2014 was the hottest year on record

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Friday January 16, 2015 · 7:42 AM PST

2015/01/16 · 07:42

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have this morning announced that 2014 was the hottest year on record. From the NASA announcement:

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.
The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

“NASA is at the forefront of the scientific investigation of the dynamics of the Earth’s climate on a global scale,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The observed long-term warming trend and the ranking of 2014 as the warmest year on record reinforces the importance for NASA to study Earth as a complete system, and particularly to understand the role and impacts of human activity.”

Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

There's much more below the fold.

National Climatic Data Center map of the world showing significant climate events for 2014.

Full image can be found here.

From the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center:

Global Highlights

The year 2014 was the warmest year across global land and ocean surfaces since records began in 1880. The annually-averaged temperature was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04°C (0.07°F). This also marks the 38^th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21^st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

The 2014 global average ocean temperature was also record high, at 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.1°C (60.9°F), breaking the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.05°C (0.09°F). Notably, ENSO-neutral conditions were present during all of 2014.

The 2014 global average land surface temperature was 1.00°C (1.80°F) above the 20^th century average of 8.5°C (47.3°F), the fourth highest annual value on record.

Precipitation measured at land-based stations around the globe was near average on balance for 2014, at 0.52 mm below the long-term average. However, as is typical, precipitation varied greatly from region to region. This is the third consecutive year with near-average global precipitation at land-based stations.

Global Temperatures

A record warm December sealed the deal to make 2014 the warmest year across the world's land and ocean surfaces since recordkeeping began in 1880. The average temperature for the year was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), beating the previous record warmth of 2010 and 2005 by 0.04°C (0.07°F).

This marks the third time in the 21^st century a new record high annual temperature has been set or tied and also marks the 38^th consecutive year (since 1977) that the annual temperature has been above the long-term average. To date, including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occured during the 21^st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

This is the first time since 1990 the high temperature record was broken in the absence of El Niño conditions at any time during the year in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, as indicated by NOAA's CPC Oceanic Niño Index. This phenomenon generally tends to increase global temperatures around the globe, yet conditions remained neutral in this region during the entire year and the globe reached record warmth despite this.

Six months of 2014 (May, June, August, September, October, and December) were record warm, while April was second warmest, January, March, and July were fourth warmest for their respective months, and November was seventh warmest.

Overall, the global annual temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.06°C (0.11°F) per decade since 1880 and at an average rate of 0.16°C (0.28°F) per decade since 1970.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency already released its data showing 2014 as the hottest year on record, which Climate Central explained:

The upward march of the world’s average temperature since 1891 is a trademark of human-influenced global warming with 2014 being the latest stop on the climb. All 10 of the hottest years have come since 1998.
The average temperature was 1.1°F above the 20th century average according to JMA’s data. That edges 1998, the previous warmest year, by about 0.1°F.

One big difference between 2014 and 1998 is that the latter was on the tail end of a super El Niño, which has the tendency to spike temperatures. In comparison, 2014 was the year of the almost El Niño.

And that this year's temperature record came despite there being no El Niño is particularly alarming. When the JMA released its data, Joe Romm emphasized the lack of an El Niño, which has been predicted but hasn't yet appeared, and particularly noted that this flies in the face of the dishonest narrative of climate change deniers that global warming has paused:

As the JMA graph shows, there has been no “hiatus” or “pause” in warming. In fact, there has not even been a slowdown. Yes, in JMA’s ranking of hottest years, 1998 is in (a distant) second place — but 1998 was an outlier as the graph shows. In fact, 1998 was boosted above the trendline by an unusual super-El Niño. It is usually the combination of the underlying long-term warming trend and the regional El Niño warming pattern that leads to new global temperature records.
What makes setting the record for hottest year in 2014 doubly impressive is that it occurred despite the fact we’re still waiting for the start of El Niño. But this is what happens when a species keeps spewing record amounts of heat-trapping carbon pollution into the air, driving CO2 to levels in the air not seen for millions of years, when the planet was far hotter and sea levels tens of feet higher.

Climate Nexus puts it into perspective:

Top points to note include:

In 2014, the U.S. saw unprecedented levels of simultaneous extreme heat in the West and cooler than average temperatures in the East, with both trends linked to global warming.

2014’s heat is alarming in the absence of a full El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and provides yet more evidence that that human-caused warming is now the dominant force driving changes in global temperature trends.

Global warming is not only on the rise but is fueling extreme weather and unprecedented patterns of extreme temperature anomalies.

Sea surface temperatures in particular are reaching record highs, driving extreme atmospheric patterns that cause heavy rainfall and floods in some countries and droughts in others.

The major groups that track combined ocean and land surface global temperatures are expected to confirm that 2014 was the hottest year on record, even with biases that underestimate warming in the ocean and Arctic.

Carbon Brief explains how it works:

To get a complete picture of Earth's temperature, scientists combine measurements from the air above land and the ocean surface collected by ships, buoys and sometimes satellites, too.
The temperature at each land and ocean station is compared daily to what is 'normal' for that location and time, typically the long-term average over a 30-year period. The differences are called an 'anomalies' and they help scientists evaluate how temperature is changing over time.

A 'positive' anomaly means the temperature is warmer than the long-term average, a 'negative' anomaly means it's cooler.

Daily anomalies are averaged together over a whole month. These are, in turn, used to work out temperature anomalies from season-to-season and year-to-year.

I will update with reactions, as they come in.

Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and contributor to the International Panel on Climate Change :

2014 Was Earth’s Warmest Year On Record
Three major climate organizations (JMA, NASA, and NOAA) have now released their official estimates for the 2014 Global Mean Surface Temperature. Both JMA and NOAA conclude that 2014 was substantially higher, i.e. outside the margin of error, of previous contenders (1998, 2005, and 2010) while NASA finds 2014 to be warmest, but within the margin of error of 2005 and 2010 (i.e. a “statistical tie”).

Based on the collective reports, it is therefore fair to declare 2014 the warmest year on record. This is significant for a number of reasons. Unlike past record years, 2014 broke the record without the "assist" of a large El Niño event. There was only the weakest semblance of an El Niño and tropical Pacific warmth contributed only moderately to the record 2014 global temperatures. Viewed in context, the record temperatures underscore the undeniable fact that we are witnessing, before our eyes, the effects of human-caused climate change. It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be seeing a record year, during a record warm decade, during a multidecadal period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled over at least the past millennium, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by fossil fuel burning.

The record temperatures should put to rest the absurd notion of a “pause" (what I refer to as the “Faux Pause” in Scientific American in global warming. There is a solid body of research now showing that any apparent slow-down of warming during the past decade was likely due to natural short-term factors (like small changes in solar output and volcanic activity) and internal fluctuations related to e.g. the El Nino phenomenon. The record 2014 temperatures underscore the fact that global warming and associated climate changes continue unabated as we continue to raise the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The Guardian:

The numbers are in. The year 2014 – after shattering temperature records that had stood for hundreds of years across virtually all of Europe, and roasting parts of South America, China and the Russian far east – was the hottest on record, with global temperatures 1.24F (0.69C) higher than the 20th century average, US government scientists said on Friday.

A day after international researchers warned human activities had pushed the planet to the brink, new evidence of climate change arrived. The world was the hottest it has been since systematic records began in 1880, especially on the oceans, which the agency confirmed were the driver of 2014’s temperature rise.

Bloomberg:

Deny this. The animation below shows the Earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea over 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in the 21st century.