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Last 10 Years Warmest on Record
13 December 2007
The decade of 1998-2007 is the warmest on record, according to a statement released by Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in Bali.
The statement also indicated that 2007 was likely to be the seventh warmest year on record. The global mean surface temperature for 2007 is currently estimated at 0.41°C/0.74°F above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.20°F.
The preliminary information for 2007 is based on climate data up to the end of November from networks of land-based weather stations, ships and buoys, as well as satellites. The data are continually collected and disseminated by the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) of WMO’s 188 Members and several collaborating research institutions. Final updates and figures for 2007 will be published in March 2008 in the annual WMO brochure for the Statement on the Status of the Global Climate.
WMO’s global temperature analyses are based on two different sources. One is the combined dataset maintained by both the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office, and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK, which at this stage ranked 2007 as the seventh warmest on record. The other dataset is maintained by the US Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which indicated that 2007 is likely to be the fifth warmest on record.
Since the start of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74°C. But this rise has not been continuous. The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13°C per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years.
2007 global temperatures have been averaged separately for both hemispheres. Surface temperatures for the northern hemisphere are likely to be the second warmest on record, at 0.63°C above the 30-year mean (1961-90) of 14.6°C/58.3°F. The southern hemisphere temperature is 0.20°C higher than the 30-year average of 13.4°C/56.1°F, making it the ninth warmest in the instrumental record since 1850.
January 2007 was the warmest January in the global average temperature record at 12.7°C/54.9°F, compared to the 1961-1990 January long-term average of 12.1°C/53.8°F.
December 13, 2007 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: litesong | December 13, 2007 at 03:08 PM
Even as our low lying coastal cities become deluged I expect to hear a chorus of "it's a natural pattern" and "oh, it's just the sun".
I think the feedback processes are entrenched and even if we stopped burning carbon, the coming decades hold catastrophic changes. Of course, this doesn't mean I don't think we should try to to what we can to mitigate the effects.
Posted by: domenick | December 13, 2007 at 04:21 PM
It is really about balance people. The new watchword from the messaging community is: "Can Do." So the term "climate change" is out, "global warming" remains and we need to hear more about the positive effect of our good actions.
Strangely the item about Greenland ice also came from a NOAA agency: CIRES is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There the researcher Konrad Steffan has this to say:
"Antarctica has shown little to no warming in the recent past with the exception of the Antarctic Peninsula, but now large regions are showing the first signs of the impacts of warming as interpreted by this satellite analysis," said Steffen.
Balance means that honest science is just as important as hyper-messaging. We cannot get everyone to change to new lifestyles on-demand just because we want it now. We CAN educate and encourage people to adopt conservative measures with respect to carbon based fuels. The net result will be measurable progress toward full transparency and removal of the prison walls of ignorance.
Posted by: gr | December 13, 2007 at 06:47 PM
Hopefully we can move those "prison walls of ignorance" around our coastal cities because we're going to need them.
Unfortunately the people we need to free from ignorance didn't get to see this story or several others today on the ongoing observed effects of warming. They got "stories" like these...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316499,00.html
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=282441606882585
Posted by: domenick | December 14, 2007 at 02:25 AM
If the linear trends for the last 50 years are 2X that of the linear trend for the last 100 years it suggests a linear model will not fit the data.
I guess I don't understand why linear models are still being used to predict future temperature increases.
Posted by: JROJAI | December 15, 2007 at 12:02 AM
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I've already placed this data onto an automobile enthusiastic website. & already this data is denounced as only land based(no sea) information, no satellite data & is politically manipulated.
NOAA(lets spell that out--National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) with SIS(lets spell that out--Satellite Information System) does not report sea temperatures or use satellite data. As for political manipulations, since Pres. William Clinton signed Kyoto, the present 2007 data is politically corrupt.
Are we getting the picture how some sectors of society are in thralls of denial.