2013 Global Temperatures

[illinois]

Could you point to a time in the past when the climate has shifted as rapidly as it is now?

Certainly the Younger Dryras, Little ice age, another rapid cooling event about 8700 years ago, the Roman climate optimum, the medieval climate optimum, etc, etc. They have happened they will continue to happen.

[skierinvermont]

Certainly the Younger Dryras, Little ice age, another rapid cooling event about 8700 years ago, the Roman climate optimum, the medieval climate optimum, etc, etc. They have happened they will continue to happen.

 

None of those match the rate and magnitude of our current warming. Even if they did, it would only show that the climate is very sensitive to small changes in radiative forcing and imply an even greater response to the 3.7W/m2 of radiative forcing per doubling of CO2. 

[AvantHiatus]

None of those match the rate and magnitude of our current warming. Even if they did, it would only show that the climate is very sensitive to small changes in radiative forcing and imply an even greater response to the 3.7W/m2 of radiative forcing per doubling of CO2. 

Good post. People should keep this in mind when discussing the science, temperatures will not change to 5 C over baseline overnight and this whole downplay over this perceived limited and non-threatening warming event is a little silly. In reality the Earth is still capturing extra heat but at a slightly slower rate due to various factors and negative feedbacks (also caused by human activity) while simultaneously depositing more energy into the ocean.

 

As a result global warming of only 2 C in 100 years would be unprecedented and unusually fast compared to historic analogs. The current temperature should be 1.6C (instead of 0.8) above baseline and SLR should be about 2-3 meters higher at our current GHG state. Yet most forecasts and the IPCC have the Earth reaching at least 4C by 2100, truely mind-blowing.

 

It appears the 4 C above baseline was previously reached 40 million years ago.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COWE6sMzdqI

[StudentOfClimatology]

None of those match the rate and magnitude of our current warming. Even if they did, it would only show that the climate is very sensitive to small changes in radiative forcing and imply an even greater response to the 3.7W/m2 of radiative forcing per doubling of CO2.

I agree that the highly variable climate throughout recent geological history confirms a high climate sensitivity to anthropogenic forcing, on the order of 3.5 to 4.5K for a doubling of concentration. That's pretty straightforward.

However, comparing the warming at the end of the Younger Dryas to today's warming is like comparing a mountain to an anthill. Some peer reviewed literature proposes that, for a time, sea levels were rising at almost 5" per year as the younger dryas abruptly ended, and conclude that low CO2 levels may be solely responsible.

We cannot say mother nature didn't warn us of the consequences of our actions: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v349/n6308/abs/349406a0.html

By combining our results with other palaeoclimate data, we suggest that the Younger Dry as event was a global phenomenon, and we believe it to have been caused by low atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Very rapid changes in sea level occurred:

http://people.uncw.edu/grindlayn/GLY550/Fairbanks-Sealevel-1989.pdf

The rapid climate change occurred simultaneously across the globe, down to the southern ocean:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X03005569

Given this occurred simultaneously around the globe, we can confirm that it was induced by a radiative forcing of some sort.

And this isn't just limited to the Younger Dryas. Throughout the Holocene, the climate has been swinging wildly. There are fascinating peer reviewed papers published investigating these shifts, some of which we're regional, some of which were global.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589404000870

Holocene climate variability

Paul A. Mayewskia, , , Eelco E. Rohlingb, J. Curt Stagerc, Wibjörn Karlénd, Kirk A. Maascha, L. David Meekere, Eric A. Meyersona, Francoise Gassef, Shirley van Kreveldg, Karin Holmgrend, Julia Lee-Thorph, Gunhild Rosqvistd, Frank Racki, Michael Staubwasserj, Ralph R. Schneiderk, Eric J. Steigl

a Climate Change Institute, and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA

b School of Ocean and Earth Science, Southampton University, Southampton, Hampshire SO14 3ZH, UK

c Natural Resources Division, Paul Smith's College, Paul Smiths, NY 12970, USA

d Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

e Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, and Department of Mathematics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA

f Centre Europeen de Recherche et d'Enseignement de Geosciences de l'Environnement, BP 80, F-13454, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 4, France

g Institüt für Geowissenschaften, University of Kiel, D-24098 Kiel, Germany

h Archaeology Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

i Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc., Washington, D.C. 20036, USA

j Department of Earth Sciences, Parks Road OX1 3PR, Oxford, UK

k MARUM, Geosciences, Bremen University, D-28359 Bremen, Germany

l Quaternary Research Center and Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, WA, USA

Although the dramatic climate disruptions of the last glacial period have received considerable attention, relatively little has been directed toward climate variability in the Holocene (11,500 cal yr B.P. to the present). Examination of ∼50 globally distributed paleoclimate records reveals as many as six periods of significant rapid climate change during the time periods 9000–8000, 6000–5000, 4200–3800, 3500–2500, 1200–1000, and 600–150 cal yr B.P. Most of the climate change events in these globally distributed records are characterized by polar cooling, tropical aridity, and major atmospheric circulation changes, although in the most recent interval (600–150 cal yr B.P.), polar cooling was accompanied by increased moisture in some parts of the tropics. Several intervals coincide with major disruptions of civilization, illustrating the human significance of Holocene climate variability.

[michsnowfreak]

I'm pretty sure 80's in February and 90's in March at 40N is anomalous and unprecedented, feel free to refute this.

Can you please tell me when these 80s in Feb occurred in MI? I have never seen anything close. Nor have I seen 90s in March. Talk about exaggeration. And fwiw the unprecedented March 2012 heatwave was an extremely, extremely anamolous event that got PLENTY of media coverage, as it should...and the record cold that just passed also deserved media coverage.

[AvantHiatus]

Can you please tell me when these 80s in Feb occurred in MI? I have never seen anything close. Nor have I seen 90s in March. Talk about exaggeration. And fwiw the unprecedented March 2012 heatwave was an extremely, extremely anamolous event that got PLENTY of media coverage, as it should...and the record cold that just passed also deserved media coverage.

Just a slight exaggeration and I did not mention MI in the post, in retrospect it was the low 70's which occured in February down here in NJ back in 2012. 87 degrees occured in Grand Rapids MI back in 2012. Some stations farther south in Indiana and Ohio were approaching 90. In the end we are just talking about a couple degrees here, we can expect more events like that in the future.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2012_North_American_heat_wave

[The_Global_Warmer]

Just a slight exaggeration and I did not mention MI in the post, in retrospect it was the low 70's which occured in February down here in NJ back in 2012. 87 degrees occured in Grand Rapids MI back in 2012. Some stations farther south in Indiana and Ohio were approaching 90. In the end were just talking about a couple degrees here, we can expect more events like that in the future.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2012_North_American_heat_wave

 

 

n addition, NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data show that the atmospheric pattern was so persistent that much of the Midwest and Northeast, and up into Ontario, had temperature departures over periods of several days to a week or more of magnitudes which would be unusual even for a single day. Averaged over the seven-day period from March 16 to March 22 inclusive, nearly the entire area of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. and most of Ontario and Quebec had temperatures 10°C (18°F) or more above the 1981-2010 average. Even more dramatically, most of Iowa and Minnesota, all of Wisconsin and Michigan, and most of southeastern Ontario had seven-day mean temperatures more than 15°C (27^oF) above the climatological average for the same period

 

 

Seven day means near 30F+ is incredible.  Didn't some areas have days near 45F+?

 

We had some 28-30F+ days in STL.  10 days in a row of 22F+.  20 days in a row of 11F+.  9 of 10 days above 80F for the high when one day hit only 77F.

 

overall it was 3.1F above the previous monthly record holder(144 March's on record and 2012 beat the previous one by 3F.  Unreal.

 

In absolute terms it was similiar to 77-79 in terms of anomalous here.  In SD terms it's number one in STL recorded history.

[ORH_wxman]

2013 finished at 0.61C on GISS. That ties it with 2003 as the 6th warmest year on GISS.

 

 

December was +0.60C

[The_Global_Warmer]

NCDC:

 

The average combined global land and ocean surface temperature for December 2013 was the third highest for December since records began in 1880, at 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.2°C (54.0°F).

 

 

 

 

The average combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January–December 2013 tied with 2003 as the fourth warmest such period on record, at 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20^th century average.

 

 

 

 

So NCDC came in 4th warmest on it's record. Same with UAH and GISS 6th.