty picture. You can say we will adapt -- much as the citizens of New Orleans adapted to Katrina.]
To understand the role of ENSO in the climate system, the amount of oceanic variability un-related to ENSO, the PDO, and long-term “trends,” spend some time playing with ENSO and gridded SST data. Global averages are not helpful for understanding climate, nor is land temperature. Looking at this and last month’s gridded SST data, and adjusting global SST data for the immediate effects of ENSO, suggest that these recent months saw warm anomalies beyond the influence of ENSO. These can be pinned down to the North Pacific and South Atlantic. The recent variation outside of ENSO is well-within historic variability outside of ENSO. However, even after ENSO is corrected for, there is no trend since 1998. The recent warm temperatures are the product of ENSO conditions plus natural oceanic variability, not a non-existent trend.
Do not trust me on this, play with the data yourself:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi?someone@somewhere
progressive,
See the temperature anomaly map for July.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=07&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=07&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Carl Wolk,
Actually, removing the ENSO effects show warming during the period mentioned.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-warming-and-the-El-Nino-Southern-Oscillation.html
It would be interesting to see adjustments for the effects of the solar cycle minimum, which some analysis suggests has a 0.1 C effect between max and min, perhaps a bit more given the length of the existing minimum.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
MarkB,
The methodology in that paper is, of course, greatly flawed. However, that paper and criticisms of that paper have no relevance to my argument. There is a positive trend since 1975; however, there is no trend in all SST data (ERSST.v3b, Reynolds, etc) since 1998.
Thanks Joe. My life is surrounded by deniers (parents, brothers, girlfriend, coworkers…ect) so I have moments of doubt or at least questioning moments. I put my faith in our scientists.
[JR: Be patient with them. Denial is the easy but ultimately self-destructive. Keep plugging away. By the 2020s, it'll be rather painfully obvious you were right and they will have to live with their tragic myopia.]