Globally, how is 2010 doing so far? Is this year likely to be the hottest in the instrumental record?

Question

... and if not 2010, how long before the the record is broken? ... assuming normal levels of solar, ENSO and volcanic activity?

Assuming the above, how long before we HAVE to have had a new annual global temperature record? ... or have to modify the AGW theory?

Answer 1

So far 2010 is roughly the 2nd-hottest year on record, depending on which data set you choose. According to UAH satellites, it's the hottest. In fact the majority of days in 2010 have been record hot days according to UAH.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps



By the way, it's also true that it's been relatively cool across most of the USA and Europe so far this year, but quite hot almost everywhere else.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1203&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg



According to the scientists at NASA GISS, 2010 has a good chance to break the 2005 record.



"Given this lag and the fact that the Nino index has continued to rise in the 6 months since the date of the final 12-month running mean point in Figure 10, it is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010.



As for the calendar year, it is likely that the 2010 global surface temperature in the GISS analysis also will be a record for the period of instrumental data. However, record global temperature for the calendar year might not occur if El Nino conditions deteriorate rapidly by mid 2010 into La Nina conditions."



Page 15: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0319.pdf



And based on the UAH data so far, there's a good chance that 2010 will break their 1998 record as well. Especially since there's roughly a 6 month lag before changes in ENSO are reflected in the satellite temperatures. Thus their entire record for 2010 will reflect the El Nino conditions of mid-2009 to mid-2010.



As for when we would need to reconsider AGW, there's a good graph exemplifying this here:

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/bet3.jpg



"if temperature falls below the lower dashed blue line, we have evidence that the planet is actually cooling, and the not-warming side wins."

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/



As for when we should expect to break a record,



"if we don’t break it by 2012 [in GISS], only THEN should we wonder why the record hasn’t been exceeded."



"only if the record lasts beyond 2012 [in HadCRU] do we have statistically significant evidence of any change in the global warming pattern."

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/breaking-records/



If we don't break the record this year, odds are extremely high it will be broken whenever the next El Nino event occurs. By then we should also have begun the next solar cycle, and the AGW signal will be that much stronger. As long as the El Nino event is moderately strong and reasonably long, given those other factors, a record should be broken.

Answer 2

The entire Earth goes through extreme temperature changes. There is no way to determine whether 2010 could be the hottest on record, so far. It is still early spring in the northern hemisphere. We will have to wait and see on Sept. 20, 2010.



Some areas of the world experience more extremes of weather and temperatures than others. That is just the way weather is.

Answer 3

Dana (and yes, I do feel a certain sense of weariness creep over me as i read yet another polemic of his) claims that whilst America and Europe have been colder than normal, everywhere else has been much warmer.



Errr . . . except that's simply not true, is it?



The *vast* land mass of Russia - record-breaking cold

The *vast* land mass of China - record-breaking cold (pack ice blocking harbours, etc)

Mongolia - record breaking cold, leading to millions of animal deaths by freezing

Korea - record-breaking cold (both north and south)

Japan - ditto.



So, we've just had winter in the northern hemisphere, right? And in the northern hemisphere, we can safely say there's been record-breaking cold in most of:



North America, Europe, Asia.



So, that's most land mass then.

Answer 4

Depends on where you look, if you use your own eyes it's clearly one of the coldest years for a long time. If you look on any official site I have no doubt you will read that it's the hottest year ever ever known in history.

Answer 5

The El nino effect has shown to be much stronger than was previously predicted and the temps are commiserate with the last large El Nino effect seen in 1998. Wow thats a big whodathunkit. Is this really the evidence that AGWers have for "runaway" global warming? Sorry, your scare-mongering tactics have not yet worked on me, you will have to try harder. I know, why don't you make some absurd commercials of London underwater, oh I forgot you already did that. Why don't you find some polar bears that drowned in a storm and cliam that this means they are all dying, oh wait you already did that. Why don't you claim 20 meter rise in sea level, when even your IPCC claims <0.7 meters, oh wait you already did that. Why don't you have a couple scary movies that pretend like man is going to cause the end of the world, due to AGW, oh yeah you already did that too. Never mind then, it looks like you have tried to lie and exaggerrate the problem as much as you can and still don't even have a majority of Americans believing you.



Try this novel plan. TELL THE TRUTH. Stop exaggerrating, stop lying, tell the truth and work towards intelligent non-socialistic measures of limiting CO2.

Answer 6

The average global temperature has been higher than average for january and february. The winter in some areas of the northern hemisphere was colder, but a far greater proportion of the planet was warmer.



@ Bob,



Please do some research for yourself. The volcano myth is exactly that, a myth. Its just plain wrong. Humans emit at least 100 times more CO2 than volcanos per year. For example, Mt Pinitubo erupted in 1991 and released between 43 and 234 million tonnes of CO2. The annual human output is approximately 7 billion tonnes.



@ I expel CO2,



I agree completely. Some of the scare mongering by the mass media has done far more harm to our cause than good. And please, follow your own advice, go and look at the original sources of information, the scientific journals, before the media get hold of them and distort them. Sadly, it will do nothing to bolster your case, as the science is clear, AGW is a reality. Please, just read the science for yourself.

Answer 7

According to the Met Office, man-made climate change will be a factor and natural weather patterns would contribute less to 2010's temperature than they did in 1998, the current warmest year in the 160-year record.



El Niño effect, the cyclical heating of the Pacific Ocean, is much weaker than it was in 1998, but the Met Office expects the warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions to more than make up the difference, 'The Times' reported.



It predicts that the global average temperature next year to be almost 0.6 C warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average, and forecasts an annual average of 14.58 C.



The Met Office has also said that it expects half the years between 2010 and 2019 to be warmer than 1998. It sounded a note of caution, saying that a record year in 2010 was not a certainty, especially if the current El Niño began to decline earlier than normal or there was a large volcanic eruption.



However, experts are divided on the prediction. Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "If 2010 turns out to be the hottest year on record, it might go some way towards exploding the myth, spread by the climate conspiracy theorists that we're experiencing global cooling. In reality the world is getting possibly a lot hotter, and humans are causing it."

Answer 8

Can you divide your 40 years if fudged instrumental data by 4.5 billion year of data and determine a trend from that? I didn't think so. FU!

Answer 9

We have just 2 months data so far for 2010 not enough to say what the year will be like but those 2 months have (globally) been quite warm.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=1&submitted=Get+Report

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=2&submitted=Get+Report

Jan & Feb 2009 ranked as (7th & 9th warmest, combined land & sea)

Jan & Feb 2010 ranked as (2nd & 6th warmest, combined land & sea)



2009 was the 5th warmest year on record, 2010 has certainly made a start that could place it above 2009 by the end of the year, yes there were heavy snows in Europe and the U.S. which did show as lower land based temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, but this was more than offset by global ocean temperatures and Southern Hemisphere land & sea temperatures which both came in as 1st's.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=2&submitted=Get+Report#temp



This group can be very U.S. centric as can be seen by comments about snow in (insert U.S. state here) they tend to ignore Africa, Asia, Canada, Australia and South America as well as the worlds oceans (a far larger area than land mass)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=2&ext=gif



That some here are still trying to make the "Volcanoes pump out more gases per day than the rest of the worlds factories / cars etc ; do in a year" claim.

Show clearly they aren't doing even basic fact checking. Human emissions of Co2 (bob) are 100 times that of Volcanoes.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html

At ~1% of human emissions Poland (on it's own) puts out around the same amount of Co2 as the worlds volcanoes.



Andrew: Interesting a 1 month spike what about the 3 months before that when it was near the record low, or the 30 years before that

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100303_Figure3.png

There have certainly been spike rises over that period but the overall decline is obvious, one of those spike rises was even in 1998 which was a very warm year.

Answer 10

I didn't know yearly records set a precedence one way or the other. "Just damn I'm constantly learning". I thought the alarmist community dumped those into a 30 year pool and bobbed for an average. NOAA will supply a 3month to 5year unquantifiable average complete with a disclaimer. I can see why, knowing regional differences matter somewhat more than global averages for certain practical purposes. But than alarmist have only one direction.

Answer 11

Dubious claims from both sides of this debate make it difficult to correctly determine a correct answer to this question.



The problem is the Money issue. Once money is involved all credibility disappears.



Do scientist who depend on grant money for research sometimes bias results in an effort to get more grant money?



Do governments have interest in increasing tax revenues and controlling peoples lives?



Do some giant corporations and most small business have a financial interest in the debunking of AGW?



Do some corporations desire the enacting of Global warming legislation to profit greatly from government "clean energy" contracts"?



The answer to every question is yes. So the wise choice is to not panic see what happens do the proper research and follow the money. The people not making money and not trying to make money from this issue are the ones telling the truth.

Answer 12

It's a possibility as 2010 is shaping up to be fairly warm by recent standards, but I wouldn't give it better than even odds of beating 1998.



It's just a pity you can't bet on these things as I would enjoy taking warmists money until they learned not to swallow their own rhetoric.

Answer 13

Considering that to "proof" man made climate change, all past warming periods where thrown out, I would say that until we have gone through a complete warming cycle, we will not know what is considered a record temperature. As you have stated, since instrumental records only and since we are still exiting from a period known as the little ice age, I would say that until we reach the peak, every few decades we should set a new global temperature record. Then again, a warming climate neither proofs or disproofs man made climate change.

Answer 14

Surely one of the main struts upon which AGW theory rests is the "melting ice caps"?

As the Northern ice cap appears to be growing, is the whole science once again called into doubt?



http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

Answer 15

The climate has changed over 1000s of years it always will. Volcanoes pump out more gases per day than the rest of the worlds factories / cars etc ; do in a year.

Answer 16

It's normal or colder than normal where I am and where anyone I know is, and has been for months.



But somehow the "global average" is warmer.



Uh huh.



EDIT - as for "US-centric" - - - up where Guus Hiddink has until recently been coaching, they had their coldest Winter in 30 years. BTW that's in Asia and it's the largest country on the planet.

Answer 17

in uk was so cold and snow rain and wind.!

Answer 18

idk