2014 Boils Toward Warmest Year Ever with Three More Records Broken

[kelroy55]

This is pretty interesting.

Even if it's freezing in your personal universe, Earth as a whole just broke three "warmest" records and is likely to see 2014 go down as the warmest since record keeping began in 1880, scientists reported Thursday.

Driven by record warm oceans, combined sea and land temperatures in October were the warmest on record, according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. On top of that, January-October was the warmest first 10 calendar months, while November 2013 to October 2014 was the warmest 12-month block.

Data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed where the records fell, in large part due to record warm oceans:

Warmest October: The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces was the highest on record for an October at 58.4 degrees F, or 1.3 degrees above the 20th century average and topping the previous record (2003) by 0.02 degrees.

Warmest first 10 calendar months: The surface temperature for January-October was 58.6 degrees, 1.22 degrees above average and topping the previous record set (1998 and 2010) by 0.04 degrees. Ocean temperatures by themselves were 1.03 degrees above average, the highest on record for this period, beating the previous record (1998) by 0.05 degrees.

Warmest 12-month block: The period of November 2013-October 2014 averaged 58.2 degrees, 1.2 degrees above the norm, breaking a record set just a month ago for warmest 12-month period.

2014 Boils Toward Warmest Year Ever with Three More Records Broken - NBC News

[jn1780]

It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring. We did break records, but temperatures have been hovering in the same range for 10 years now. China and India are the biggest polluters in the world and were not likely to curb CO2 unless their on board.

Climate at a Glance | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

As of right now, I wouldn't say temperature graphs are showing "Hockey stick" growth though. Maybe this will be the year where it starts growing exponentially again, who knows.

[bchris02]