Cold, but world keeps warm
Feds: Worldwide, warmest October on record, and warmest first 10 months.
If you've been tracking the state of the world's climate, you have every right to be confused.
Not a storm or an extreme event goes by without someone indicting it as evidence that the planet is – or is not –baking in a giant rotisserie.
Here we'll stick with the available clinical evidence.
The National Climatic Data Center reports that October worldwide was the warmest on records dating to 1880, and the average temperature for the first 10 months of the year were higher than any other similar period.
Those facts certainly are significant, and this might well become the warmest year on record, but in all likelihood it will be a close call. None of that should be surprising.
Warming continues to creep at its petty pace, and keep in mind that so far it has been happening slowly. Year-to-year temperatures changes have been slight.
What's more, the results are not linear. Arctic warming has outpaced the worldwide average, and that's a big deal.
As for the numbers, the first 10 months of the year have come in at 1.22 degrees above the 20th Century average, beating 1998 by 0.036.
That's impressive, given that 1998 was the year of a record warming in the tropical Pacific, and temperatures out that way this year have been only slight above normal. However, the margin of error here is 0.2 degrees.
As for October, last month's temperature was 1.33 degrees above the 20th Century average for the month, according to NCDC.
That was mere 0.018 better than October 2003, and the margin NCDC margin of error is plus or minus 0.13.
How these subtle changes affect day-to-do weather will continue to be the subject of serious research, debate, and click-driven claims. Do not expect any immediate cessation of winter or summer.
We will remind our readers that the atmosphere is a non-linear chaotic system, a sloshing 10-mile-deep fluid attached to a sphere of irregular terrain that is spinning 1,000 m.p.h. on its axis and racing about 5,000 m.p.h. around its heating source on an elliptical plane.
Enjoy the ride.