About Jeff Masters
Dr. Masters (r) co-founded wunderground in 1995. He flew with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters 1986-1990. Co-blogging with him: Bob Henson, @bhensonweather
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February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin
By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 7:46 PM GMT on March 13, 2016
On Saturday, NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report. February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global recordkeeping. NASA’s analysis showed that February ran 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 1951-1980 global average for the month, as can be seen in the list of monthly anomalies going back to 1880. The previous record was set just last month, as January 2016 came in 1.14°C above the 1951-1980 average for the month. In other words, February has dispensed with this one-month-old record by a full 0.21°C (0.38°F)--an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by. Perhaps even more remarkable is that February 2015 crushed the previous February record--set in 1998 during the peak atmospheric influence of the 1997-98 “super” El Niño that’s comparable in strength to the current one--by a massive 0.47°C (0.85°F).
Figure 1. Monthly global surface temperatures (land and ocean) from NASA for the period 1880 to February 2016, expressed in departures from the 1951-1980 average. The red line shows the 12-month running average. Image credit: Stephan Okhuijsen, datagraver.com, used with permission.
An ominous milestone in our march toward an ever-warmer planet
Because there is so much land in the Northern Hemisphere, and since land temperatures rise and fall more sharply with the seasons than ocean temperatures, global readings tend to average about 4°C cooler in January and February than they do in July or August. Thus, February is not atop the pack in terms of absolute warmest global temperature: that record was set in July 2015. The real significance of the February record is in its departure from the seasonal norms that people, plants, animals, and the Earth system are accustomed to dealing with at a given time of year. Drawing from NASA’s graph of long-term temperature trends, if we add 0.2°C as a conservative estimate of the amount of human-produced warming that occurred between the late 1800s and 1951-1980, then the February result winds up at 1.55°C above average. If we use 0.4°C as a higher-end estimate, then February sits at 1.75°C above average. Either way, this result is a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases. Averaged on a yearly basis, global temperatures are now around 1.0°C beyond where they stood in the late 19th century, when industrialization was ramping up. Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University) notes that the human-induced warming is even greater if you reach back to the very start of the Industrial Revolution. Making matters worse, even if we could somehow manage to slash emissions enough to stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide at their current level, we are still committed to at least 0.5°C of additional atmospheric warming as heat stored in the ocean makes its way into the air, as recently emphasized by Jerry Meehl (National Center for Atmospheric Research). In short, we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0°C warming over pre-industrial levels.
El Niño and La Niña are responsible for many of the one-year up-and-down spikes we see in global temperature. By spreading warm surface water across a large swath of the tropical Pacific, El Niño allows the global oceans to transfer heat more readily into the atmosphere. El Niño effects on global temperature typically peak several months after the highest temperatures occur in the Niño3.4 region of the eastern tropical Pacific. The weekly Niño3.4 anomalies peaked in mid-November 2015 at a record +3.1°C , so it’s possible that February 2016 will stand as the apex of the influence of the 2015-16 El Niño on global temperature, although the first half of March appears to be giving February a run for its money. We can expect the next several months to remain well above the long-term average, and it remains very possible (though not yet certain) that 2016 will top 2015 as the warmest year in global record-keeping.
Lower atmosphere also sets a record in February
Satellite-based estimates of temperature in the lowest few miles of the atmosphere also set an impressive global record in February. Calculations from the University of Alabama in Huntsville show that February’s reading in the lower atmosphere marked the largest monthly anomaly since the UAH dataset began in late 1978. UAH's Dr. Roy Spencer, who considers himself a climate change skeptic, told Capital Weather Gang earlier this month, “There has been warming. The question is how much warming there’s been and how does that compare to what’s expected and what’s predicted.” The satellite readings apply to temperatures miles above Earth’s surface, rather than what is experienced at the ground, and a variety of adjustments and bias corrections in recent years (including an important one just this month) have brought satellite-based readings closer to the surface-observed trends.
Figure 2. Anomalies (departures from average) in surface temperature across the globe for February 2016, in degrees Centigrade, as analyzed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Image credit: NASA/GISS.
Arctic leads the way
Figure 2 shows a big factor in the February result: a superheated Arctic. As shown by the darkest-red splotches in the figure, large parts of Alaska, Canada, eastern Europe, and Russia, as well as much of the Arctic Ocean, ran more than 4.0°C (7.2°F) above average for the month. This unusual warmth helped drive Arctic sea ice to its lowest February extent on record in February 2016. The tremendous Arctic warmth was probably related to interactions among warm air streaming into the Arctic, warm water extending poleward from the far northeast Atlantic, and the record-low extent of Arctic sea ice. Ground Zero for this pattern was the Barents and Kara Seas, north of Scandinavia and western Russia, where sea ice extent was far below average in February. Typically, the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard--which includes the northernmost civilian settlements on Earth--is largely surrounded by ice from early winter into spring. This winter, the edge of the persistent ice has stayed mostly to the north of Svalbard, which has helped an absurd level of mildness to persist over the islands for months. Air temperatures at the Longyearbyen airport (latitude 78°N) have been close to 10°C (18°F) above average over the past three-plus months. This is the single most astounding season-long anomaly we’ve seen for any station anywhere on Earth. (If anyone can beat it, please let us know and we’ll add it here!) Update (March 14): It turns out in the winter of 2013-14, Svalbard was even more amazingly mild: the Dec-Jan-Feb average was -4.73°C, compared to the -5.12°C average from this past winter. According to Deke Arndt (NOAA/NCEI), a handful of high-latitude stations in Alaska, Canada, Kazakhstan, Norway, and Russia have racked up full-winter anomalies during past years in the range of 6°C to 8°C above the 1981-2010 average. At least some of these might be large enough to beat out the 2013-14 and 2015-16 Svalbard anomalies of around 10°C if these other readings were recalculated against the generally cooler 1961-1990 base period used by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
Figure 3. Daily temperatures (in Celsius, °C) for the past year at the Longyearbyen Airport, Svalbard, Norway, located at latitude 78°N. The black line shows the seasonal average; blue and red traces show the day-to-day readings. The darker blue and red line shows the 30-day running average, which was 10.2°C (18.4°F) above normal in February. Thus far in March, the anomaly (not shown here) has been even larger, close to 12°C (22°F). Image credit: Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
February's heat had severe impacts
It has long been agreed upon in international climate negotiations that a 2°C warming of the Earth above modern pre-industrial levels represents a "dangerous" level of warming that the nations of the world should work diligently to avoid. The December 2015 Paris Climate Accord, signed by 195 nations, included language on this, and the Accord recommend that we should keep our planet from warming more than 1.5°C, if possible. Although the science of attributing extreme weather events to a warming climate is still evolving (more on this in an upcoming post), February 2016 gave us a number of extreme weather events that were made more probable by a warmer climate, giving us an excellent example of how a 2°C warming of the climate can potentially lead to dangerous impacts. And, as we have been repeatedly warned might likely be the case, these impacts came primarily in less developed nations--the ones with the least resources available to deal with dangerous climate change. According to the February 2016 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield, three nations suffered extreme weather disasters in February 2016 that cost at least 4% of their GDP--roughly the equivalent of what in the U.S. would be five simultaneous Hurricane Katrinas. According to EM-DAT, the International Disaster Database, these disasters set records for the all-time most expensive weather-related disaster in their nations' history. For comparison, nine nations had their most expensive weather-related natural disasters in history in all of 2015, and only one did so in 2014. Here are the nations that have set records in February 2016 for their most expensive weather-related natural disaster in history:
Vietnam has suffered $6.7 billion in damage from its 2016 drought, which has hit farmers especially hard in the crucial southern Mekong Delta. This cost is approximately 4% of Vietnam's GDP, and beats the $785 million cost (2009 USD) of Typhoon Ketsana of September 28, 2009 for most expensive disaster in their history. In this image, we see a boy holding his brother walking across a drought-hit rice field in Long Phu district, southern delta province of Soc Trang on March 2, 2016. Image credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images.
Zimbabwe has suffered $1.6 billion in damage from its 2016 drought. This is approximately 12% of their GDP, and beats the $200 million cost (2003 USD) of a February 2003 flood for most expensive disaster in their history. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on February 5, 2016 declared a 'state of disaster' in many rural areas hit by a severe drought, with more than a quarter of the population facing food shortages. This photo taken on February 7, 2016 shows the fast-drying catchment area of the Umzingwani dam in Matabeleland, Southwestern Zimbabwe. Image credit: Ziniyange Auntony/AFP/Getty Images.
Fiji suffered $470 million in damage from Category 5 Cyclone Winston's impact in February. This is approximately 10% of their GDP. The previous costliest disaster in Fiji was Tropical Cyclone Kina in January 1993, at $182 million (2016 USD) in damage. In this image, we see how Category 5 winds can completely flatten human-built structures: Fiji's Koro Island received a direct hit from Winston when the storm was at peak strength with 185 mph winds. Image credit: My Fijian Images and Jah Ray.
One other severe impact from February's record heat is the on-going global coral bleaching episode, just the third such event in recorded history (1998 and 2010 were the others.) NOAA's Coral Reef Watch has placed portions of Australia's Great Barrier Reef under their "Alert Level 1", meaning that widespread coral bleaching capable of causing coral death is likely to occur. Widespread but minor bleaching has already been reported on the reef, and the coming month will be critical for determining whether or not the reef will experience its third major mass bleaching event on record.
Figure 4. Annual mean carbon dioxide growth rates for Mauna Loa, Hawaii. In the graph, decadal averages of the growth rate are also plotted, as horizontal lines for 1960 through 1969, 1970 through 1979, and so on. The highest one-year growth in CO2 was in 2015, at 3.05 ppm. The El Niño year of 1998 was a close second. The estimated uncertainty in the Mauna Loa annual mean growth rate is 0.11 ppm/yr. Image credit: NOAA’s Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.
Last year saw Earth’s highest-ever increase in carbon dioxide
Despite efforts to slow down human emissions of carbon dioxide, 2015 saw the biggest yearly jump in global CO2 levels ever measured, said NOAA last week. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii jumped by 3.05 parts per million during 2015, the largest year-to-year increase since measurements began there in 1958. In another first, 2015 was the fourth consecutive year that CO2 concentrations grew more than 2 ppm, said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” Tans said. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.” The last time the Earth experienced such a sustained CO2 increase was between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, when CO2 levels increased by 80 ppm. Today’s rate of increase is 200 times faster, said Tans. In February 2016, the average global atmospheric CO2 level stood at 402.59 ppm. Prior to 1800, atmospheric CO2 averaged about 280 ppm.
The big jump in CO2 in 2015 is partially due to the current El Niño weather pattern, as forests, plant life and other terrestrial systems responded to changes in weather, precipitation and drought. In particular, El Niño-driven drought and massive wildfires in Indonesia were a huge source of CO2 to the atmosphere in 2015. The largest previous global increase in CO2 levels occurred in 1998, which was also a strong El Niño year. However, continued high emissions from human-caused burning of fossil fuels are driving the underlying growth rate. We are now approaching the annual peak in global CO2 levels that occurs during northern spring, after which the value will dip by several ppm. It is quite possible that the annual minimum in late 2016 will for the first time fail to get below 400 ppm, as predicted by Ralph Keeling (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) last October. To track CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa and global CO2 concentrations, visit NOAA’s Greenhouse Gas Reference Network and the Keeling Curve website (Scripps).
For more on Saturday’s bombshell report, check out the coverage from Andrew Freedman (Mashable), Eric Holthaus (Slate), and Tom Yulsman (Scientific American/ImaGeo). We’ll have a follow-up post later this week on NOAA’s global climate report for February and for the Dec-Feb period, along with a roundup of all-time records set in February at major stations around the world. Our next post will be up by Tuesday at the latest.
Jeff Masters and Bob Henson
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451. scotthermansen2
11:08 PM GMT on March 22, 2016450. Longjohn119
2:15 AM GMT on March 17, 2016Where ever did you get the idea that faster growing plants are healthier?
Do you consider a faster growing but full of steroids chickens to be healthier... for us or them?
449. Longjohn119
2:11 AM GMT on March 17, 2016Oh it does exist ..... but the 10% benefit gets wiped out and then some by the 90% that's a disadvantage ,,,,,
Also plants grown in a higher CO2 climate do grow faster but their cellular structure is weaker and the propensity to attacks from insects and diseases goes up drastically
448. cRRKampen
4:01 PM GMT on March 16, 2016That's because this benefit doesn't exist.
447. deanod
6:49 AM GMT on March 16, 2016445. deanod
6:40 AM GMT on March 16, 2016444. MahFL
5:09 PM GMT on March 15, 2016They'll be working for the millionaires....
443. Qazulight
4:47 PM GMT on March 15, 2016I don't know, I had to take the warm blanket off the bed. I am glad it is cooling back down. Not looking forward to summer at all. I think I hear Duluth calling.
442. NativeSun
4:38 PM GMT on March 15, 2016441. alaskawx
4:22 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Here's one (since you asked): Ilirnej, Russia, in the winter of 1949-1950. This is a long-term reporting site in eastern Siberia, part of the Global Climate Observing System network. The chart below shows the daily mean temperatures that winter, compared to the 1981-2010 normal (not the contemporary normal). The Dec-Feb mean temperature was 12.5C above the modern normal.
Here's a reanalysis map of 2m temperature, showing the major warm anomaly in the same area (although the reanalysis didn't quite capture the amplitude).
- Richard James, PhD
- Prescient Weather Ltd
440. oldmickey
4:10 PM GMT on March 15, 2016439. WunderAlertBot (Admin)
4:01 PM GMT on March 15, 2016438. 757surfer
3:49 PM GMT on March 15, 2016437. cRRKampen
3:34 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Well ha, ha. Just ha, ha. Enter Patricia 2.0 ...
436. vis0
3:33 PM GMT on March 15, 2016( In case anyone asks ready for what?, ...waddaya think...simon sez? ...we're (mostly) talking da wedder!
ready...
simon sez get an umbrella
simon sez get half of pedlyCA sandbag
si mon soo get the snow shoes .. gotta ya.
435. cRRKampen
3:30 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Each of them are probably forgetting the fact that we are in the age of the Ape with the Nukes. That +8° C might just crazy some guys at the buttons (thru the rest of the craze the world will be in). The Samson Option is quite real.
434. LuckySD
3:26 PM GMT on March 15, 2016433. Tazmanian
3:10 PM GMT on March 15, 2016432. Xyrus2000
3:02 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Yeah, because coconuts and bananas could grow just fine in the Arctic if it wasn't so damn cold. /sarcasm
431. Bucsboltsfan
2:58 PM GMT on March 15, 2016I read further down and if my eyes are correct he favors neutral. I'm speechless. Anyway, look for a strong El Niño to come back this winter😈😈
430. Loduck
2:56 PM GMT on March 15, 2016429. Bucsboltsfan
2:54 PM GMT on March 15, 2016No chance with that Taz. He's pretty relentless to the end.
428. Xyrus2000
2:50 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Indirectly a rise of that much could spell the end of humanity. At the minimum, it would cause a rather drastic decrease in human population.
Humans have biological limits. A global increase of 8C would render some of the most populated areas in the world uninhabitable. Southern India, for example, would regularly exceed human biological tolerance for heat during the summer. Without air conditioning, millions or more would die from heat.
In fact, a rise of that much would render global tropical regions uninhabitable by humans. Example, the average nighttime temperature in the Bahamas at night in the summer is around is 25C. An increase of 8C puts that at 33C (about 92F), and that's not including the effects of humidity. Unless you have access to electricity and technology, you're not lasting long in those conditions.
And that's just the effects on humans. Agriculture in those regions would be all but destroyed. Coffee, sugar, etc. all have major production areas within these regions, and crops do not have tolerances that would allow them to survive such conditions. Even agricultural regions not in the dead zone would have severe issues, assuming regional climates for those areas were even conducive to the sustainability of arable land.
Now lets add sea level rise on top of that for good measure.
Billions of people forced to migrate. Global economic turmoil. Global famine. Dwindling resources. That's a recipe for wars and societal collapse. We've already seen what kind of lovely toys the war boys have developed over the past 100 years. What kinds of new toys would we see 100 years from now? Nanites? Designed virii and bacteria? Anti-matter weapons? Maybe someone will just strap on some rockets to a near-earth asteroid as the ultimate MAD solution?
An 8C rise wouldn't directly result in our extinction, but it could very well indirectly lead to our extinction.
Instead of dying due to exposure, you can starve to death. :P
At any rate, an 8C rise by next century is extremely unlikely.
427. Llamaluvr
2:43 PM GMT on March 15, 2016426. weathermanwannabe
2:37 PM GMT on March 15, 2016I am worried for the regular people who have lived there for generations..............................
425. barbamz
2:34 PM GMT on March 15, 2016I've provided the link to the whole article in the blue headline, as always.
424. MahFL
2:32 PM GMT on March 15, 2016If they can afford million dollar condo's they won't be worried about a supply of water.
423. MahFL
2:29 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Or good news depending on your point of view. Also at the end of the day remember Mother Nature will do what she wants.
422. RobertWC
2:26 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Isle de Jean Charles has lost 98% of its land and most of its population to rising sea levels – but as remaining residents consider relocation, what happens next is a test case to address resettlement needs
Link
421. RobertWC
2:19 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Unusual warmth in waters off northern Australia also prompted an alert by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority about the risk of widespread coral bleaching.
'True shocker': February spike in global temperatures stuns scientists
420. Tazmanian
2:17 PM GMT on March 15, 2016419. weathermanwannabe
2:16 PM GMT on March 15, 2016418. Cyclone2016
2:11 PM GMT on March 15, 2016417. Wacahootaman
2:11 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Buy water front property on the Arctic Ocean. Use it for a coconut and banana tree plantation. Make a silk purse from a sows ear.
416. tampabaymatt
2:10 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Am I only seeing a portion of the article? The headline of the article asks why development is still occurring along the coasts, but then offers no take on why development is happening.
415. tiggerhurricanes2001
2:04 PM GMT on March 15, 2016414. barbamz
2:03 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Developers don't get it: climate change means we need to retreat from the coast
It is preposterous to build in areas that are bound to flood. So why are real estate companies still doing it?
The Guardian, Monday 14 March 2016 16.12 GMT
...The problem is particularly severe along our 3,000-mile low-lying sandy barrier island coast extending, with a few breaks, all the way from the South Shore of Long Island to the Mexican border. Along this long barrier island coast, Florida has the longest and most heavily developed shoreline.
In Miami, a city perilously perched atop a very porous limestone, two multibillion-dollar construction projects are under way, despite the fact that parts of the city routinely flood during high tides and that widespread flooding by the rising sea in a few decades is a virtual certainty. No sea walls, levees or dikes can stop the rising waters from flowing through the underlying spongy limestone and into the city. Miami is ultimately doomed.
A few miles to the north, Fort Lauderdale is undergoing equally intense development and population growth. This city has more beachfront high-rise buildings per mile than any other American beach. According to Katherine Bagley of Inside Climate news - nearly 5,000 apartments or condos are or soon will be under construction - in the city, which already faces routine nuisance flooding. The city's many canals make Fort Lauderdale all the more vulnerable to rising seas. In light of the wet future in store for the city, increased density is insane.
On the other side of the Florida peninsula along the Gulf of Mexico, a Fort Myers Beach developer proposes to build a massive project to include four beachfront hotels, nine restaurants and a 1,500-car parking structure; all to be protected with a soon-to-be-constructed half-mile-long seawall. If you need to build a seawall to protect your construction project, you should not be building at that site. Remember - seawalls destroy beaches....
Whole article see link above.
Louisiana's vanishing island: the climate 'refugees' resettling for $52m
Isle de Jean Charles has lost 98% of its land and most of its population to rising sea levels - but as remaining residents consider relocation, what happens next is a test case to address resettlement needs
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 March 2016 12.30 GMT
413. weathermanwannabe
2:02 PM GMT on March 15, 2016412. Llamaluvr
2:01 PM GMT on March 15, 2016411. tiggerhurricanes2001
1:59 PM GMT on March 15, 2016😄😄 I hope to go into further study on the Atlantic Tripole, when I go to college, once I finish high school.
410. tiggerhurricanes2001
1:56 PM GMT on March 15, 2016Thanks. Well in general, the SOI is rising.
Thanks. Well i believe on Michael Ventrice Twitter a month or so back, he mentioned something about an el nino self destruct, and Interseasonal Forcing come Mid March.
409. weathermanwannabe
1:56 PM GMT on March 15, 20169:53 AM EDT on March 15, 2016
Great points...............I wish I had more time to study this stuff more and read more scientific papers...........Will have to wait on retirement for that................. :)
408. tiggerhurricanes2001
1:53 PM GMT on March 15, 2016But Weather Wannabe, will we get the Atlantic Tripole. The sandwich combination of warm water, cold, then warm. If the subtropical Atlantic has warmer SST's than the MDR, all of the activity Will be focused there instead of the MDR. I lean things weather related everyday, and i learned this from levi Cowan yesterday. This was the case in 2013. Gulf of Guinea is near average, and the AEW are already robust, considering it's only MARCH.
407. weathermanwannabe
1:48 PM GMT on March 15, 2016http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/shipwreck-l ogs-show-calm-17th-century-atlantic-hurricanes
Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean dropped by 75% during a cool period in the late 1600s, TheWashington Post reports. Researchers already knew that cooler weather means less intense hurricanes, because the storms draw their strength from warm water. To see whether this showed up in the historical record, researchers looked at shipwreck logs from the Caribbean over a period of about 300 years—and found a decrease in shipwrecks in the cooler era known as the “Maunder Minimum,” lasting from 1645 to 1715, they report this week in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The evidence was echoed in the growth rings of pine trees in the Florida Keys; years with fewer shipwrecks also showed less stunted growth caused by the storms. As the climate warms, scientists say the strength of these storms is likely to increase, too—but hopefully, we can at least avoid the shipwrecks!
406. pipelines
1:44 PM GMT on March 15, 2016You're looking at it wrong. Humans are the most adaptable species the world has ever seen, we can survive in most climates. I repeat, we're the most adaptable species, how about all other life forms on earth? We can shrug off an 8C increase, many others can't. Humans have huge egos and we think we are completely self sufficient, but we aren't, we depend on the earth's natural balance to survive. Would this cause humans to go extinct completely? Doubtful, but a huge die off would be inevitable and I think we can all agree that that is still an outcome we should probably try to prevent.
405. CaribBoy
1:43 PM GMT on March 15, 2016404. LargoFl
1:41 PM GMT on March 15, 2016403. ricderr
1:33 PM GMT on March 15, 2016lunch is served......
402. ricderr
1:30 PM GMT on March 15, 2016NOOOOOOO....the daily SOI is not the SOI but a component that makes up the SOI...just because there are those that look for grandiosity by quoting the daily to help their agenda.....still doesn't make it important...in fact...if you've read the update by the Aussie mets issued today...they even tell you to look at the 90 day SOI this time of year due to storm caused fluctuations
Fluctuations of the SOI during Australia's northern wet season (October-April) are not unusual as the passage of tropical systems near Darwin and Tahiti affects atmospheric pressure. During this period, the SOI should be used cautiously; 90-day values can provide more reliable guidance. The current 90-day SOI is −14.8.
401. weathermanwannabe
1:29 PM GMT on March 15, 2016