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<div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><h2><a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/five-things-know-about-2014-global-temperatures">https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/five-things-know-about-2014-global-temperatures</a></h2><p><font size="4">Quotes below from website above, with full article pasted in lower, authored by, and I quote, "<em>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 <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/local-not-global-pockets-cold-warming-world">in front of the camera</a> as he is at writing about it."</em></font></p><p><font size="4"><em>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!).<br></em></font></p><h2>"The <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/9/1880-2014">12-month period ending September 2014</a> was the warmest October-through-September period on record. Beyond that, it was the warmest of <em>any</em>
12-month period on record, clipping a record first set in 1998 and tied
twice since."</h2><p><font size="4"><strong>"We've done this without El Nino. </strong>You’ve probably heard that the <a href="http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell">El Nino / La Nina pattern </a>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 <a href="http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml">El Nino events</a>,
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."</font></p><p><br><font size="4"><strong>"This year’s extreme warmth is largely driven by the global ocean.</strong>
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 <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-percentile-mntp/201401-201409.gif">this map</a>).
The combination of widespread ocean warmth, and its tendency to change
relatively slowly, builds more confi</font>dence in a warm end-of-year finish."</p><h2>--------------------------------<br></h2><h2>Five things to know about 2014 global temperatures</h2></div></div></div><div class=""><div class="">Author: </div><div class=""><div class=""><a href="https://www.climate.gov/author/deke-arndt">Deke Arndt</a></div></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">Friday, October 24, 2014</div></div></div> </div>
<div class="">
<div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><p><em>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 <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/videos/local-not-global-pockets-cold-warming-world">in front of the camera</a> as he is at writing about it.</em></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>1. We’ve already set records at the yearly scale. </strong>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.</p>
<p>With that in mind, we’ve already set some warmest-year records. The <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/9/1880-2014">12-month period ending September 2014</a> was the warmest October-through-September period on record. Beyond that, it was the warmest of <em>any</em>
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.</p>
<p><strong>2. We've done this without El Nino. </strong>You’ve probably heard that the <a href="http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell">El Nino / La Nina pattern </a>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 <a href="http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml">El Nino events</a>,
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.</p>
<p><strong>3. Several scenarios for 2014’s end-of-year finish point to a new record. </strong>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 <a href="http://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/inline_all/public/OceanicNinoIndex1950-2010.jpg">La Nina conditions arrived.</a>
According to CPC, a La Nina finish to 2014 is very unlikely, which
helps 2014’s chances to finish warmer than its two “competitors.”</p>
<div class=""><img alt="" class="" src="https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/inline_all/public/ytd-evolution_draft10.png?itok=G0jw_2Zc" title="" height="443" width="610"><span class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><p>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 <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9/supplemental/page-1">scenarios</a> (dashed lines) for the remaining months of the year will push 2014 to the leader spot. Graph (<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9/supplemental/page-1">other versions</a>) by Deke Arndt.</p>
</div></div></div></span></div>
<p>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, <a href="http://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/september-fourth-month-year-set-record-warmth">every month since April 2014</a> was among the three warmest on record for that month.</p>
<p><strong>4. This year’s extreme warmth is largely driven by the global ocean.</strong>
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 <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-percentile-mntp/201401-201409.gif">this map</a>).
The combination of widespread ocean warmth, and its tendency to change
relatively slowly, builds more confidence in a warm end-of-year finish.</p>
<p><strong>5. Ranking individual years is a bit overrated. </strong>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature">march toward warmer </a>temperatures.</p>
<h3>
Links</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9">Global Climate Analysis for September 2014</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series">Climate at a Glance</a></p>
<p> -----------------------------------------</p><p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br></p>
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