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Posted on March 13, 2008

2007 global temperature second hottest

since 1880
by Brian Angliss

On January 16, 2008, Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space
Sciences (GISS) released the summation of temperature data for 2007 with
apparently very little fanfare. Given the data collected by Dr. Hansen, the lack of
fanfare itself might well be notable. But regardless, the data itself bears more public
attention that it’s had.
2007 is now tied with 1998 as the second hottest year for global temperature in a
century.
According to the the GISS 2007 summation press release online, all eight of the
hottest years for global temperature have been since 1998, and 14 of the hottest
years have been since 1990. The global temperature map (shown in image above -
larger version available), the Arctic and Siberia had the greatest temperature
increase, between 3 and 4 degrees Celsius. This heating was responsible for, or a
direct result of, the smallest Arctic ice cap since records have been kept.
If you look closely at the eastern Pacific ocean in that map, though, you’ll notice a
horizontal strip of blue right about the equator, indicating a strip of cooling. The 1998
temperature spike was caused by one of the hotter and bigger El Niños recorded -
2007 was as hot even though the Pacific Ocean had a La Niña cooling event instead.
Not only that, but in 1998, total solar output was on its way up toward its solar
maximum (a result of the solar sunspot cycle) instead of being pretty much at
minimum solar irradiance (for this solar cycle) in 2007.
In other words, we had the second hottest year in the last century even though the
sun’s output was low and the Pacific had a cooling La Niña event. Any bets what will
happen in the next 5 years or so as the solar irradiance goes up, we have our next El
Niño, and while greenhouse gas concentrations continue increasing?
Global heating skeptics said last year that the earth had already started cooling down
- the data doesn’t support this conclusion. Skeptics have also said this year that the
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unusually cool January put the lie into global heating - given that 2007 was so hot
even though there were cooling events, the data suggests that a cooler 2008 is
entirely reasonable and even expected. And it’s not like a single year, or even two or
5 years of below average temperatures negate the fact that, as the image above
shows, there has been a 30-year heating trend globally.