[Vision2020] Oct. 24, 2014, NCDC: Oct. 2013- Sept. 2014 Sets Warmest Yearly Record.

[Ted Moffett]

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/five-things-know-about-2014-global-temperatures

Quotes below from website above, with full article pasted in lower,
authored by, and I quote, "*Deke Arndt, Chief of the Climate Monitoring
Branch at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, in Asheville, North
Carolina. He is a frequent advisor to Climate.gov, and he’s as good at
explaining climate in front of the camera
<https://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/local-not-global-pockets-cold-warming-world>
as he is at writing about it."*


*Note that according to this article, ocean H2O temperatures have also set
record highs.  Anthropogenic ocean warming, oddly, is often not emphasized
by so called "skeptics" of anthropogenic global warming (to call many of
the critics of anthropogenic global warming science "skeptics" is
misleading, implying the thousands of scientists publishing on issues
related to climate who broadly agree that human activity is warming the
Earth, are not skeptics, but dogmatists of some sort?  All competent
scientists are skeptics!).*
"The 12-month period ending September 2014
<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/9/1880-2014>
was the warmest October-through-September period on record. Beyond that, it
was the warmest of *any* 12-month period on record, clipping a record first
set in 1998 and tied twice since."

*"We've done this without El Nino. *You’ve probably heard that the El Nino
/ La Nina pattern
<http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell>can
nudge global temperatures up and down, respectively, and that’s true. Each
of the three warmest years on record (2010, 2005 and 1998) came on the
heels of El Nino events
<http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml>,
as did 2003, which is tied for fourth warmest. But 2013—which tied 2003—and
2014, which might be warmer than all of them, decidedly did not."


*"This year’s extreme warmth is largely driven by the global ocean.* Sea
surface temperature is something of a tortoise compared to the land
temperature, which, like the fabled hare, can bounce around quite a bit
along its course. The globally averaged ocean temperatures have broken or
tied records since the [Northern Hemisphere’s] spring. The 2014 warmth is
pervasive too: sizable chunks of every major ocean basin observed their
warmest year-to-date on record (the dark reds on this map
<https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-percentile-mntp/201401-201409.gif>).
The combination of widespread ocean warmth, and its tendency to change
relatively slowly, builds more confidence in a warm end-of-year finish."
--------------------------------
Five things to know about 2014 global temperatures
Author:
Deke Arndt <https://www.climate.gov/author/deke-arndt>
Friday, October 24, 2014

*Deke Arndt is Chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at NOAA’s National
Climatic Data Center, in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a frequent
advisor to Climate.gov, and he’s as good at explaining climate in front of
the camera
<https://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/local-not-global-pockets-cold-warming-world>
as he is at writing about it.*

No doubt about it: 2014 will go down as one of the warmest years on record,
according to the National Climatic Data Center’s global surface temperature
monitoring. Here are five global temperature items to keep in mind as 2014
closes out.

*1. We’ve already set records at the yearly scale. *People organize their
lives around the calendar year, so it’s comfortable to organize our
assessment of climate that way. Indeed, year-to-date (“since January”)
temperature is a lens we use at the National Climatic Data Center. For the
climate system, however, there’s nothing magical about the specific
January-through-December twelve-month run relative to other twelve-month
runs. A trip around the Sun is a trip around the Sun, whether you start the
timer in January or, say, October.

With that in mind, we’ve already set some warmest-year records. The 12-month
period ending September 2014
<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/9/1880-2014>
was the warmest October-through-September period on record. Beyond that, it
was the warmest of *any* 12-month period on record, clipping a record first
set in 1998 and tied twice since. October 2013, the next month to drop from
the rolling 12-month average, was one of the cooler (or least warm) months
of the recent stretch, so we may visit this record again soon.

*2. We've done this without El Nino. *You’ve probably heard that the El
Nino / La Nina pattern
<http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell>can
nudge global temperatures up and down, respectively, and that’s true. Each
of the three warmest years on record (2010, 2005 and 1998) came on the
heels of El Nino events
<http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml>,
as did 2003, which is tied for fourth warmest. But 2013—which tied 2003—and
2014, which might be warmer than all of them, decidedly did not. We flirted
with El Nino conditions at times during 2014, and our colleagues at NOAA’s
Climate Prediction Center haven’t ruled one out by year’s end. But 2014 is
already pummeling records without the aid of El Nino’s push.

*3. Several scenarios for 2014’s end-of-year finish point to a new record.
 *Through September—nine laps into a twelve-lap race, so to speak—this year
(the heavy black line in the image) recovered from a cool February to pull
even with 1998 and 2010, and into a three-way tie for the lead. Both 1998
and 2010 faded in their last three “laps” when La Nina conditions arrived.
<http://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/inline_all/public/OceanicNinoIndex1950-2010.jpg>
According to CPC, a La Nina finish to 2014 is very unlikely, which helps
2014’s chances to finish warmer than its two “competitors.”

Monthly year-to-date global temperature anomalies (difference from average)
for the warmest years in the historical record and for 2014 to date.
Through September, 2014 (black line) is running neck and neck with 2010
(red line), the current record holder for warmest year on record. Several
scenarios <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9/supplemental/page-1>
(dashed lines) for the remaining months of the year will push 2014 to the
leader spot. Graph (other versions
<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9/supplemental/page-1>) by Deke
Arndt.

The dashed lines on the graph above indicate plausible scenarios for 2014’s
last three months. The orange scenario assumes each remaining month ties
its warmest temperature on record, resulting in a comfortable “win” for
2014. If they tie their 3rd warmest, or even the average of their ten
warmest values, 2014 will still emerge as the warmest year on record. Just
for context, every month since April 2014
<http://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/september-fourth-month-year-set-record-warmth>
was among the three warmest on record for that month.

*4. This year’s extreme warmth is largely driven by the global ocean.* Sea
surface temperature is something of a tortoise compared to the land
temperature, which, like the fabled hare, can bounce around quite a bit
along its course. The globally averaged ocean temperatures have broken or
tied records since the [Northern Hemisphere’s] spring. The 2014 warmth is
pervasive too: sizable chunks of every major ocean basin observed their
warmest year-to-date on record (the dark reds on this map
<https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-percentile-mntp/201401-201409.gif>).
The combination of widespread ocean warmth, and its tendency to change
relatively slowly, builds more confidence in a warm end-of-year finish.

*5. Ranking individual years is a bit overrated. *Don’t get me wrong,
rankings are useful to help folks—including scientists—more easily put
today’s conditions into a historical perspective. But when considering
climate change, it’s more important to step back and evaluate the big
picture, of which 2014 is but one detail. When 2014 goes into the books, it
will probably be statistically indistinguishable from the warmest years on
record, even if marginally the warmest.

In the big picture, regardless of the eventual rank—1st, 2nd or 3rd—what
matters most is that 2014 will end up very, very warm compared to the
historical record, will re-confirm that we live in a significantly warmed
world, and will provide an exclamation point at the end of a global
temperature time series that continues its long-term march toward warmer
<http://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature>
temperatures.
 Links

Global Climate Analysis for September 2014
<http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9>

Climate at a Glance <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series>

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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