Tag Archives: surface temperature

WMO: 2011-2015 is the warmest five year period on record

The World Meteorological Organization has announced that they expect 2015 to be the warmest year on record, and that we are in the warmest five year period on record. We are speaking here of global surface temperatures, though similar descriptions probably apply to the upper 2000 meters or so of the ocean as well.

The global average surface temperature in 2015 is likely to be the warmest on record and to reach the symbolic and significant milestone of 1° Celsius above the pre-industrial era. This is due to a combination of a strong El Niño and human-induced global warming, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The years 2011-2015 have been the warmest five-year period on record, with many extreme weather events – especially heatwaves – influenced by climate change, according to a WMO five-year analysis.

“The state of the global climate in 2015 will make history as for a number of reasons,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached new highs and in the Northern hemisphere spring 2015 the three-month global average concentration of CO2 crossed the 400 parts per million barrier for the first time. 2015 is likely to be the hottest year on record, with ocean surface temperatures at the highest level since measurements began. It is probable that the 1°C Celsius threshold will be crossed,” said Mr Jarraud. “This is all bad news for the planet.”

Greenhouse gas emissions, which are causing climate change, can be controlled. We have the knowledge and the tools to act. We have a choice. Future generations will not.”

They have some nice graphics:

Global annual average temperatures anomalies (relative to 1961-1990) based on an average of three global temperature data sets (HadCRUT.4.4.0.0, GISTEMP and NOAAGlobalTemp) from 1950 to 2014. The 2015 average is based on data from January to October. Bars are coloured according to whether the year was classified as an El Niño year (red), a La Niña year (blue) or an ENSO-neutral year (grey).Note uncertainty ranges are not shown, but are around 0.1°C.
Global annual average temperatures anomalies (relative to 1961-1990) based on an average of three global temperature data sets (HadCRUT.4.4.0.0, GISTEMP and NOAAGlobalTemp) from 1950 to 2014. The 2015 average is based on data from January to October. Bars are coloured according to whether the year was classified as an El Niño year (red), a La Niña year (blue) or an ENSO-neutral year (grey).Note uncertainty ranges are not shown, but are around 0.1°C.
Ocean heat content down to a depth  2000m. Three-month (red), annual (black) and 5-year (blue) averages are shown. Source: NOAA NCEI
Ocean heat content down to a depth 2000m. Three-month (red), annual (black) and 5-year (blue) averages are shown. Source: NOAA NCEI

Caption for the graphic at the top of the post:

Global annual average near-surface temperature anomalies from HadCRUT4.4.0.0 (Black line and grey area indicating the 95% uncertainty range), GISTEMP (blue) and NOAAGlobalTemp (orange). The average for 2015 is a provisional figure based on the months January to October 2015. Source: Met Office Hadley Centre.

Global Warming Update for September 2015

The NASA GISS global surface measurement for September is out. I don’t know off hand if there are corrections for earlier months. The data for September show the month as the same as the earlier month, 0.81 degrees C anomaly.

The current best estimate of the warming of the Earth’s surface from anthropogenic global warming, using the NASA data and a 12 month running mean, looks like this:

giss_12-month_moving_average

Looking at just the first months of the year (for each year) to estimate the position of the present year as a record breaker (or not) we get this:

giss_FirstMonthsOnly
Word on the street is that the present month, October, is very warm. I don’t think October 2015 is going to end up being the warmest month on record, but I think it is likely to be in the top few ever. Given that, and the nearness to the end of the year, it is now extremely likely that 2015 will be the warmest year of the instrumental record.

See also this different way of depicting year to date warming.

The two graphs above will be available on the X Blog where you can download a higher resolution version.