An informative interview (2015 hottest year on record) with,……..
Gavin Schmidt - Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Lisa Goddard - Director of Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Deke Arndt - Climate Monitoring Branch chief at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information
Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post White House bureau
on the The Diane Rehm Show can be heard here.
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A little more on El Nino and what 2016 (17 & 18) might look like,………
Global surface temperature in 2015 was +0.87°C (~1.6°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period in the GISTEMP analysis, making 2015 the warmest year in the period of instrumental data. The 2015 temperature was boosted by a strong El Niño, nearly of the same strength as the 1998 “El Niño of the century”. The updated global temperature record makes it clear that there was no global warming “hiatus”. Global temperature in 2015 was +1.13 (~2.03°F) relative to the 1880-1920 mean. Accounting for interannual variability, it is fair to say that global warming has now reached ~1°C, almost ~2°F.
All land area with substantial habitation was warmer than the 1951-1980 climatology in 2015. The final three months of 2015 each exceeded the prior monthly global temperature record by a wide margin. The late-2015 record warmth was spurred by a strong El Niño (Fig. 3). Global temperature anomaly, averaged over many El Niños, is strongly correlated with Niño3.4 temperature anomaly, with global temperature lagging Niño 3.4 anomaly by ~3 months. Thus we can anticipate that 2016 will again be very warm on global average, as temperature in the first half of the year will be boosted by the fading El Niño and Earth’s continuing average energy imbalance of 0.5-1 W/m2 also creates a tendency toward warming. Thus we can say with confidence that both 60-month (5-year) and 128-month (11-year) running means will continue to rise noticeably in 2016.
We can also say with confidence, because of Earth’s energy imbalance (energy absorbed from sunlight exceeding heat radiated to space), that the present decade will be warmer than last decade. Already the first half of the present decade is almost 0.1°C warmer than last decade. Strong La Niñas commonly follow strong El Niños, so it is likely that 2017 and perhaps 2018 will be quite cool relative to 2015-2016, but the decade as a whole should be considerably warmer than the prior decade.
Fig. 3. Temperature anomalies in Niño 3.4 region 3 for three strongest El Niños in past 100 years and corresponding global temperature anomalies. Data source: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/in...th.81-10.ascii
Each of the three big El Niños since 70's has been progressively warmer.
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From NASA’s vital signs