Place your bets: Make your call on 2010 global average temperature

The purpose of this thread is to solicit your bets, now, on whether or not the 2010 global average temperature will or will not be the warmest in the modern (instrumental) record.

What I am looking for (see details below) is a simple yes or no statement: Yes, I expect it will break the record, or no, I do not.

Rational people don't pay attention to a single year of data, in the context of global warming. I've said that repeatedly in threads here.

So, why am I opening this thread, on this topic, now?

PART I: THE RATIONALE


1) I think that a new record would have a profound effect on public opinion, entirely out-of-proportion to its actual scientific (or even statistical) significance. As I read the other day, "We are truly in a race between the melting of the permafrost and the awakening of the public." The fact that 2009 was the 2nd warmest year on record (per NASA GISS) was essentially un-reported in the media. But if the temperature breaks a record, that, I think, should be hard to ignore. We Americans are hard-wired to pay attention to #1.

2) I'd like to see a simple "put up or shut up" from the skeptics here. Enough said. Keep it simple, please. Yes, no, or if you don't want to play, then here's a thank you in advance for not messing up my sandbox. However, if you don't have the courage to give a simple yes or no, you lose the moral high ground for dumping on me if I'm wrong.

3) Some very smart people have suggested a reasonable chance of a new record. Both NASA GISS (in their 2008 summary) and the British Meterological Office have suggested a good chance of setting a new record in the next year or two. Obviously, given year-to-year variation, all you can do is offer odds, but both sets of experts suggest a reasonable likelihood of a new record.

PART II: RELEVANT FACTORS TO CONSIDER

There are a handful of factors that you might consider before placing your bet.

Global mean temperature is affected by at least the following factors:

• The slow buildup of greenhouse gases.
• Variation in man-made and natural particulates and aerosols.
• Changes in solar irradiance.
• Short-term fluctuations in sea-surface temperature (or ocean heat storage), mainly, El Nino/La Nina.
• Similar "natural cycles" of longer duration, such as long-term oscillations in sea-surface temperature in the Atlantic and Pacific.
• Major volcanoes and other one-time events.
• Unknown and unanticipated factors (such as the recently published study of stratospheric water vapor variation).

Probably the list is not complete, but those are some well-proven ones, and certainly enough to think about.

Of these, only two are somewhat predictable and vary over the short term: Solar irradiance and El Nino/La Nina.

Solar irradiance is just coming out of a low, as shown here, from NASA, via the University of Colorado:

TSI Data











To keep this in perspective, you can see that the average value from peak (2004 or so) to trough (2008-9) was less than, say, half a watt per square meter. By comparison, the impact of all manmade GHG changes since the start of the industrial revolution is pegged somewhere around 3 watts/square meter, as you can see here if you wish:

Data @ NASA GISS: Forcings in GISS Climate Model


In addition, it takes some time for those variations to work their way through the system, so it's not clear how quickly the pickup in solar irradiance will be felt in terms of global temperatures.

In contrast to the sun, El Nino/La Nina is *not* a net energy input to the earth. It's just a description of whether or not warm water is building up on the surface of the southern Pacific, or not. The interesting thing is about it is that conditions tend to move slowly, so they are somewhat predictable over periods of a few months.

NOAA is the source of record in the US for information the current state of El Nino, because that tends to have a reasonably strong and predictable impact on US weather.

NOAA/PMEL/TAO El Nino: Forecasts

They publish a weekly update with an ensemble of predictions about the current El Nino. Right now, we've moved to an El Nino phase that is expected to weaken and last through the spring. It was not an exceptionally warm El Nino by historical standards. Here's the projections as of the time of this posting:



Basically, sea surface temperatures in the portion of the Pacific monitored for El Nino are about 2 degrees C above "normal", but that is expected to dissipate by this summer or so.

What do temperatures look like now? Both the satellite and ground-based data show January 2010 was a warm month, globally -- unsurprising given that we appear to be at the peak of an El Nino event.

Here's the UAH satellite data as of January 2010:

Latest Global Temperatures Roy Spencer, Ph. D.





For what it's worth, a) there are alternative reconstructions of temperature from the satellites, and b ) the satellite data tend to be highly variable from month to month (as January 2010 clearly illustrates).

For the land-based estimates, there are also several data sources. For starters, I'm going to point to the data for NASA GISS, though different series are available from NOAA, the British Meterological Office, and the Japanese Meterological Office, each using different methods.

NASA GISS also shows that January 2010 was a warm month (sorry for the lack of graphs here):
The web page with descriptions:
Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP)
The data itself:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt


The numbers:
All time record annual anomaly (Jan to Dec): 2005, 0.62 degrees C above the 1950-1981 average.
January 2010: 0.71 degrees C above the January 1950-2010 average.

Don't make much of the monthly data, or of the rough agreement between the ground-based and satellite data. Both of those will change substantially from month to month.

THE CHALLENGE

I'm going to use the NASA GISS land-sea index as the data source of record for this. It's the one I'm most familiar with, and it is a series of record.

To summarize:
January 2010 was a warm month. But there is a lot of month-to-month variation. Solar irradiance appears to be slowly increasing slightly. We appear to be at or near the peak of the current El Nino, based on the ensemble of models presented above. And, stuff happens -- one year's temperature will vary for essentially random reasons.

So, do you think 2010 will break the record? That's based on the NASA GISS combined land-sea index as cited above? Yes or no, and if you want to offer a reason, please do, I'd like to hear it. I'll refresh this thread from time to time, and in January 2011, God willing, we'll see how the predictions fared.

Oh, my bet: It's a horse race. Objectively, we're at the peak of the El Nino and we're only marginally over the all-2005 average (the warmest year in the instrumental record). But yes, I'll bet that it breaks the record.

Finally, as we say in the US, tie goes to the runner. If it ties the record, that counts as breaking it.

 

I never even thought to do that (head slap). Yes, let me see if I can restructure this.

Done, it's now a poll. Who knew that was so easy. Thanks for the suggestion.

That said, I'd also like to have individuals put themselves on record, here, yes or no. Fully realizing that nothing here is permanent. But wanting some ... accountability, I guess, beyond just the anonymous answer to the poll.

 

Yes or no, first, please, then you can kibbitz. Is 2010 going to break the record or not?

 

Yes, a single year is essentially meaningless. It's weather. But it is what will get attention.

Absolutely, the popular press will mis-report it, no doubt. But that's independent of this poll -- going to happen anyway.

And yes, you can't make a single year comparison to the reconstructed record. I think the finest resolution claimed even for reconstruction of fairly recent periods is on the order of a decade or decades.

So you're right in terms of the reality of the situation.

That said, for the reasons stated originally, I'd still like to do this.

As a matter of observation, I'm struck by the fact that the smartest organizations in this area (NASA GISS, British Hadley) have both stuck their necks out to say, eh, there's a decent chance of breaking the record soon. Not hugely different from 50/50 as I read their comments, but obviously that nuance is going to be lost on most readers. Given that there's an entire, devoted body of people who stand ready to harass them for any reason whatsoever, why go out on a limb for what ought to be a relatively rare (and certainly largely unpredictable) event?

Your points are well-taken. I'm going to do this anyway. Would you care to offer an opinion despite your reservations?

 

What I have learned so far:

Three people who expect the record to be broken have said so publicly, with one additional "likely".

None of the folks who are so absolutely sure that the globe is cooling will say on the record that they guess 2010 won't break a record.

None of the folks who are absolutely sure that Hadley/NASA/NOAA rig/bias the data will say on the record that they think 2010 will break the record.

I find the contrast between the incredibly strong rhetoric of the postings here and the unwillingness publicly to hazard a guess on a simple yes/no question to be interesting and informative.

We've had one cogent and well-reasoned explanation of why this exercise is unhelpful from the standpoint of understanding the actual reality of climate. Which I agree with, but I think this is more about understanding individuals' understanding of climate.

Finally, in general, there's little interest. As of this writing, there's six votes split 50/50. All of you who voted, thanks. We'll see if interest in this changes as the year progresses.

 

All right. I disagree with your analysis, but I admire the fact that you're willing to go on record, and that you have a straightforward logical reason for believing what you believe.

I'm not even going to get in your face by posting a graph here, but if you want to look, here's a press release about research on that exact issue: If the scientists predicting global warming are right, what should we be seeing right now and down the road, in terms of all-time-lows in the US? The answer's reasonable (fewer lows, more highs) but it's not as clear-cut as you might think.

Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S. | UCAR