Will 2013 be the warmest year on record ?

Question

Going back over 2 years I asked this question
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AojhLyz.dseWuqmQMd1gH4Pg5gt.;_ylv=3?qid=20101130181155AA8N5J8
Note the empty answer from the denier, that history has now judged, as 2010 ended up tying with 2005 as the warmest year on record.
If it is the warmest year will that be the end for denial.

Answer 1

Thank you, for that amusing look back on the subject from the beginning of 2011. Now let's see what the data looks like now. I graphed the 4 main data sets:

1) GISS = Surface thermometers averaging as best they can over the entire globe. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

2) HadCRU = Surface thermometers averaging as best they can, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

but ignoring the areas that are so far from thermometers that it is deemed unreasonable to extrapolate that far. http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SeekingWarming_files/image004.jpg

3) RSS = Satellite data from MSU http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_time_series.html

4) UAH = Same satellite data as MSU, but with a different result due to it being analyzed by a different team who use what they consider to be better algorithms. http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2013/january/tlt_update_bar-4.jpg

Since each data set is zeroed as a temperature different to some random global temperature, I re-zeroed each data set so that they were zero at 2010.

The graph: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:12/offset:-0.67/from:1998/every:12/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.67/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/offset:-0.5/from:1998/every:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/offset:-0.5/trend/plot/rss/mean:12/offset:-0.43/from:1998/every:12/plot/uah/mean:12/offset:-0.41/from:1998/every:12/plot/uah/from:1998/offset:-0.41/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/offset:-0.43/trend

The results:

GISS (red line): Warmest = 2010. Followed by 2007, 2006, 2002, 1998 = 2004, 2005 ...

- 2005 was a median year for the last 14 years, not the warmest.

HadCRU (blue line): Warmest = 1998 Followed by 2010, 2004 = 2002, 2005, ...

- Neither 2005, nor 2010 were as warm as 1998, and 2005 was cooler than 2010.

RSS (cyan line) Warmest = 1998 = 2010 Followed by 2002, 2004, 2006 = 2011, 2005

- 2005 is a median year. 1998 and 2010 were the warmest.

UAH (brown line) Warmest = 2010 Followed by 1998, 2007, 2002, 2004, 2003, 2011, 2005

- 2005 is a median year.

None of them show 2005 as an especially warm year. Perhaps, you were previously looking at GISS data from 2 years ago. Unlike the other data sets, GISS updates her data monthly. All dates are subject to being recalculated and changed. I do not know what 2005 looked liked back then on the GISS data set. However, when I check his data set as of 2007, 2005 was the warmest year. It is shown to be warmer than 2007, 2006, 2002, 1998, and 2004. http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/Hansen_GlobalTemp.htm

This is just one of the changes in the GISS data set since 2007. In your last question many answers mentioned the changes that GISS makes, but got thumbed down. Apparently, they were at least partly correct.

As for this year, checking satellite data for how we are doing so far ... http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2005/offset:0.13/plot/rss/trend/offset:0.13/from:2005/plot/uah/offset:0.23/from:2005/plot/uah/trend/offset:0.23/from:2005

We are either right on course for a record warm year or a long way off and going in the wrong direction depending on whose analysis you choose to believe. [1]

- Checking the status of El Nino; [2] it looks like this year may well become the warmest so far.

- If you believe CO2 is a major driver, you can check the status of atmospheric CO2; [3] again, it would indicate a hot year.

- If you believe Sun Spots drive the temperature, you can check the sun spot index; [4] and it does not look like this will be an especially warm year.

I think that the best indication is El Nino, and we are going to have a very warm year.



Edit @Dave, Kano & Angel:

Once again, Earth proves that she does not care about models, and now appears to be giving us an average year. That update was faster than expected. Thanks to both of you for the correction. El Nino now seems to be abandoning us. This makes me wonder why JPL would take so long to update their El Nino site. [2] Is another year of absence of global warming really so hard to take?



Edit @Kano:

Thanks for pointing out that my Sun Spot Index link went to the wrong graph. I fixed the error.

Answer 2

For 2008 to be the warmest 3 hundred and sixty 5 days on checklist is basically an estimate, so why are you getting so disappointed approximately this? What we've seen is the checklist highs for many given areas are placing out to team nearer to the present day, somewhat than being unfolded over 1000's of years. If 2008 does grow to be the main well liked 3 hundred and sixty 5 days, it truly is a different sign something isn't precise. yet right now we don't choose medical records to be sure if the earth is warming, we've empirical evidence of the polar caps shrinking, greater advantageous than has ever got here approximately interior the final 650,000 years, it truly is a lot off the traditional cycle "skeptics" opt to declare the earth is in. additionally international warming is the experimental technique we are accomplishing on planet earth, climate replace is the tip result. this might mean that the components (that's pushed by using uneven heating of the earths floor, which has been in stability for the final positioned up sixty 5 million years) would be greater violent and have chillier winters, ice storms in places that for the duration of no way get them and so on. base line, once you're putting carbon back into the ambience that were stored for 4 hundred million years, do no longer you think of something is going to take place? The carbon you breath out is area of the traditional photosynthesis cycle the place flowers take in CO2 and expel oxygen. Fossil fuels, often have been good sized flowers that bumped off the carbon from the ambience and grew to grow to be buried for one reason or yet another. as a result this carbon became bumped off earlier than the onset of evolution of hominids and is no longer area of any present day cycle, different than the single the place cutting-factor guy is a polluter.

Answer 3

Co2 is a long term and small effect, seen in the temperature record with an average rise of ~0.1c per decade, other effects also play a part we have a periodic cooler or warmer year on a roughly 3 year cycles due to the effects of ENSO (AKA El Nino & La Nina) in 2011 it was in a negative phase and we had a cooler year, 2012 saw a neutral phase and we had a year that ranked as the 10th warmest on record.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/13#gtemp

Deniers own key point is, it has cooled since 1998, although they seem confused about how long ago that was with versions ranging from 14-17 years, 97/98 in fact had the strongest El Nino in the last 100 years and that push both these years much higher and they persisted in the 10 warmest years long after all the other years from the 90's were gone 97 fell off the list a few years ago and 98 has now fallen to 3rd but deniers persist with this myth it has cooled since then.

Take away the effect of that El Nino and most of the years since have in fact been warmer, 1995 was at the time the warmest year on record now even our coolest years beat it, how is that cooling.

At the moment El Nino remains in a neutral phase and probably will for the remainder of the Southern Summer

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

But as the year progresses is likely to shift to a warm phase. If that happens expect 2013 to fall in the mid range of warmest years ~5 or 6th. Year to year the first part is usually cooler due to landmass in the Northern hemisphere coming out of winter and latent heat from mid-year tends to warm up a calendar year as it progresses, deniers own pet year 1998 did that, due to the same landmass effect. 2013 is already far warmer than 2012 was at the same time

2012 - January (Land & Ocean) 19th warmest

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/1#introduction

2013 -January (Land & Ocean) 9th warmest

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/1#temp



I would expect 2013, if the trend of the year to warm up as it progresses continues, to be a quite warm year. Will that stop denier ranting, no. Will it make those who claim to be skeptics (and there are few in the denier camp) and actually look at the science take pause, hopefully.

Scientists are convinced this is happening due to the evidence, not the Bond style global conspiracy fantasies deniers have created to try and cover the gaping holes in their sad attempts to make even a small dent in that science. Note Portlands pretense of 2010 not being warm, as an example, these people are in fantasy land.

Answer 4

Who knows, though I'm sure it will make the top 10. Although I'm sure that even if it is the warmest, denialists will be undeterred. They will just ignore it or claim that it is a lie.

Answer 5

No and I'll put money on it. the ten so called highest years were from the intense solar activity,(modern solar maximum) the sun is now entering a minimum period.

So the next decade will decide once and for all if it is the sun or Co2.

If it is not, and 2013 is slightly cooler than the average of the last twenty years, will you admit global warming is a failure.

Hey Portland some of your info is out of date, enso conditions for 2013 are neutral, neither an el nino or la nina is expected yet, could change though but el nino's usually come late in the year and so wouldn't effect 2013 too much, and woodcrut sunspot graph doesn't show it well either.

Answer 6

Would you mind if I give you the answer in 10 months. Predictions are not so precise as we want and often lead to unexpected effects that are based mostly on beliefs.

Answer 7

For Portland.

Nice synopsis, thankyou.



Your second woodfortrees plot ends with rss going down and uah going up. This is because the graph source doesn't yet have the UAH Feb value included. The UAH value for feb is also down at 0.18c anomaly. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/



Added.

The current ENSO forecast is here

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html

http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/currentinfo/figure1.html

Answer 8

Oh, I'm sure someone will twist the facts to say it is.

Answer 9

it 'll be but not more than 2014

Answer 10

I doubt it myself, unless Hansen can find excuses to do more upwards adjustments. I wouldn't put it past him though.

Answer 11

Of course it will. Every year is. Unless you look at theuUN-ADJUSTED data that is...