2015 Was the Hottest Year on Record, by a Stunning Margin

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:


2015 Was the Hottest Year on Record, by a Stunning Margin
We actually broke the record for breaking records.


To say that 2015 was hot is an understatement. The average recorded temperature across the surface of the planet was so far above normal that it set a record for setting records.

The year was more than a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit warmer than the last global heat record—set all the way back in 2014—according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration figures released on Wednesday. A quarter of a degree may not sound like much, but on a planetary scale it's a huge leap. Most previous records were measured by hundredths of a degree.

A powerful El Niño is largely responsible for the year’s extremes, but make no mistake: This is what global warming looks like. Temperatures are rising 10 times faster than during the bounce back from the last ice age. Fifteen of the hottest 16 years on record have come in the 21st century. This animation shows earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea dating back to 1880. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th century average.

The heat during 2015 was relentless. Monthly records were broken for every month except January (second hottest) and April (third hottest), according to data from NOAA. The year ended with an exclamation point in December, recording the most extreme departure for any month on record.

Results from the world’s top monitoring agencies vary slightly, but NASA, NOAA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the U.K.'s Met Office all agree: 2015 was unprecedented. The heat was experienced differently around the world, but most regions were unusually warm to downright scorching for much of the year. .................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-by-a-stunning-margin

[Blue_Tires]

1. Definitely the warmest Christmas I've ever felt here...

[niyad]

2. but. . . c3 (catastrophic climate change) isn't REAL!!

[Omaha Steve]

3. Not just temps, it creates sever weather storms etc

Thanks for posting. K&R!

OS

[One_Life_To_Give]

4. Wouldn't El Nino affect only where the Heat is and not how much?

I would expect the total thermal energy of a planet would move in a continuous slope and not experience any discontinuities. Such that if we were to truly measure the entirety of the earths surface that would integrate to a non-discontinuous function.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. It's a round world.

And air currents are global.

So, no. The heat doesn't stay in one place.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Which is why using a Closed Integral

Which is why using a Closed Integral about the earth below say 100 miles altitude should give a non-discontinuous function for the quantity of thermal energy, I think.

[tclambert]

7. The Earth has a fluid surface. We don't have much information on how much heat is in the ocean deeps

I think El Niños bring heat up from the deeper water and release it into the atmosphere, where we can measure it. So you should be right regarding the planet as a whole, and right that El Niño affects where the heat is by bringing the heat to the surface rather than letting it build up further down. The Earth's surface, though, does experience fluctuations in temperature due to a number of causes, including El Niños, La Niñas, and large volcanic eruptions.

Climate scientists have developed a long list of feedback loops that can also affect global surface temperatures, like melting sea ice. The Arctic Ocean used to be ice covered pretty much all the time. Now it is nearly ice-free in the summer. Ice reflects sunlight while open water absorbs more sunlight. Warming melts more ice, which leads to more open water, which absorbs more sunlight, which makes the sea warmer and melts more ice--a positive feedback loop. They say we have activated somewhere between 25 to 50 of these feedback mechanisms. The worst may be melting permafrost and melting seafloor methane hydrates both releasing more methane into the atmosphere. Methane blocks more infrared than carbon dioxide does.

The fluctuations do look quite discontinuous when you graph annual global temperatures. If you go by decades, though, the curve smooths out considerably, though it unfortunately looks like it might be an exponential curve. The rate of warming seems to increase from decade to decade for the last four and half decades.

Bottom line: You are right in thinking El Niño doesn't produce any new heat, just moves it around. But it may reveal heating of the oceans beneath the surface that we did not know about previously.