2010 — a near-record year

[louise]

From the Met Office at www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/2010-global-temperature

The Met Office and the University of East Anglia have today released provisional global temperature figures for 2010, which show the year to be the second warmest on record.

With a mean temperature of 14.50 °C, 2010 becomes the second warmest year on record, after 1998. The record is maintained by the Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit at UEA.

Earlier this month, in the US, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center announced that the past year is either warmest or equal-warmest on their respective records.

Events in the Pacific Ocean have heavily influenced the global temperature in 2010. The year began in El Niño conditions, which have a warming effect. But the El Niño was replaced by a very strong La Niña - the strongest for more than 30 years - which acts to cool the climate.

Dr Adam Scaife, head of long range forecasting at the Met Office, said: "The three leading global temperature datasets show that 2010 is clearly warmer than 2009. They also show that 2010 is the warmest or second warmest year on record as suggested in the Met Office's annual forecast of global temperature issued in December 2009."

There's a lot more at the website but I haven't copied it all across here.

[marchesarosa]

In Central England 2010 was the second coldest since records began in 1659. I don't need to copy it. I can remember it.

[rsmith7]

The Met Office and the University of East Anglia have today released......

Instant bullshit alert.

Isn't it sad that these two institutions now have zero credibility?

[helen]

In Central England 2010 was the second coldest since records began in 1659. I don't need to copy it. I can remember it. - What has this to do with global temperature, cold here, warm elsewhere, it's a global thing not a local thing.

I've asked you this before, when all that cold air fell out of the Arctic into north eastern USA and western Europe this winter, what air replaced it and was it naturally cold or did it warm the Arctic. Your argument is nonsense.

[rsmith7]

But helen darling, in your world the Arctic is warm.

Seriously though, you can't cite met office and UAE figures without being laughed at.
Doesn't that worry you - that these institutions are now a joke?

[helen]

Er no RSmith, the Arctic is a very cold place, been there. But 20°C is 10°C warmer than 30°C. That's a lot of degrees warmer despite it being still really cold, that's a lot of energy. You don't do science though do you you. It's really cold so that's all that matters.

[rsmith7]

Seriously though, you can't cite met office and UAE figures without being laughed at.
Doesn't that worry you - that these institutions are now a joke?

[marchesarosa]

"provisional global temperature figures for 2010.....show the year to be the second warmest on record".

And how long is that "record"? And how reliable?


"On record" are two weasel words that obviously impress helen and Louise.

They don't impress me.

[marchesarosa]

Helen wonders what the Central England Temperature series has to do with anything. It is the longest continuous temperature record in existence.

It is worth a darned sight more than the cdemonstrable fiddles perpetrated by UEA, GHCN and GISS.

No-one KNOWS what the global average temperature is or even if the concept is a valid one. There is only assertion by self-styled "climatologists" with a mighty environmentalist axe to grind.

We DO know what the temperatures in Central England have been - and for a VERY long time compared to nearly every other location in the world. That is why it beats every other massaged, concocted, adjusted, homogenised and invented global database in existence.

[marchesarosa]

Perhaps you folk who set such store by a "global average temperature" should consider this new piece of research which must surely undermine your certainties?

Patrick Frank, Palo Alto, CA 94301-2436, USA, Energy and Environment, Volume 21, Number 8 / December 2010 DOI: 10.1260/0958-305X.21.8.969

Abstract

Sensor measurement uncertainty has never been fully considered in prior appraisals of global average surface air temperature. The estimated average ±0.2 C station error has been incorrectly assessed as random, and the systematic error from uncontrolled variables has been invariably neglected. The systematic errors in measurements from three ideally sited and maintained temperature sensors are calculated herein. Combined with the ±0.2 C average station error, a representative lower-limit uncertainty of ±0.46 C was found for any global annual surface air temperature anomaly. This ±0.46 C reveals that the global surface air temperature anomaly trend from 1880 through 2000 is statistically indistinguishable from 0 C, and represents a lower limit of calibration uncertainty for climate models and for any prospective physically justifiable proxy reconstruction of paleo-temperature. The rate and magnitude of 20th century warming are thus unknowable, and suggestions of an unprecedented trend in 20th century global air temperature are unsustainable.

Jeff Id has a discussion, which includes the author, Pat Frank, about the research findings here
noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/what-evidence-for-unprecedented-warming/

[marchesarosa]

And here's another article on the same subject - measurement error.

pugshoes.blogspot.com/2010/10/metrology.html