GISTEMP March: +0.84C

GISTEMP updated pretty early this month, it seems. March was very hot; 3rd hottest on record (+0.84C). That should mean another "hottest 12 months" is in the offing.

El Nino leans in

I've written several times about the record-breaking "pause" in El Nino events, which occupied most of 2010 and all of 2011, 2012, and 2013 and continued until the last few months of 2014.

The "pause" lasted 54 months (or rather, 54 three-month averages) which was the longest since NOAA began keeping records, and by a good bit. The runner-up "pause" is 1959-63, 51 months.

This Nino started out anemic and is still, as yet, pretty weak sauce, with a Tmax of +0.7C. For a while it looked as though it might fade out before qualifying as an El Nino (which requires 5 months at or above +0.5C) or might just hit that mark before fading away. And indeed, +0.7C was last seen two months ago and we are presenting clinging to the lower bound of El Nino (+0.5C for the first 3 months of this year.)

But the thing is perking up. This week we're back to +0.7C for the weekly numbers, and the forecasters seem to be coming around to the notion that the event will continue to strengthen:

If the El Nino does strengthen in this way, obviously 2015 could very well break the record set by 2014. And if it is still strong going into 2016, the first part of that year may be very hot as well.

Solar forcing headed up, La Nina hanging in

Just as we would expect at this point in the cycle:

The last month to put up numbers like November was eight years ago.

We continue to languish in what will apparently end up being a double-dip La Nina:

But the odds continue to favor at least one good El Nino coinciding with the upper half of the solar cycle, in the next four years or so. That will be a hot year.

Another successful prediction for Hansen

  From “Global warming study finds no grounds for climate sceptics' concerns,” The Guardian (UK), Oct 20, 2011 , H/t John Hartz:

Jim Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said he had not read the research papers but was glad Muller was looking at the issue, describing him as "a top-notch physicist". "It should help inform those who have honest scepticism about global warming.

"Of course, presuming that he basically confirms what we have been reporting, the deniers will then decide that he is a crook or has some ulterior motive.

"As I have discussed in the past, the deniers, or contrarians, if you will, do not act as scientists, but rather as lawyers."

“As soon as they see evidence against their client (the fossil fuel industry and those people making money off business-as-usual), they trash that evidence and bring forth whatever tidbits they can find to confuse the judge and jury."

BEST reports: News roundup & LOL

Should it be spiking upwards like that?

The BEST group's draft papers: here. From the press release:

COOLING THE WARMING DEBATE Berkeley Earth Releases Global Land Warming Analysis 20 October, 2011 Global warming is real according to a major study released today. Despite issues raised by climate change skeptics, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study finds reliable evidence of a rise in average world land temperature of approximately 1˚C since the mid-1950s… On the basis of its analysis… the group concluded that earlier studies based on more limited data by teams in the United States and Britain had accurately estimated the extent of land surface warming.

News roundup:

WashPo -- A skeptical physicist ends up confirming climate data 

The Economist -- The heat is on

The New York Times -- Climate Skeptics Stay Unswayed

Peter Gleick at Forbes -- Breaking News: The Earth Still Goes Around the Sun, and It's Still Warming Up

Richard Mueller describes the BEST findings in the WSJ -- The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism

Science Daily -- Cooling the Warming Debate: Major New Analysis Confirms That Global Warming Is Real


The Independent is impressed by Dr. Mueller's about face -- Ex-climate sceptic now backs global warming

The Christian Science Monitor has my favorite headline so far -- Koch brothers accidentally fund study that proves global warming

Blogger reaction is going to be inescapable for the next few days, so for that, just galance at the blogroll.


The bottom line:

Hot July: GISS anomaly is 0.60C, third hottest on record

It's like global warming or something. 2009 (0.66C) and mighty 1998 (0.65C) share the podium.

Right now we are just peeking at the middle of the solar cycle:



And La Nina, recently ended, is probably exerting some cooling effect on temperatures, but is fading, without being replaced by a strong El Nino effect:



So very naively, what we might expect to see in the coming months, with these two major sources of short-term variability running close to average, is something resembling the underlying trend since the GISS baseline was set at the 1951-1980 average. Plug 0.60C into that, and it comes out to about 0.16C/decade, right where the models predict it would be.

That's the lovely thing about real science: the numbers actually add up.