Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

hatrack

(59,587 posts)
Sat May 25, 2019, 08:53 AM May 2019

All The Global Temperature Graphs You'll Need, Lovingly Curated And In One Place

?w=582&h=325

Climate geeks will find this elementary – but not everybody is a climate geek.

Deke Arndt on Twitter:

The pretty graphic upthread is the annual global temperature anomaly (or departure) from the 20th century average. Each red dot is an individual year. Dots above the black line were warmer than the 20th century average; dots below were cooler than the 20th century average.

Pink bars are decadal average anomalies, very simply the average of the ten red dots in a decade. The most recent decade is in a different shade because it’s the current one, and partly it only has 9 member years. It’s getting warmer, but that’s not why we’re here right now. 3/n

We’re here to look at base periods, and how they [DON’T] affect things. Here’s the very same data, but with pretty red circles plotted as less pretty blue and red bars. Same logic applies. You can click this here very graph in CAG: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2019

?w=591&h=379

The trend since 1880? 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit per century (0.70 deg Celsius). 5/n
Sometimes, this data is plotted versus the 1981-2010 average (often called “normal” – a problematic but historically entrenched term). The red circles are lower; because they’re being compared to the warmer 1981-2010 period. But the trend is identical: 1.26 deg F / century. 6/n

The trend since 1880? 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit per century (0.70 deg Celsius). 5/n
Sometimes, this data is plotted versus the 1981-2010 average (often called “normal” – a problematic but historically entrenched term). The red circles are lower; because they’re being compared to the warmer 1981-2010 period. But the trend is identical: 1.26 deg F / century. 6/n

?w=1024

Sometimes, people want to compare to “preindustrial” times. We often use 1880-1900 as an imperfect but representative proxy. The circles in this case are higher, because the comparison period is cooler, but the trend through the years is the same: 1.26 deg F / century. 7/n

EDIT

https://climatecrocks.com/2019/05/24/temperature-graphs-why-baselines-matter/
4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
All The Global Temperature Graphs You'll Need, Lovingly Curated And In One Place (Original Post) hatrack May 2019 OP
Post removed Post removed May 2019 #1
Bookmarked to study later Bayard May 2019 #2
The temps relative to 1981-2010 period - damn (nt) IndyOp May 2019 #3
Yeah - catches one's attention, doesn't it? hatrack May 2019 #4

Response to hatrack (Original post)

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»All The Global Temperatur...