We've had threads on tis in the past. Nobody's started one this time around, so I figured I would.
Yesterday, NASA and NOAA released their analysis of the global temperatures in 2017. This was an interesting year, since it was first one after a strong El Niño, which has pushed temperatures up to a very dramatic record for two years in a row. Temperatures would be expected to drop, but the question was: by how much? Back to the temperatures typical of the early part of the decade? Or just down a little bit to near-record territory?
The answer is the latter. NASA and NOAA place 2017 as the 2nd and 3rd warmest year on record, respectively. The differences come from whether the analysis uses the most up-to-date source data, and how it handles regions like the poles, where data is sparse compared to elsewhere. In either case, it's clear 2017 is roughly the same as 2015, which was an El Niño year and set a dramatic new record just two years ago.
Berkeley Earth, which uses a completely different analytic approach, agrees and produced a nice graphic showing how 2017 is different from everything on record other than the last two years.
Probability2017.jpg
Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record.
2017_temp_briefing-7.jpg
Over time, as the earth continues to warm, this will start to look like a "normal" year. But for now, it's clear that the last few years stand apart from anything anyone alive today has seen.
Yesterday, NASA and NOAA released their analysis of the global temperatures in 2017. This was an interesting year, since it was first one after a strong El Niño, which has pushed temperatures up to a very dramatic record for two years in a row. Temperatures would be expected to drop, but the question was: by how much? Back to the temperatures typical of the early part of the decade? Or just down a little bit to near-record territory?
The answer is the latter. NASA and NOAA place 2017 as the 2nd and 3rd warmest year on record, respectively. The differences come from whether the analysis uses the most up-to-date source data, and how it handles regions like the poles, where data is sparse compared to elsewhere. In either case, it's clear 2017 is roughly the same as 2015, which was an El Niño year and set a dramatic new record just two years ago.
Berkeley Earth, which uses a completely different analytic approach, agrees and produced a nice graphic showing how 2017 is different from everything on record other than the last two years.
Probability2017.jpg
Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record.
2017_temp_briefing-7.jpg
Over time, as the earth continues to warm, this will start to look like a "normal" year. But for now, it's clear that the last few years stand apart from anything anyone alive today has seen.
Comment