Warmest Month

Recently NASA GISS released the measurement of the Earth's surface for January 2016. I added this latest measurement to the long term database (from 1880) and calculated the running 12 month average of surface temperatures. This is the resulting graph: These are anomaly values, as indicated. January was the warmest month recorded in terms of anomaly, and it follows December 2015 as the previous warmest month. The top warmest anomalies in the entire NASA GISS database (going back to 1880) are listed below.Notice that all of these years are recent, and notice that the warmest and most recent…
NOAA has just followed JMA and NASA in reporting on October's average global surface temperature. The surface temperature is the combination of thermometer-at-head-height data and sea surface temperatures, averaged out for the planet. Several groups track this data, and though there is much overlap in the instruments used, each group has its own way of processing the data to eliminate errors and biases, and to adjust for missing information (such as large regions with little data). NOAA points out that October had the greatest above-average departure from average for any month. Also, NOAA…
We knew October was going to be hot. Only hours ago the Japanese Meteorological Agency came out with their data showing October 2015 to be the hottest October in their database. I've not checked yet to see if it was the hottest month in their database. October 2015 was the hottest month in that entire database, which goes back to 1891. October 2015 was the Warmest Month in the Entire NASA Dabase Now, NASA GISS, which also keeps track of these things, has come out with their numbers. The predictions from experts like John Abraham indicated that October 2015 might be in the 90s (that's the…
John Abraham is a scientist at St Thomas University in the Twin Cities. John is famous for doing battle with a famous science denialist (that's what the meme above refers to), for his blog at the Guardian, for his research in several areas such as ocean heat, and for keeping track of month by month increases in global surface heat caused by anthropogenic global warming. Sunday, I had the honor of interviewing John Abraham about current developments in climate change. It was Sunday morning so you were probably either sleeping or in church, but don't worry, there's a podcast! You can listen…
We have been having a run of very warm months, and according to the GISS database, updated yesterday, September was the warmest on record, and the records go back to the late 19th century. This is global average temperature of the surface. I'll have more about this later, as other databases are updated. Sometimes one data set shows slightly different results than others, so it is good to look at them all as a group. Also, NOAA has not updated its climate watcher thingie yet. If October, November and December turn out to be very warm as well, 2014 will end up being one of the top three or…
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…