I think we need to be careful highlighting individual countries. Global trends are more important. Its certainly a reminder however, that the climate is changing.

This might mean an end to “the climate has cooled since 1998″ meme, at least until the end of 2011 when it might be replaced by a “the climate has cooled since 2010″ meme.

It is worth looking at the ENSO index. The 1998 El Nino event was much stronger than 2010, yet the current year is shaping up to be hotter than 1998:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/

And the dim-wits from the deniosphere told us the globe was cooling.

From the NCDC: “The June worldwide averaged land surface temperature was 1.07°C (1.93°F) above the 20th century average of 13.3°C (55.9°F)—the warmest on record. ”

Is it just me or does it seem a bit over the top to be measuring the earths average land surface temp to two decimal places. I find it hard to believe that their error margin, (of which no mention), is not greater than 0.01C.

This is not to say that there isn’t warming going on, just that their accuracy seems a bit too good to be true.*

*I can also say with total honesty that I’m not getting any money for this, from anyone.

1 No, climate change will initially throw-up warming in some areas and cooling in others, measuring average global changes could be misleading.

Moscow is on track for its hottest *Recorded* July in history

“This is not to say that there isn’t warming going on, just that their accuracy seems a bit too good to be true.”

That’s actually a precision quibble, rather than an accuracy quibble.[/pedant]

The answer to your original question however is no – see [url="http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-can-annual-average-temperatures-be.html"]here[/url] for a worked example.

Regards
Luke

Well if you’re being pedantic, let me be pedantic.

History is not synonymous with the past. History is a record of the past. Therefore, what you and sunny have said mean the same thing.

If sunny had said “ever” then you’d be right to correct him. But he didn’t, and you’re not.

Sunny

I thought you were a stickler for the weather/climate distinction.

I’m glad the Russians are enjoying a hot July. It will help make up for this:

‘The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in European part of Russia for more than 30 years, and in Siberia it was perhaps the record breaking coldest ever,’ said Dr Alexander Frolov, head of state meteorological service Rosgidromet.

For this part of Siberia, this represents the coldest conditions in 40 years and the second harshest winter in 110 years.

@6 – Then I stand corrected, thankyou for the lesson. Do you have meterologist Jeff Masters contact details? As it seems he has made the same mistake as me.

4 – No, because head moves around the earth according to various cycles anyway. What’s important is the global net temperature difference, over time. Headlines like ‘coldest winter in britain for last 50 years’ and ‘hottest year ever for 9 countries’ are all relatively unimportant for the global warming debate.

They do a good enough job at showing how climates are tending more towards extremes, though.

I’m glad the Russians are enjoying a hot July. It will help make up for this:

I don’t think you get this too well do you flowerpower?

The point about climate change is not that everyone sees hot weather all the time – but we all see extreme weather conditions – hot AND cold.

The recorded temperatures point to the fact that despite cold weather, the earth is warming up, fast.

Does Exxon pay you as well to spout this crap whole day long?

Nope, not got Jeff Masters e-mail.

Its an important distinction in my book. We can’t know the past because there’s no way to observe it. We can know history because there are records which we can examine. I think its a useful distinction to make, but when using short hand I don’t think its too important.

Sunny :

“Yesterday the Times reported that ExxonMobil gave $1.5 million to climate deniers”

I’d love to meet someone who denies climate, I really would.

I don’t think you get this too well do you … the point about climate change is not that everyone sees hot weather all the time – but we all see extreme weather conditions – hot AND cold.

So if a new Ice Age began would that prove your thesis, or do you have to have heat as well ?

Funny that chap talking about Russian winter :

Mongolia: How the winter of ‘white death’ devastated nomads’ way of life

He prepared fodder for the coming winter and built up their shelter. Others slaughtered the weakest animals to ensure more food for the strongest.

Pregnant animals miscarried and weakened ones are still succumbing to illness. Only the ravens are fat here, gorged on carrion. For many households, their only recent income has been UN payments for burying carcasses.

Don’t worry, lads, Sunny says it’ll be boiling this summer !

“The point about climate change is not that everyone sees hot weather all the time – but we all see extreme weather conditions – hot AND cold.”

Leaving aside the fact that “extreme” weather is documented throughout history, I don’t think even the most fervant warmist would try and claim that cold weather in Siberia counts as extreme. And I seem to recall that the winter of 2009/10 was, in Europe and N America, the coldest for 20 years. I agree that in itself that proves nothing because (ahem) the timescale is too short to be of any significance, but by the same token, you can’t have it both ways, if an exceptionally hot 2010 (which is barely half over) is evidence of warming, then an exceptionally cold 2009 must be evidence against warming. Otherwise you using date inconsistently to suit a political argument.

@ 12 “So if a new Ice Age began would that prove your thesis, or do you have to have heat as well ?”

That’s the thing about climate change – if its hotter/colder/wetter/drier/windier/stiller than “normal”, it all still points to warming. Anyone who disagrees obviously doesn’t the read the Guardian often enough.

Matt @ 13

you can’t have it both ways, if an exceptionally hot 2010 (which is barely half over) is evidence of warming, then an exceptionally cold 2009 must be evidence against warming. Otherwise you using date inconsistently to suit a political argument.

The scientific explanations for this are quite well documented. Make the attempt to at least read what the science actually says, before questioning the science.

It’s a hallowed Russian tradition. Russians don’t have the same prissy addiction to prlonging their lives that we have. They drink a lot. Then they jump in the river and drown in summer. In winter they freeze to death. The first time I went to Russia in summertime was in 1975 in Krasnodar, and it was +38C. A couple of days after I got there a bloke died swimming while pissed. In fact they sealed him in a zinc coffin using oxyacetylene equipment out in the open, while his friends watched and sent him back to Georgia. People shrugged their shoulders – that’s life.
Meanwhile in Argentina and neighbouring countries:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/07/19/argentina.cold.snap/index.html#fbid=fJszqr-3_hl

“Temperatures dipped below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in 10 of the country’s provinces Sunday[18th July], according to Telam.

The news agency reported that at least eight people have died during the cold snap in the past several days. It has also caused flight cancellations and delays at the Buenos Aires airport.

Half the country is covered in snow and the capital recorded its lowest temperatures in a decade on Friday, Telam reported”.

But the great catastrophe which is occurring is not global warming, but the mass destruction of species due to the effects of humans – see this (by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, by the way):

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/what-the-earth-knows/#more-7077

“A considerable amount of evidence shows that humans are causing what biologists call the “sixth mass extinction,” an allusion to the five previous cases in the fossil record where huge numbers of species died out mysteriously in a flash of geologic time. . . . Extinctions, unlike carbon dioxide excesses, are permanent. The earth didn’t replace the dinosaurs after they died, notwithstanding the improved weather conditions and 20,000 ages of Moses to make repairs. It just moved on and became something different than it had been before.

However, carbon dioxide, per se, is not responsible for most of this extinction stress. . . . The real problem is human population pressure generally — overharvesting, habitat destruction, pesticide abuse, species invasion, and so forth. Slowing man-made extinctions in a meaningful way would require drastically reducing the world’s human population. But that is unlikely”.

Man-made global warming/human-induced mass extinctin of other species. To any intelligent life form, the obvious first emergency step to take would be to minimise the increase in the population of homo sapiens. We can’t even grasp that.

but by the same token, you can’t have it both ways, if an exceptionally hot 2010 (which is barely half over) is evidence of warming, then an exceptionally cold 2009 must be evidence against warming.

Weather and climate are two different things.

When a report says: “This was the 304th consecutive month with a combined global land and surface temperature above the 20th century average.” – they’re not counting what you’re referring to.

if an exceptionally hot 2010 (which is barely half over) is evidence of warming, then an exceptionally cold 2009 must be evidence against warming. Otherwise you using date inconsistently to suit a political argument.

This winter which was in some parts of the world unusually cold by recent standards (in parts of Canada by contrast it was far warmer than usual), but nothing which we haven’t seen before withing living memory. The fact that winters like this which used to be commonplace are now rare says someting in itself. Overall 2009 wan’t “exceptionally cold”, it was one of the warmest years on record.
And the temperatures anomalies referred to in the OP are both global and outside of anything since records began, and almost certainly much longer – a bit diferent from a localised and relatively unusual but not unexceptional event like our cold winter.

“Weather and climate are two different things”.

Indeed, one is long term and variable and one is short term and variable, it is a difference of scale *that’s all*. What it does mean is that the OP is misleading/a straw man as, by your own argument, “the weather” in 2010 will not be evidence of anything.

“When a report says: “This was the 304th consecutive month with a combined global land and surface temperature above the 20th century average.” – they’re not counting what you’re referring to.”

Indeed, what they are counting is in fact a 0.0804% variation from “average” (a meaningless term which can refer to 3 different numbers, calculated in 3 completely different ways, ask a mathematician if you don’t beleive me) and which in any event is insignificant in terms of a system as large, complex and dynamic as global climate. If a doctor took your temperature and told you it was 0.0804 % above average for the 304th consecutive month, what would you do, if anything ?
The moving average (which reveals *significant* trends) would be a more appropriate measure, and is the standard for time series, but is mysteriously never quoted publicly by warmist scientists.

Matt,

You are absolutely correct that showing the moving average is a much better way of seeing the underlying trend. To claim that “warmist scientists” never mention this is bizarre.

Here is one of the most well known graphs of gobal temperature, the one from GISS – the line in red is the 5 year moving average. This paper contains a chart showing global temperatures from 3 major sources with an 11 year moving average.

In both of these cases showing the moving average makes clear the strong warming trend.

Warm June too…

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/07/yes-it-is-warm.html

Of course its all a conspiracy…

In the UK during 2010 the months of January, February, March and May have been cooler than the 1971-2000 average while the months of April and June have been warmer.

I am confident, however, that by the end of the year they will be telling us it was one of the ‘warmest years on record’. They always do.