Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Latest Data Shows Global Climate Continues Warming Trend

The latest statistics are in from 2013 and both NASA’s and NOAA’s measurements of global temperatures show Earth continued to experience temperatures warmer than those measured several decades ago.

NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures, while NOAA – which uses a different method of analyzing temperature data – said that 2013 tied with 2003 as 4th-warmest year globally since 1880.

“The long-term trends are very clear, and they’re not going to disappear,” said climatologist Gavin Schmidt from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). “It isn’t an error in our calculations.”

Land and ocean global temperatures in 2013 from both NASA and NOAA. Via NASA.
Land and ocean global temperatures in 2013 from both NASA and NOAA. Via NASA.

NASA data shows that since 1950, average temperatures have increased 1.1°F to an average of 58.3° in 2013.

NOAA data shows the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.12 degrees above the 20th-century average. This is the 37th consecutive year that the annual temperature was above the long-term average.

This coincides with another recent study that showed the so-called “pause” in global warming is not happening, and that the temperatures over the past 15 years are still on the rise.

Both NASA and NOAA scientists say the increase in greenhouse gas levels continue to drive the temperature increase.

Additionally, with the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

NASA says the average temperature in 2013 was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.1 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis. Exact rankings for individual years are sensitive to data inputs and analysis methods.

“Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. “While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term monitoring.”

Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperatures from year to year, but the continued increases in greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but with the current level of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous.

More from NASA:

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and plays a major role in controlling changes to Earth’s climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere presently is higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, was about 315 parts per million. This measurement peaked last year at more than 400 parts per million.

While the world experienced relatively warm temperatures in 2013, the continental United States experienced the 42nd warmest year on record, according to GISS analysis. For some other countries, such as Australia, 2013 was the hottest year on record.

The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea-surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements, taking into account station history and urban heat island effects. Software is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place from 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis. It has been 38 years since the recording of a year of cooler than average temperatures.

The GISS temperature record is one of several global temperature analyses, along with those produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. These three primary records use slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement.

You can read NASA’s press release here, and NOAA’s here. Here is a link to a presentation of the data released today from Gavin Schmidt of NASA and Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s Climatic Data Center.

Editor’s note: First quote from Gavin Schmidt is from Jacob Ward on Twitter.

60 Replies to “Latest Data Shows Global Climate Continues Warming Trend”

  1. Yes, warming continues and good, single source, long term data (Greenland and Antarctic ice core) supports that statement for last 200 years or so…

    What we and author forget is to ask are 2 crucial questions (maybe even 3):

    1) From what temperature level have this warming started? – Same trusted, published, peer reviewed sources supporting 200 years of warming say… from the coldest period in last 10000 years. Also known as a “Little Ice Age”. Not from some long term average. From the coldest temperatures in human history.

    2) OK, but we are warming up for 200 years, aren’t we now in a very hot period? – Same trusted, published, peer reviewed sources supporting 200 years of warming say… – No. Despite 200 years of warming we are still in the coldest 10% years in the last 10000 years. We are not even near average, normal Earth temperature in the last 10000 years.

    Scientists who are not asking these two questions and who blindfold themselves to obviously known “Little Ice Age” period preceding this warming are not completely honest.

    3) Third question is more social and is not scientifically needed but is very socially important: OK, but is warming detrimental to humanity? – Overlay of human ups and downs over above mentioned ice core temperature records point to exact opposite: cultural booms and human prosperity happen at the temperature peaks, wars, decay, dark ages,… in cold periods. Minoans, hot; Egyptians; hot; Greece and Rome – hot; … fall of Rome – cold; medieval boom – hot; Napoleon, Hitler, terrorism – coldest 10%. Humanity prospers in warm periods. Whatever causes global warming, it is a) Bringing us back toward normal, average Earth temperature over human history and b) It is good for us.

    Attached one of many Greenland ice core Earth temperature data graphs with human growth/decay periods overlaid…

    2. GISP2 records ended in1855 (1950 was year zero).
      In the past, the 1,050 year cycle peak was ~16 years long.
      It has split in 2, conductions have changed.
      Indicating end of interglacial effects, the 4,500 year cycle is missing.
      It is an inter-modulation problem – more complex than a diode mixer.

      1. GISP2 data ends at 1905 – year 0 is 2000 AD: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html – if you read the paper there’s 1% uncertainty, bear in mind it’s reconstructed – the newest NASA/NOAA results show almost 1 degree C in around 60 years, whereas GISP2 show around 0.5 degree in 200 years since the little ice age, seems we are warmer than the middle ages now, hence our growth – if you want to go further back, are you just relying on GISP2, what about other measurements? Anyway, if its not hot enough where you are, you can move to warmer parts of the world, see if it makes you more productive…

      2. “GISP2 data ends at 1905” — Someone quoted an email from Alley stating that year Zero was 1950 — there are several others claiming that 1855 is the last data year.

        Would be interesting to correlate several previous
        Vostok inter-glacials, to determine nonlinear mixing.
        (similar to a diode producing harmonics and intermod)

        “what about other measurements?”
        Polar regions non-linearly magnify global averages.

        “you can move to warmer parts of the world”
        I live on top of unconsolidated Glacial debris.
        Agenda 21 is slower implemented here.

      3. Is GISP2 not polar enough? 72 North

        Anyway I am from 2 North, prob never had glaciers here (no mountains either). I need more air conditioning! Too bad there’s not enough resources for 7 billion people to live like Americans….

      4. Limited by development, not resources.
        Universe has a tendency towards development, not Entropy death (Second Law Violation trumps Malthusian Sophistry)

      6. “So we can ignore the second law?”
        Second Law is not a Law, but the solution to homogeneous direction independent random. See “Modified Feynman ratchet”
        Simple example is lapse difference exploitation.

        There are limits to energy density,
        but what are limits to development?

      7. Duh, do you know what is a scientific law or even maths for that matter? Of course I know thermodynamics is statistical. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s what your fridge, internal combustion/turbine/jet engine are based on. Are you going to tell me we can ignore quantum mechanics because its based on probability? Too bad that’s what made the electronic revolution possible. Good luck in getting your modified Feynman ratchet/Maxwell demon to work, perhaps we don’t have to worry about resources then. I’m sure you’re more clever than Hawkings.

        P.s. If I google I only get your previous comments, please give me a website/paper – if you’re so clever you can write your own one

      8. “Good luck in getting your modified Feynman ratchet/Maxwell demon to work, perhaps we don’t have to worry about resources then” — Lapse exploitation will be practical for tall buildings, and powering deep canyon settlements on Mars.

        No Demons of Maxwell employed, just Lapse differences.
        For example, Xenon Cp=0.16 Lapses 60 K/kn

      9. Dairy farms in Greenland c. 850CE-1200CE
        Grape vines in Caledonia. 100CE-400CE, 1250CE <–Letters from Britain to Rome, Doomesday book (King John).

        We are most assuredly NOT warmer than that 350 year period centered around 1000 CE.

      10. You’re comparing regional with global temperatures?

        Anyway, by the logic of you guys, just raise the temperature a bit & then we’ll have farms in Greenland & vines in Scotland. Too bad about the equatorial regions (where I am)

      11. No I’m not, and if you had studied this you know I’m not. Crop records exist from Europe (Iceland to Italy) and China showing the long growing seasons, for both the Roman and Medieval Climate Optimums (notice the term, “optimum”).

        Crop records also exist showing the failures of crops, both in 525CE coinciding with the beginning of the dark ages in Europe and in ~1300 corresponding with the beginnings of the Little Ice Age. Did you know that the pack ice descended from the North Polar regions c. 1350CE and cut Iceland from the sea, year around, for a number of years?

        I’m still waiting to open a vineyard in Scotland.

        “The polar bears will be fine.” – Freeman Dyson.

  3. Uh dusanmal aren’t you worried about runaway greenhouse gas warming,you know like Venus.We’ll just discount a few factors to make it seem equitable……Good points,more people die from cold than heat as a rule and it makes sense that civilizations would blossom as a result. I believe the temp has only risen by .8 of a degree since 1880,however gloom and doom sells so follow the money.

    1. Of course rising sea levels taking over the habitat of a large % of the population is of no concern

      1. Here in Sweden we are lowering the piers where passenger ferrys dock. There has been too many incidents where people break their legs when they are jumping from the piers into the ferry. When the piers were made about 100 years ago the were level with the decks of the ferry. (The ferrys are the same and kept as sort-of museums for nostalgic reasons). But pay no attention to this minor discrepancy between myth and reallity…

      3. If you have an archipelago, and one island is disappearing, the most likely thing is that the island is sinking. It happens all the time. It is VERY unlikely, to say the least, that the water is rising around that island only, don’t you agree? If you don’t, try to make a hill of water in your bathtub.

        There are hundres or thousands of coral reefs in the pacific that extends just a few feet above the surface. They seem to do just fine, and people are building hotels and airports on some of them.

      5. Sorry to make you disspointed about the Maldives (or the Malvinas as your president called them).

        This what the worlds leading scientist on sea level change, Nils Erik Morner, says about the Maldives and sea level:
        ——————————————————

        Scientist Nils Morner also gave a few summarized facts in the Maldives:

        (1) In the last 2000 years, sea level has oscillated with 5 peaks reaching
        between 0.6m to 1.2 m above the present sea level

        (2) From 1790 to 1970 sea level was about 20 cm higher than today

        (3) In the 1970s, sea level fell by about 20 cm to its present level

        (4) Sea level has remained stable for the last 30 years, implying that there
        are no traces of any alarming on-going sea level rise.

        (5) Therefore, we are able to free the Maldives (and the rest of low-lying coasts and island around the globe) from the condemnation of becoming flooded in the near future.

      6. Is that Nils Axel Morner? World’s leading scientist from your country!

        Do you have any comment on this paper? “Have there been large recent sea level changes in the Maldive Islands?”

        This is his friend: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Cliff-Ollier-Swimming-In-A-Sea-of-Misinformation.html – I’m sure you know the complexity of sea level like the temperature…

        Btw, I’m not from Maldives. Photo below is last month near my grandmas house (about same latitude as Malé). I’ll keep your comments in mind next time this happen (I’m with anyone worldwide who have been devastated by extreme weather, I would err on the side of caution on our understanding of the climate)

      7. All the available records show that Sea levels are on the rise since 100 years ago.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1870-2008_(US_EPA).png

        It has risen by 6 inches in the last 100 years. So these Docks in Sweden if they were built 100 years ago, then the sea level then would have been 6 inches (15 cm) lower.

        No doubt such a small change would not account for “too many incidents where people break their legs when they are jumping from the piers into the ferry”

        There is something called “Tides”, a seasonal change of Sea level brought on by gravitational pull of the Moon.

        To use that line about people breaking legs to say that 100 years ago the Sea levels were higher is beyond idiotic.

        All the measured data by respected institutions show otherwise. Where do clowns like you come from.

      9. Actually, all avaiable records show that the sea levels has been rising for the last 20 000 years. The reason we have to lower the piers in sweden is land rise. Sweden has been rising relative to the sea level about 90 cm the last century. This combined with a high pressure over Stockholm and boarding the “Djursholm ferry” becomes a dare devil act. My point is that “sea level change” is a little bit more complicated than what you may have thought.

      10. When I said Sea levels rise could threaten a big % of the World population you replied that I was ignoring reality, it was all myth.

        You gave Sweden rising above Sea Level as an example.
        No doubt due to tectonic plate movements some parts of Earth are rising..
        Africa is moving towards Europe at 1cm every year for example.
        But how does that make my statement false or a myth? Which part of my statement did you disagree with?

        Why give Sweden as an example anyway?

        What % of the World Population lives in Sweden?

        London has more population than entire Sweden, and yet the Thames Barrier is struggling to keep off the North Sea high tide at bay, and with current Sea Level rise projections this barrier will be obsolete in as little as 30 years. So a new bigger multi-billion sterling barrier will need to be erected.

      11. Why did you quote Nils-Axel Morner, a scientists who is a critic of the notion that the sea level is rising, and a supporter of dowsing?

        You say sea levels have been rising for the last 20 000 years.

        You need to make up your mind.

  4. Ehm, no!
    The graph obviously shows that there was a temporary warming in the 1970s-1990s, but that the level was flat both before and after that period.

    1. 62 year cycle peaked in 2002. 200 year cycle in decline since 2010.
      Scary is the splitting of the 1,050 year cycle peak.
      1930 and 2000 year decades were high.
      Ice Age Doom is coming soon.

      1. Anyone can find “cycles” in any amount of data about anything. Without theory to explain them, such findings are useless for the purposes of prediction and understanding.

  5. I don’t understand why this blog lets itself to controversial political climate propaganda. Shouldn’t it instead be on the topic of astronomy and space exploration?

    1. IPCC informs that there is not enough data to determine the temperature of the missing heat, hiding in the Ocean Deep “Climate change report: science fiction”

      1. Deep ocean and ice melt hide total Joules needed for the temperature increase.
        So I don’t think you need to worry that the surplus in Energy will be off scale in the wrong direction.

      3. Okay, i finally understand what you’re saying. Than we should hurry to spill oil first and wait for fried fish. But that’s my taste buds speaking.

    2. Could someone tell me how whole planet fractional temperatures fit within the Standard Error of Measurement?

      Dyson says the climate statistics are pooched. I agree.

  7. I used to be a firm believer in man-made global warming, now I have some doubts. Where I live, it was the 4th coldest summer since records started, Alaska had their shortest and coldest summer on record, both poles are experiencing record ice sheet coverage, and globally, there were more cold records set in 2013, than warm records set. So, after all that is considered, how can it be that the year was one of the warmest ever? It makes no logical sense.

    1. I will use your mindset and confuse local weather with global climate to debunk you.

      2013 Alaska Heat Wave: Record-Breaking Temperatures Bake 49th State
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/baked-alaska-unusual-hea_n_3463563.html

      U.S. Heat Wave 2012: What’s Behind The Hot Weather?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/us-heat-wave-2012-hot-weather_n_1646462.html

      Brutal July heat a new U.S. recordhttp://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/08/us/temperature-record/index.html

      Record heat in Australia fuels wildfires as temperatures soar over 100ºF

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/record-heat-in-australia-fuels-wildfires-as-temperatures-soar-over-100f/2013/01/08/fcf8f04a-59a0-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_blog.html

      1. And yet… http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/shortest-summer-on-record-in-alaska/

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/And-global-COOLING-Return-Arctic-ice-cap-grows-29-year.html

        I’m not confusing “local weather” with anything, I’m just showing examples from various places that show things like more cold records than warm, a growing of the ice sheets, and short summers, to merely pose the question of whether there is actual warming occurring.

      2. And I am shooting down every single cold claim with a record breaking heat wave claim. Nothing more than using the same technique you are using to show that it is getting colder.

        Just Google “record breaking heat wave”.

        In other words, cherry picking cold places as proof does not work. Because I can cherry pick hot places.

    1. How rare was Galileo? One in a million?
      Well, one’s enough if you’re right. He sent telescopes to princes so that they could see for themselves what he had discovered. Maybe someone should send thermometers to ministers and journalists today?

  10. “Climate Continues Warming Trend”
    And the data adjusting continues.
    (Indicating cooling, clouds are 40 meters lower this century)

  11. The trigger’s been pulled (Permafrost methane cap melted) so from now on we’re just going along for the ride. Hang on!. We are to expect continued record breaking temperatures high and low, storms and unusual atmospheric events throughout this century…. ACK! Looks like I’m gonna have to grow fins and go back in the water again! Tide’s coming in!

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