> From the WeatherWatch archives
Global temperatures in February smashed previous monthly records by an unprecedented amount, according to Nasa data, sparking warnings of a climate emergency.
The result was “a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases”, wrote Jeff Masters and Bob Henson in a blog on the Weather Underground, which analysed the data released on Saturday.
February Smashes Earth’s All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin https://t.co/6B937T0Uk9 pic.twitter.com/uZqvum4aVA
— Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf) March 13, 2016
It confirms preliminary analysis from earlier in March, indicating the record-breaking temperatures.
The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period of 1951-1980.
The global record was set just one month earlier, with January already beating the average for that month by 1.15C above the average for the baseline period.
February breaks global temperature records by ‘shocking’ amount https://t.co/NtzBhhWCJQ
— My Green Investment (@kategilmartin) March 14, 2016
Although the temperatures have been spurred on by a very large El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, the temperature smashed records set during the last large El Niño from 1998, which was at least as strong as the current one.
The month did not break the record for hottest month, since that is only likely to happen during a northern hemisphere summer, when most of the world’s land mass heats up.
“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” Stefan Rahmstorf, from Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and a visiting professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales, told Fairfax Media.
“This is really quite stunning … it’s completely unprecedented,” he said.
– AFP/The Guardian
Comments
Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 14 Mar 2016.
Latest Video
High pressure moves closer, but wind & showers don’t completely ease for all (+3 Maps)
A south-west to westerly flow covers most of NZ this weekend as high pressure over the Tasman Sea inches a…
Related Articles
High pressure moves closer, but wind & showers don’t completely ease for all (+3 Maps)
A south-west to westerly flow covers most of NZ this weekend as high pressure over the Tasman Sea inches a…
VIDEO: NZ’s 7 Day Rainfall + 3 big northern hemisphere storms
We track the regions most (and least) likely to receive rain over the next week while major storms hit the…
VIDEO: Cold change Saturday, frost risk Sunday, warm again Monday
A low from the Tasman Sea moves in to the South Island and western North Island tonight and into Friday…
Add new comment
John on 16/03/2016 1:29am
From data that’s highly corrupted they get – “This is really quite stunning … it’s completely unprecedented”.
UAH shows 0.18 of a degree warmer than the 1998 El Nino. It’s more like pathetic alarmist drivel than unprecedented anything.
Meanwhile in the real world… Since November 2015, large parts of Mongolia have been experiencing very low temperatures, followed by heavy snowfall that has covered around 90 percent of the countries territory. “Herders and livestock were used to warmer winters … so now with colder winters, it makes it hard to cope with the temperature,” Tsedensednom, governor of Ulziit district, located more than 600 kilometers southwest of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, told Devex.
Dry weather has scorched most of Mongolia’s wheat crop and now mass animal deaths due to a freezing winter, locally known as “dzud”, are threatening more pain for the country, where farming accounts for about 13 percent of the economy. The last dzud in 2009-2010 killed 9.7 million of the country’s livestock, according to the National Emergency Agency of Mongolia.
While the government has not yet declared the current winter a natural disaster, it has warned the situation could get worse. So far, a drop in temperatures to minus 55 Celsius has killed nearly 200,000 livestock. In the winter of 1944 livestock- breeders lost almost 7.5m head of livestock.
Reply
Rod on 15/03/2016 1:42am
Rather biased report for a weather site? No mention of the large El Nino that is in its warmst phase (most warmth happens after peak of El Nino, which is now)?
No mention of likely cooling La Nina to follow?
No balancing of “Completely Unprecedented” by saying temperatures were just the same in the thirties and that satellites show zero warming for the last 18 years? The graph above has been heavily adjusted many times. If you revert to the raw data before heavy adjustments (that always reduced temperatures in the past, never raising them – statistically equivalent to winning 3 powerballs in a row) you see graphs similar to satellite and weather balloon recordsets – a very different and more accurate picture.
Reply
Guest on 14/03/2016 9:53pm
Yawn!!!
Climate emergency my backside, 1. whatever above average has me not trembling.
More fearmonering by those who are most likely funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, a main financier of the “Global Warming” agenda.
Was quite warm over February in NZ but it was Summer and usually the warmest month of the year.
Now we are into March there has been a definate feel of Autumn in the air and our first nice Southerly is due in Wellington this afternoon.
I guess that’s Autumn eh!
Reply
King_Beard on 15/03/2016 2:57am
Conspiracy theory. Get in the naughty corner with the chemtrail nuts.
Reply