NASA: 2009 Had 2nd Warmest Surface Temps On Record; 2000s Warmest Decade On Record

NASA released some data a few days ago confirming what many objective observers were saying about 2009: it would be one of the hottest years for planet Earth in modern recorded history.  The NASA data mesh well with what NOAA and UKMet had already announced.  Importantly, the NASA data include temperatures over very northern latitudes, while UKMet chooses instead to interpolate surface station temperatures on coastlines over the Arctic Ocean, where direct measurements are scarce.  Unsurprisingly, the NASA data have been shown to be more representative of conditions where observations are made away from land.  As a result of slightly different methodologies of constructing the temperature data, the three datasets have, at times, slightly different messages to deliver.  2009 was such a case in which all three largely agree with one another: global temperatures continue to increase in the long-term (day-to-day weather conditions aren’t representative of climate).

According to NASA, 2009′s globally average surface temperatures ranked 2nd behind 2005′s (and tied with 2007′s): 0.57°C above average, compared to 0.63°C above average:

Beyond 4 Degrees – Catastrophic Double-Digit Temperature Increases by Mid-Century?

The UK Met Office hosted a conference in last month (Sep 2009) titled, “4 Degrees and Beyond” at Oxford University.  The bottom-line message is confirmation of what many climate activists have been saying for years: there is a much higher potential for much more warming than commonly thought.  The numbers are staggering in their implications, as I’ll detail below.

First, what did these climatologists do?  They ran the IPCC  high emissions scenario (i.e. business as usual (BAU)) in one of the few global climate models capable of analyzing strong carbon cycle feedbacks, a necessary test to truly reveal details of what our current emissions path could bring to the planet.  The reason this test is necessary was apparent in the results: the same warming that resulted from a BAU scenario without the feedbacks by 2099 occurred instead around 2060 in the BAU scenario with the feedbacks.  What implications does that level of warming by 2060 have for the globe by 2099?  Substantially higher temperatures, especially for some regions:

• The Arctic could warm by up to  27.4°F [15.2 °C] for a high-emissions scenario, enhanced by melting of snow and ice causing more of the Sun’s radiation to be absorbed.
• For Africa, the western and southern regions are expected to experience both large warming (up to 18 °F [10 °C]) and drying.
• Some land areas could warm by 12 degrees [7C] or more.
• Rainfall could decrease by 20% or more in some areas, although there is a spread in the magnitude of drying. All computer models indicate reductions in rainfall over western and southern Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia.
• In other areas, such as India, rainfall could increase by 20% or more. Higher rainfall increases the risk of river flooding.