2014 Was Warmest Year On Record

NASA NOAA Climate Change

Two separate analyses from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report that 2014 was the warmest year on record:

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record…

Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

This is particularly significant as increased temperatures from an El Niño pattern did not play a role:

Several scientists said the most remarkable thing about the 2014 record was that it occurred in a year that did not feature El Niño, a large-scale weather pattern in which the ocean dumps an enormous amount of heat into the atmosphere.

Longstanding claims by climate-change skeptics that global warming has stopped, seized on by politicians in Washington to justify inaction on emissions, depend on a particular starting year: 1998, when an unusually powerful El Niño produced the hottest year of the 20th century.

With the continued heating of the atmosphere and the surface of the ocean, 1998 is now being surpassed every four or five years, with 2014 being the first time that has happened in a year featuring no real El Niño pattern. Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said the next time a strong El Niño occurs, it is likely to blow away all temperature records.

Climate scientists have been pointing out, even before this year’s data, that right wing climate denialists are wrong in claiming that global warming stopped in 1998:

“Obviously, a single year, even if it is a record, cannot tell us much about climate trends,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “However, the fact that the warmest years on record are 2014, 2010 and 2005 clearly indicates that global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”

2 Comments

  1. 1
    David Duff says:

    Honest Injun’, I promised myself to leave you alone for a while – you deserve a break.  However, the twaddle above requires ‘ice bucket treatment’ with my emphasis:

    “Today, two of the world’s climate-industry giants—the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)—posted their much-anticipated annual results for 2014. 
    According to GISS, global surface temperature anomalies were an astounding +0.02 deg C higher in 2014 than they were in 2010, making the 2014 results the highest in the history of GISS. These record-breaking results from GISS are under the guidance of their new Deputy Director, Gavin Schmidt [0h, him, whodathunkit?!]. If you’re not familiar with numbers that remarkable, they read two one-hundredth of a deg C, which is equal to less than four one-hundredths of a deg F.
    According to the NCDC, their global surface temperature results were +0.04 deg C higher in 2014 than they were in 2005 and 2010, their two previous best years. The warmest years are within the margin of uncertainty for the data*, making it impossible to determine which year was actually warmest. Even so, these results bring new hope to global warming investors, who have had to endure disappointing results in recent decades. GISS and NCDC are once again showing why the CO2 obsessed turn to them for global warming data. GISS and NCDC are global-warming industry leaders…known for eking out record years from poor source data, even during these hard times of global warming slowdown. In related news, based on similar source data, Berkeley Earth too announced record highs in 2014, but only by 0.01 deg C. [sarc off.]”
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/16/does-the-uptick-in-global-surface-temperatures-in-2014-help-the-growing-difference-between-climate-models-and-reality/

    According to The Guardian, your probable Brit paper of choice:
    “The world emits 48% more carbon dioxide from the consumption of energy now than it did in 1992 when the first Rio summit took place.”
    I’ll repeat that – “The world emits 48% more carbon dioxide…” So where did all that promised heat go to?  Oh no, what was that splash, don’t tell me, “it’s fallen in the water!”  (an old punch line from a comedy show years ago)

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Your sarcasm only demonstrates your scientific illiteracy. You really think that NASA, NOAA, and 97 percent of climate scientists are wrong and you are right? You miss the point the key, and remarkable, fact is not whether it edges out other years as number one but the overall trend, with 2014 significantly warmer than it should have been based upon normal climate factors.

    The consequences of this increase in carbon monoxide you quote are seen not only in the overall warming of the climate but in rather serious problems including the melting of the ice caps and many areas of serious drought around the planet.

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