NASA: January 2013 the 6th Hottest on Record for Earth

February 26th, 2013 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (11 Comments)

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has released its readings regarding temperature from stations across the globe over land and sea in January 2013. Their finding: January 2013 was the 6th warmest January in its record, which stretches back over 130 years to January 1880.

Every one of the 5 hottest Januaries takes place after the year 2000. Every one of the 10 hottest Januaries takes place on or after 1998. Every one of the 10 coldest Januaries on the record took place before the Roaring Twenties, before World War I, before women had the right to vote.

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NASA: 2012 was the 9th Hottest on the Record. What were the other Top 10 Years?

January 17th, 2013 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (2 Comments)

Last night, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies released new data on its global temperature anomaly readings. Those readings, which stretch back to 1880, show that around the globe 2012 was the 9th hottest year on record. The top ten years of heat are:

#1: 2010
#2: 2005
#3: 2007
#4: 1998
#5: 2002
#6, #7, #8: 2009, 2006 and 2003 (tied)
#9: 2012
#10: 2011(tied)

Not a single year before 1998 makes it into the top ten hottest years since 1880, and every year in this century has been in the top fifteen. The last year in which the globe was cooler than the 1951-1980 average was 1976. Every year from 1880 up to 1937 was cooler than the 1951-1980 average.

Take a look at the data for yourself and you’ll see the trend is clear: within in any decade there may be some minor variability, but from decade to decade across the last century and a third there has been a clear and consistent global warming trend.

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NASA Releases Data: Earth saw the Second Hottest Fall on Record in 2012

December 12th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (17 Comments)

NASA’s record of global temperature anomalies stretches back 133 years with readings from around the planet, on land as well as over the ocean.

NASA updates its global temperature record every month. The release of November temperature data this week shows that on a global scale, November 2012 was the second hottest November on record. Only 2010 had a hotter November, and each one of the 10 hottest Novembers has occurred since 1997.

NASA measures the months of September, October and November as its “fall” for reporting purposes. The fall of 2012 was the second hottest November in NASA’s record. Only 2005 had a hotter fall, and each one of the 10 hottest falls has fallen after the year 2000.

The trend has become so obvious that even the anti-empirical conspiracy theorists have largely fallen silent. The only people left using the the phrase “global warming is a hoax” on Twitter, for instance, are people mocking the idea of a hoax.

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Global Warming Continued: September 2012 among Hottest 5 Septembers on Record

October 13th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (0 Comments)

Across the globe, September 2012 was one of the five hottest Septembers on record (coming in at #4). All of the ten hottest Septembers on record have occurred in the last fifteen years.

It has been 224 months since the global temperature for any month was colder than the 1951-1980 average temperature for that month. For 223 straight months now, the global temperature has been warmer than the 1951-1980 monthly average.

(Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies global temperature anomaly data for land and sea)

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Rhymes with Noble Storming: August 2012, Summer 2012 in the Top 10 Hottest on Record

September 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (0 Comments)

Struth: Across the globe, August 2012 was one of the ten hottest Augusts on record. All of the ten hottest Augusts have occurred in the last fifteen years.

Struth: Across the globe, Summer 2012 was one of the ten hottest Summers on record. All of the ten hottest Summers have occurred in the last fifteen years.

For years, the evidence for global warming has piling up so conclusively that “global cooling” claims are quietly melting away. Climate Cooling hasn’t featured a new post for two years.

Anthony Watts, however, is clinging to the few remaining bergs around him, writing yesterday that “the Arctic sea ice is still there and gaining fast.”

Actual science, courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center:

The little Arctic sea ice that is left is still there, yes. You can judge whether the Arctic ice extent being at a record low for today, after hitting a new record low for each and every day in August and September of 2012, and now standing at five standard deviations below normal for this time of year, qualifies as “gaining fast.”

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Global Temperature Data Reveal June 2012 was the 4th Hottest on Record. Fact Check, Mr. Will.

July 12th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (4 Comments)

On July 8, conservative columnist George Will made use of his television pulpit to declare that the blistering heat of the last month had nothing to do with climate change, that it was only a spot of weather. Will asked rhetorically, “How do we explain the heat?” His answer:

One word: summer…. I grew up in central Illinois in a house without air conditioning. What is so unusual about this? Come the winter, there will be a cold snap, lots of snow, and the same guys like E.J. will start lecturing us: ‘There’s a difference between the weather and the climate!’ I agree with that. We’re having some hot weather. Get over it.

Is George Will right? Certainly what happens in any particular month, be it a snowstorm in winter or a heat wave in summer, is what’s meant by the word “weather,” so George Will is definitionally correct there. But if a snowstorm in winter packs a bigger wallop than usual, and if winters in recent years have been cooler than normal, then it’s not just weather: it would hypothetically be part of a snowier trend in the longer-term climate. Conversely, if a month in summer is hotter than usual, and if summers in recent years have been hotter than normal, then it’s not just “having some hot weather.” It would be part of a longer-term trend of a warming climate.

So let’s fact check George Will — and let’s start with winter. Despite what conservatives say whenever there’s a snowstorm, recent winters have been warmer than usual around the globe. As a matter of observed fact in NASA’s temperature record, it’s been 27 years since there was a winter colder around the globe than the 1951-1980 average. That’s right — we’ve had 27 years straight of warmer-than-average winters. We’ve had only 5 winters colder than the 1951-1980 average winter in the last 40 years. That’s not weather. That’s a climate trend.

And now let’s turn our attention to summer. The first month of the year with summer in it is June — and wouldn’t you know it, but just this past week NASA has released its latest temperature anomaly readings, adding in measurements of global temperature change for the month of June 2012. It turns out that, not just in the United States but around the globe, June 2012 wasn’t just “summer.” June 2012 was warmer than the 1951-1980 average for June. It was hot, even for summer. How hot? June 2012 was the 4th hottest summer in the 133 years of NASA’s global temperature record. Not one of the top ten hottest Junes around the globe occurred before 1990. The last June that was cooler than the 1951-1980 June average was 28 years ago. There are have been only 5 summers cooler than the 1951-1980 average over the last 40 years.

Want to go farther back? Turns out that every one of the Junes between 1880 and 1930 was cooler than the 1951-1980 average. Turns out that every one of the winters between 1880 and 1925 was cooler than the 1951-1980 average.

What happened last winter and what happened this June are not just weather. They’re part of a remarkably consistent longer-term trend in climate change. It’s called “global warming” — and the climate pattern of global warming is becoming so clear that even the staunchest global warming deniers have started packing it in. Why is George Will still denying the obvious? You’ll have to ask him.

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Ice Down, Heat Up

June 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (3 Comments)

The extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is below record 2007 lows for this time of year:

Arctic Sea Ice Extent, June 2012

The volume of Arctic sea ice is more than two standard deviations below even the recent decline trend:

Arctic Sea Ice Volume, June 2012

And globally, the spring of 2012 was the 5th warmest on record.

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NASA: January 2012 may have been quite warm in the U.S., but globally it was coolish

February 15th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Environment | Science - (7 Comments)

One of the standards of citizenship in the reality-based community is that we must follow and note actual observations of empirical reality, even when they don’t accord with our favorite hypotheses or local observations. And so I’ll note that while January 2012 really did experience striking warmth in the United States, and while across many months and years there has been an unmistakable trend toward warmer temperatures around the globe, newly released NASA data on temperature readings from around the globe, updated for January 2012, indicate that around the globe temperatures actually trended toward the unusually coolish. These temperature readings averaged out to about a third of a degree Celsius warmer than the 1951-1980 temperature average and about two-thirds of a degree Celsius warmer than typical temperature readings at the turn of the 20th Century — but are a few tenths of a degree Celsius cooler on average than the really hot readings collected in the first decade of the 21st Century. Globally, January 2012 saw temperatures that were more typical for the 1980s or 1990s. That’s interesting and indicates that global temperature data bears further watching.

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