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2013
Likely To Be One Of The Hottest Years Ever As Warming Trend
Continues, WMO Says
Huffington Post,
14 November, 2013
WARSAW, Nov 13 (Reuters) - This year is the seventh warmest since records began in 1850 with a trend to weather extremes and the impact of storms such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines aggravated by rising sea levels, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.
A
build-up of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere meant a warmer
future was now inevitable, WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said
in a statement on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks among almost
200 nations in Warsaw.
The
WMO, giving a provisional overview, said the first nine months of the
year tied with the same period of 2003 as seventh warmest, with
average global land and ocean surface temperatures 0.48°C (0.86°F)
above the 1961-1990 average.
"This
year once again continues the underlying, long-term trend,"
towards higher temperatures caused by global warming, Jarraud said.
The WMO said it was likely to end among the top 10 warmest years
since records began in 1850.
Among
extremes have been super typhoon Haiyan, one of the most intense
storms in history that smashed into the Philippines last Friday.
President
Benigno Aquino said local officials had overstated the loss of life,
which was closer to 2,000 or 2,500 than the 10,000 previously
estimated. His comments, however, drew scepticism from some aid
workers.
AUSTRALIA
HEATWAVE
Other
extremes this year have included record heatwaves in Australia and
floods from Sudan to Europe, the WMO said. Japan had its warmest
summer on record.
Apparently
bucking a warming trend, sea ice around Antarctica expanded to a
record extent. But the WMO said: "Wind patterns and ocean
currents tend to isolate Antarctica from global weather patterns,
keeping it cold."
In
September, The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) raised the probability that mankind was the main cause
of warming since 1950 to at least 95 percent from 90 in a previous
assessment in 2007.
It
predicted impacts including more heatwaves, downpours and rising sea
levels.
"2010
was the warmest year on record, ahead of 2005 and 1998," the WMO
said.
The
IPCC said the pace of temperature rises at the Earth's surface has
slowed slightly in recent years in what the panel called a "hiatus"
that may be linked to big natural variations and factors such as the
ocean absorbing more heat.
The
WMO said that individual tropical cyclones, such as Haiyan, could not
be directly attributed to the effects of climate change.
But
"higher sea levels are already making coastal populations more
vulnerable to storm surges. We saw this with tragic consequences in
the Philippines," Jarraud said. Seas have risen by about 20 cms
(8 inches) in the past century.
As
of early November 2013, there had been 86 tropical cyclones, from
typhoons to Atlantic hurricanes, closing in on the 1981-2010 average
of 89 storms, the WMO said.
NASA:
September 2013 Hottest on Record Despite Somewhat Cool
Eastern Pacific
5
November, 2013
According
to NASA’s most recent global land and ocean surface temperature
survey, September of 2013 was .74 degrees hotter than the 20th
Century average. This measure ties September of 2005 as the record
hottest. The difference between 2005 and 2013? 2005 was an El Nino
year. A year when a large swath of the Eastern Pacific was dumping
its heat content into the atmosphere. This year, the Eastern Pacific
has remained somewhat cooler than normal, sucking a degree of
atmospheric heat out and dumping it into the deeper oceans. But,
despite what would normally be a drag on global surface heating, the
world’s temperatures where the air contacts the land and the sea
remain at or very near new record highs.
This
situation is not cause for comfort or complacency. Nor is it one that
indicates what has been termed a so-called ‘pause in global
warming’ by so many ill-informed in the media. To the contrary,
what we are seeing is that the natural variation of El Nino to La
Nina — variations that for centuries and millenia have primarily
governed to world’s periodic warm and cool spells — is slowly
being overwhelmed by the human greenhouse gas forcing. What we are
witnessing is ENSO neutral and La Nina years and months coming very
close to and reaching record hottest temperatures.
So
the rhetorical question we should all be considering is this: if we
are experiencing record high temperatures now, when the Eastern
Pacific is relatively cool, what happens to the global record when
ENSO again starts to heat up? And, in any case, ENSO or no, it
appears increasingly clear that more new record warm years are now in
the offing.
NOAA
Shows Global Temperatures at 4th Hottest
NOAA’s
own set of temperature measures also show record heat, with worldwide
temperatures ranging 4th highest for the month. The NOAA reading,
which varies slightly to the NASA reading due to a difference in
measurement methodology, follows a June measure in which the world
ocean system tied 2010 for hottest on record.
NOAA’s
global temperature map found hotter than average readings covering
much of the globe throughout September. Record hottest regions
blanketed Australia, Iran and Afghanistan, a large section of the
Arctic Ocean north of Scandinavia, and smaller, more isolated patches
around the globe. No region experienced record coldest temperatures.
The only concerted regions experiencing cooler than average
temperatures include a section of Siberia and Central Russia, and a
region of the Southern Ocean between South America and Antarctica.
The Eastern Pacific, which drives ENSO, remained cooler than
surrounding waters at near or just below the 20th Century average.
Between
the NOAA and the NASA temperature measures, it remains clear that
record or near record warmth continues to dominate the global climate
with pools of hottest ever recorded temperatures continuing to drift
over the world. Given the increasing warmth, despite no El Nino, it
appears possible that, should El Nino not arise within the next 3-5
years (unlikely given a long history of variation), the world will
achieve new record warm years without it. And such an event would be
yet one more that is without precedent.
Too
Soon to Call For El Nino’s Return
A
pool of slightly cooler than average water over a moderate stretch of
the Eastern Pacific during early November belies a continuing trend
of ENSO neutral or La Nina leaning conditions. This pattern has
dominated throughout much of the past two years and, currently, shows
few signs of abating. As one can see from even the most cursory
analysis of the image above, the global ocean system, despite the
slight coolness in the Eastern Pacific, remains significantly warmer
than the already warmer than average period of 1971-2000 which
provides the base set for the above NOAA graphic.
The
Hot Late Summer/Early Fall Arctic
One
final driver to global heating during the months of September and
August of 2013 appears to be a very warm late summer and early fall
Arctic. Temperatures between the latitudes of 65 and 75 degrees North
have been particularly warm with near record hottest and record
hottest temperatures experienced in Scandinavia, regions of the
Arctic Ocean north of Scandinavia, high north-west Canada, and
Alaska. The Arctic Ocean in a zone between 70 to 75 North has
experienced much warmer than normal conditions as sea ice remains
between 4th and 6th lowest on record in all the various measurements.
Meanwhile,
temperatures above the 80 degree North Latitude line, though not
hitting the same record variances are regions nearer the Arctic
Circle, showed temperatures ranging between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius
above average for the months of September and October. This dumping
of ocean and land heat into the Arctic environment, which slows the
cooling of the Northern hemisphere into winter, has become an
increasingly dominant weather phenomena over the past 5 years. It is
also an event that has coincided with record loss of sea ice which
has become particularly pronounced since 2007, with some years
showing as much as 80% loss of sea ice volume and more than 50%
losses of sea ice area and extent since 1979.
The
resulting cooling lag in the Arctic during the months of August,
September, October and November have, likely contributed to near
record warm months globally during August and September of 2012 and
2013, despite La Nina or ENSO neutral conditions. This somewhat
ominous signal shows that ENSO is in the process of gradually being
over-ridden by other factors.
Climate
models have indicated that the Arctic would be the first section of
the globe to experience very rapid and pronounced warming under human
greenhouse gas forcing and the related and powerful feedbacks of
Arctic albedo loss and environmental greenhouse gas emission (methane
and CO2). And with summer Arctic temperatures, in some regions,
measuring
their hottest in more than 40,000 years
and with worldwide CO2 levels pushing toward their highest levels in
3 million years, it appears we are, sadly, at just the very beginning
of such a dangerous and powerful warming trend.
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