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UK Met Office Forecasts 2009 to be One of Top 5 Warmest Years on Record Despite Cool Pacific
31 December 2008
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| Warmest 50 years, color-coded by period. The inset shows the entire data range from 1850. Click to enlarge. |
Climate scientists at the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia forecast the 2009 global temperature to be 14.44 °C—more than 0.4 °C above the long-term average. This would make 2009 warmer than 2008 (preliminarily pegged at 14.3 °C, the tenth-warmest on a record dating back to 1850); the warmest since 2005 (14.48 °C); and one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The 2009 forecast includes an updated decadal forecast using a Met Office climate model. This indicates a rapid return of global temperature to the long-term warming trend, with an increasing probability of record temperatures after 2009.
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| A cool wedge continues to dominate the tropical Pacific. Image credit: NASA/JPL. Click to enlarge. |
The Pacific Ocean is currently in a strong, cool phase which the UK Met attributes to a La Niña phenomena and others to the ocean also being in the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a long-term ocean fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean. The PDO waxes and wanes approximately every 20 to 30 years. El Niño and La Niña can be thought of as lying on top of the large scale temperature distribution determined by the PDO, according to NASA/JPL.
Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña have a significant influence on global surface temperature. Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Niña has given way to a weaker La Niña. Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Niño develops.
—Professor Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre
These cyclical influences can mask underlying warming trends.
The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming—the period 2001-2007, with an average of 14.44 °C, was 0.21 °C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000.
—Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
| “Globally [2008] would have been considered warm, even as recently as the 1970s or 1980s, but a scorcher for our Victorian ancestors.” —Dr. Myles Allen, Oxford University |
The 1961-90 global average mean temperature is 14.0 °C. The warmest year on record is 1998, which was 14.52 °C, a year dominated by an extreme El Niño. The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.
The Met Office Hadley Centre advises the UK government on climate change research. Its work is, in part, jointly funded by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); DECC (Dept for Energy and Climate Change and MoD (Ministry of Defence). The Met Office, in collaboration with the University of East Anglia, maintains a global temperature record which is used in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Each January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, issues a forecast of the global surface temperature for the coming year. The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as El Niño and La Niña, increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the cooling influences of industrial aerosol particles, solar effects and natural variations of the oceans.
Over the nine years, 2000-2008, since the Met Office has issued forecasts of annual global temperature the mean value of the forecast error is 0.06 °C.
December 31, 2008 in Climate Change | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Aussie | December 31, 2008 at 12:17 PM
I can't wait for the trolls to read this, it'll be fun reading the usual mental somersaults they go through.
Posted by: ai_vin | December 31, 2008 at 01:24 PM
Don't they always 'predict' that the coming year will be hot, Hot, HOT? Gotta keep that taxpayer money flowing!
Posted by: Matthew | December 31, 2008 at 01:39 PM
Don't they always 'predict' that the coming year will be hot, Hot, HOT? Gotta keep that taxpayer money flowing!They alway do Matt! With your brilliant power of deduction, you should be on the IPCC.
Posted by: dursun | January 01, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Once more we have computer model predictions, competing with reality.
Garbage In --> Garbage Out.
Reality: The World has been cooling for going on eleven years. (It only warmed for 19 to create the hysteria!) All the scientific MEASUREMENTS say so, including the portion of the Met that keeps records. Only the increasingly erroneous computer models keep predicting warming.
When Reality conflicts with Theory, genuine Scientists, like myself, change the theory. AGW Fantasists dogmatically defend the model.
Posted by: ExDemo | January 02, 2009 at 07:28 AM
Sure. Except it's not just a cool Pacific. Look at NASA's Monthly Mean Sea Surface Temp since 1998:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/fig2b.gif
Err... The entire planetary ocean system is cooling??
Posted by: Reel$$ | January 02, 2009 at 09:21 AM
The only thing competing with reality here is you.
Posted by: ai_vin | January 02, 2009 at 09:27 AM
The disturbing thing is to note the sad lack of knowledge and concern displayed.
The past years have increased in average global temperature almost every year.
The sun has a 14 year sunspot cycle with high and low points. This summer was the low point, so this year should be cold. Over the next 7 years we face a sun getting a little warmer each year.
You cannot fool Mother Nature, and she offers no "bailouts" to the foolish. Learn to survive, or perish.
Posted by: John Taylor | January 02, 2009 at 10:25 AM
What gets me is the denialists continue to use the same old disproven lies over and over again. Here we have 2008 that [in their warped view] "erased all the warming of the last 10 years" [warped because we've seen cold years before that were followed by more hot ones] and yet even though it was cold, still managed to be the tenth-warmest on a record dating back to 1850!
Posted by: ai_vin | January 02, 2009 at 11:55 AM
"the same old disproven lies over and over again. "
Qualifying as a tautology? Err... a repetition? A cyclic redundancy? Or a, a field exercise collapsed on itself?
Posted by: Reel$$ | January 02, 2009 at 04:14 PM
John:
Solar cycle is on average 11 years, not 14. Shorter cycles (down to 9 years) are associated with active overall Sun, high irradiance, and warmer climate. Longer cycles (up to 14 years) are associated with weak Sun, low irradiance, and colder climate (like Little Ice Age, which coincides with Maunder Minimum). Current solar cycle # 23 is already abnormally long at close to 13 years.
PS: week is 7 days, month is 28-31 day, and year is 365-366 days. Just reminding you in case.
Posted by: Andrey Levin | January 02, 2009 at 07:17 PM
@ Andrey ... The sunspot cycle is dependent on changes to the sun's magnetic field, which is a bit random.
My point is that this summer was under a 'cold' sun, which accounts for the lack of global warming this year. Next year, and the next ones after that will face an increasing solar temperature, so we should not waste our very temporary respite from our own silliness in warming the planet.
Posted by: John Taylor | January 05, 2009 at 06:45 AM
John:
It is much more complicated than simple up and downs of 11-year solar cycle.
For quick reference take a look at graphs at page three here, for example:
http://www.mannkal.org/downloads/environment/cosmicraysandclimatekirkby.pdf
Posted by: Andrey Levin | January 05, 2009 at 07:43 PM
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It has been an unusually cool summer in parts of eastern Australia. In combination with lower fuel prices the deniers of Peak Oil and Global Warming have had a field day. I guess it never occurred to them that both effects could be temporary.