Warmest August on Record, Global Warming Continues

According to data just updated by NASA, last August was the warmest August for the entire instrumental data record, which begins in 1881. This has been something of a mixed year but overall warm. Of the 134 years for which there are data, the coolest month this year so far was February, at 17th place, with July also being cool, at 11th place. Keep in mind this is over 134 years. For the months of January through August, there are no one-digit ranks (1 through 8) prior to 1989, inclusively, and you don't really start getting consistent "top ten" ranks until 1998.

Monthly ranks so far this year, January was 4th, Feb was 17th, March was 4th, April was 2nd, May was first, June was 3rd, July was 11th, and as noted, August is 1st. For a year in which we are not (yet) experiencing an El Niño, that is very, very warm.

Again, these are global temperatures. Your local mileage may vary.

We don't know how 2014 will rank as a year. If there is no El Niño it will rank high. If an El Niño gets going soon enough to affect the year's average, 2014 may well be in the top few warmest years since global warming began.

Here is where the year to day (Jan through Aug) stands in relation to the years in the data set since 1990 inclusively:

Screen Shot 2014-09-15 at 11.47.10 AM

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It is correct. You need to read the data accurately and pay attention to what was said in the blog post.

for #7 , I notice that the last 15 yrs have been all ABOVE the green trend mean line - tho sometimes a bit up and down in the shorter term.

By mike tomecek (not verified) on 15 Sep 2014 #permalink

#9 follow up - so it is ironic that this very swath of time that the climate deniers put up as a counter example of the gw trend is already ABOVE the trend.

By mike tomecek (not verified) on 15 Sep 2014 #permalink

You need to read the data accurately

Frank just happened to pick the meteorological station (land) data which naturally has different noise from the entire global data.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 15 Sep 2014 #permalink

Can we even measure temperatures to the level of accuracy cited by Gavin Schmidt, dose that no make a nonsense of the whole "warmest August ever" claim.

And why cite the surface temperatures when these are not even remotely global, concentrated as there mostly in the continental US. Why not use the satellite records instead? Is it because they don't support the alarming claims by any chance?

By David Harrington (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

They are not concentrated in the US in this data set. And yes we can measure them accurately. Satellite records are used for part of this. And all of the data sets and measurement techniques support the measurements of a warming earth, and yes, it is alarming.

Greg, I don't think David Harrington even understands how the surface record is prepared, or how satellites 'measure' temperature.

If David Harrington is one of those "models are evil" people, he will be shocked how you extract temperature from measurements by satellite...