While Earth was a tad cooler last year than the last couple of years, it still was the fourth warmest on record, a new analysis shows.
With the partial U.S. government shutdown, federal agency calculations for last year’s temperatures are delayed. But independent scientists at Berkeley Earth calculate that last year’s average temperature was 58.93 degrees (14.96 degrees Celsius).
That’s 1.39 degrees (0.77 degrees Celsius) warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980 and about 2.09 degrees (1.16 degrees Celsius) warmer than pre-industrial times.
It’s likely other temperature measuring groups will agree on 2018′s ranking since they had it at fourth hottest through November, said Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has already calculated it at fourth. Record-keeping started in 1850.
Only 2016, 2017 and 2015 were warmer than last year, with only small differences among them. That was mostly because of natural yearly weather variations like El Nino and La Nina, Hausfather said. He said it would be foolish to call last year’s slight dip a cooling trend.
“The long term is stunningly clear,” he said.
Pennsylvania State University climate scientist, who wasn’t part of the Berkeley Earth team, said the fact that nearly every year recently is in the top five or top 10 hottest years is “clear evidence of human-caused warming on this planet.”
Last year, 29 countries, including much of Central Europe, and Antarctica had record hot years, Hausfather said.
(AP)
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3 Responses
There are strong indications based on what crops grew where, that it was warmer during the Middle Ages and in ancient times (in terms of our history, in the period of the Rishonim, and the period of Bayis Sheini). It is also interesting, that the “warm” periods were generally better for most civilizations, whereas the cooler periods (e.g. the “Dark ages” nad the “early modern period” were periods of frequent famines and much disruption),
The temptures from 250 years ago we’re 2 degrees cooler, and from 1,000 years ago, 5 degrees cooler! 5,000 years ago the very accurate digital barometers showed that the average temperature was 10 degrees cooler!
Oh wait! The records started being kept only in the 1850’s, only 169 years ago?! Oh, I thought the record was from the world’s history…oh well, 169 years is almost as many years as the world is old. And let’s not forget, I’m sure 169 years ago, the crude barometric instruments were as accurate as todays’ computer models….
Not only that, but historical temperature records have been falsified to make them colder than they were, so that current temperatures can appear hotter.