The hotter it is,
the more of this we will see.
The future's skimpy . . .
Posted on 10/14/2005 10:54:31 AM PDT by cogitator
According to David Rind from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), 2005 is going to set the all-time record for global warmth. He told Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post (October 13, 2005) only a major volcanic eruption could intervene. But Eilperin also interviewed Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor, who told her that Goddard's findings were "mighty preliminary."
That's because there's more than one history of global temperature. Three receive the most citations. NASA's record begins in 1880, as does another history from the U.S. Department of Commerce, developed at the Department's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). But the most widely referenced history (and the one primarily used by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) is compiled by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England's University of East Anglia. It goes back to 1856.
The vast majority of the underlying temperature observations that go into each of these compilations is the same, but each organization has developed its own techniques for how the raw observations are geographically combined and adjusted for confounding factors such as urbanization, missing values, etc. As a result, annual values in each temperature history differ slightly.
So let's take a look at where the average temperature in each stands through September 2005, and what the prospects are for setting a record for the year as a whole, given that there are still three months of data to be added.
In the table below are all of the relevant numbers.
[Have to go to the TCS link for the table]
The GISS anomalies are calculated from the average for the period 1951 through 1980, the NCDC anomalies are relative to the average from 1880 through 2004, while the CRU temperatures are the departures from the 1961-1990 mean. But this matters little in our analysis. In each history, the record-warm year is 1998. The September anomaly in the CRU data is not yet available but we have estimated it based upon the values reported by GISS and NCDC.
The "Additional Monthly Anomaly" is the increment relative to the January-September average that each month in the period October through December must average in order to have 2005 become the warmest year. It is negative for the GISS temperatures because they are currently above the record value.
The "Number of Observed Exceedences" is the number of times during the period of record that the average anomaly (relative to the first 9 months of the year) during last three months of the year reached or exceeded the value required to have 2005 set the record.
The "Percent Chance" is "Number of Observed Exceedences" divided by the "Total Number of Observations".
This last column is where the rubber meets the road. Based upon the previous behavior of the climate system (as captured by the global average temperature in each compilation), there is a nearly three-in-four chance that 2005 will finish as the warmest year in the NASA GISS global temperature history, but less than a one-in-five chance that the NCDC record will be set, and virtually no chance that the CRU will report 2005 as the hottest year measured. Both Rind and Taylor are going to turn out to be correct.
The significance of all of this depends on whom you talk to. The press, as already foreshadowed by Eilperin's Washington Post article, will surely trumpet the record-setting values from the GISS data, while noting that the other datasets (probably) will have placed 2005 as the second warmest year on record. The various scientists interviewed will point out that this occurred even in the absence of a strong El Niño (the primary reason 1998 was so hot) and that this is further evidence that the earth is warming from an enhancing greenhouse effect.
So, what else is new? We already know that the world is warming and that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future (with or without any greenhouse gas emission controls). Record temperatures will continue to be set every couple of years or so. In fact, if it weren't for the 1998 El Niño, a new record high global average temperature would have been established in 4 of the last 5 years (including 2005). The big news is that 2005 will further establish that the rate at which temperatures have been rising during the past 30 years or so has been remarkably constant with a value of about 0.17ºC per decade, and it shows no sign of speeding up. Climate models share this constancy of warming; they just predict different rates. Unless that behavior is wrong, the additional warming until 2100 will be about 1.6°C, near the low end of projections made by our friends at the United Nations, and, frankly, too small to worry about, given that the energy structure of our society is likely to change dramatically in 100 years' time. We'll bet that no one points that out in December, when the warmth-of-2005 stories will proliferate like Santas.
(AG, I'll discuss more with you next week on water vapor feedback.)
The hotter it is,
the more of this we will see.
The future's skimpy . . .
"2005 is going to set the all-time record for global warmth."
150 years is an incredably short time frame for an 'all-time record' when compared to the scientificly extrapolated age of the earth.
With the price of home heating oil being what it is, let's hope so.
Global warming been berry berry good to me!
The future looks good.
Bump for later
I'd like to read more comparative studies that measure ocean temperatures. Given the heat capacity of water (it's more difficult to change the temperature of water vrs. air), I think ocean temperatures are more reflective of changes.
Canadians ought to be thrilled. Finally, they will be able to get to and use the majority of their huge country instead of having to be crowded in with those frogs in Montreal.
Many times when this is stated fully, they indicate that it is a record for the modern instrumental measurement period.
Try a Google search on the phrases "ocean temperature" with the names "Sydney Levitus" and "Timothy Barnett".
People in the NorthEast should be PRAYING for global warming this winter considering the price of heating oil. And strangely, Las Vegas (which is typically on the hot side) has been 10 degrees UNDER normal as many days as it has been ABOVE normal by any amount. Las Vegas is actually turning into a very warm, pleasant place (which will just cause more Californians to flee to Nevada).
This is good link for historical temperature measurments - land based.
You can click on the world map and then be given the nearest 50 weather stations to the spot you clicked on (your city for example). Click on the location and it will give a chart of annual temperatures since record keeping began. You'll find that very little temperature increase has happened (or can be detected) for any one location. Some are higher (like northern Alaska) but then 200 miles east, there is no increase. It is just local variability.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Thanks! It is in Yahoo, but without "Sydney Levitus".
This has been a colder than normal year in MA. But I guess that is global warming too.
Well Colo. this week had some other than warming trends. Look, with 3-4 growing seasons available in some parts of the USA, this is not a bad thing. It helps with milder winters. It will spawn more fish. It will give people more beach time and they will smother themselves with goo to protect themselves so the enviros don't scream and the dermatologists won't make more moola. I am all for global warming as well as working on cutting air polution, doing some common sense enviro work without the nuts trying to take the free enterprise lifestyle choices from us.
Here's the table:
|
Source |
Record |
2005 (Jan-Sep) |
Additional Monthly Anomaly
|
Number of Observed Exceedences Needed to Set Record |
Length of Record |
Percent Chance that 2005 will set record
|
|
GISS |
0.56ºC |
0.58ºC |
-0.07ºC |
91 |
125 |
72.8% |
|
NCDC |
0.62ºC |
0.59ºC |
0.12ºC |
22 |
125 |
17.6% |
|
CRU |
0.58ºC |
0.51ºC |
0.31ºC |
0 |
149 |
0.0% |
Global warming is good
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.