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Post by Bishopdale Weather on Feb 5, 2016 18:35:15 GMT 12
From the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and courtesy of the current El Niño here’s something climate advocates will probably like, even though they wrongly say the satellite record is no good. Notes on data released Feb. 4, 2016: As widely anticipated, global temperatures in January set a record for the month, eclipsing January 1998 as the warmest January in the satellite temperature dataset, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. In a sense, that could mean 2016 is in a “race” to see if it will pass 1998 as the warmest year on record. In addition to a major El Niño Pacific Ocean warming event, 2016 has 17 years of warming to raise the base temperature from which the El Niño begins. While the global temperature in January was a record setter, in the tropics January 2016 fell significantly (more than 0.25 C) short of the 1998 record. It could mean less energy is available to be transferred from the ocean into the atmosphere. It could mean the heat transfer might peak later this year than in previous El Niño years or might already be near its peak. What we know is that under the best of circumstances the climate system is complex and difficult to forecast. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months. wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/04/warmest-january-in-satellite-record-leads-off-2016/
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