2010 to be a very warm year overall
The global warming consensus has been having a bad time of it recently (see previous blogs) but not everything is going against it. has been studying the latest average global temperatures for January from the satellite readings compiled by the (to which I've referred in the past, see previous blogs) and they show a substantial spike in temperatures for the month just gone.
This will obviously surprise all of us which just lived through the but these are . Also Dr Spencer is a leading and well-qualified climate change sceptic, so his findings cannot be easily dismissed by the sceptic camp. This is what he says:
"The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly soared to +0.72 deg. C in January, 2010. This is the warmest January in the 32-year satellite-based data record.
The tropics and Northern and Southern Hemispheres were all well above normal, especially the tropics where El Nino conditions persist. Note the global-average warmth is approaching the warmth reached during the 1997-98 El Nino, which peaked in February of 1998."
So January was hot -- indeed almost as hot as 1998, which until recently was regarded as the hottest year on record -- until 1934 regained its crown (at least for America). What's going on here?
Too early to say. Of course one month does not deserve too much importance. The data needs to be double-checked. We don't yet know if surface temperature readings confirm the satellite findings. It could be down largely to El Nino, which was also behind the 1998 peak. It could also be that the cold air masses which gave us the ice and snow got locked into the Northern Hemisphere and didn't get the chance to flow elsewhere and cool the ocean surface as it normally would. It might also be the case that global averages are just not a very useful measure.
But many from the global warming consensus have predicted that 2010 will be a very warm year overall -- and January could be the start of it.
I'll keep you posed as the temperature figures pan out.
Comments
or to comment.