Hottest start to a calendar year on record

NASA updated their global temperature data for April and it's hot.  Really hot.  As in the last time it was this hot may well be the Holocene Climatic Optimum.  April 2014 shattered April 2010's record by a full 0.24ºC, coming in at 1.11ºC above the 1951-1980 baseline.  That is, simply put, jaw-dropping.

This now makes seven straight months of record-breaking global temperatures and marks the hottest 12-month period on record (previous record set in March 2016) and the hottest four-month start to a calendar year on record.

It's not even close.  2016 is obliterating all previous records and doing so by record margins.  The first four months of 2016 came in at 1.215ºC above the baseline.  The previous record-holders were 2010 and 2015, which tied at 0.8275ºC.  The first four months of 2016 were so warm that even at this early date, we can all but call the race for hottest year on record, as there is a 93.7% chance 2016 will dethrone 2015.

Average yearly temperature versus the average temperature for the first four months of each year.  The red dot is 2016 and the error bars represent 2 standard deviations around that point.

To get that percentage, I regressed the yearly average temperature against the temperature for the first four months.  As you can see, it's a pretty good fit (R2 = 0.9495).  I then found the standard deviation of the residuals and calculated the z-score between the predicted yearly average for 2016 (0.996ºC) and the actual average for 2015 (0.8275ºC).  So congrats, 2016.  May you reign long as the new starting point for deniers' claim of "No warming since _____!"

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 4, 2016 at 4:53 AM

    nice post

    ReplyDelete
  2. online nursing coursesJuly 4, 2016 at 4:55 AM

    The calendar record is the true factor about this. It is great information and well posted. Thank you for give me the details about this.

    ReplyDelete

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