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April was 5th warmest ever recorded — a sign of global warming?
May 19th, 2009, 1:07 pm · 12 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
The month of April was the fifth warmest in the history of weather record-keeping, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says in a report containing a raft of new temperature measurements.
In “Climate of 2009: April in Historical Perspective,” from the agency’s National Climatic Data Center, scientists say the average combined ocean and land-surface temperature was 57.76 degrees Fahrenheit — 1.06 degrees above the average April temperature of 56.7 degrees for the 20th century.
“The unusualness of that is about like a major-league baseball player hitting the 5th most homeruns in any season on record in major league baseball,” said climate monitoring branch chief Deke Arndt.
The most significant warming was in northern and northeastern Asia, Europe, and the earth’s southern oceans, the report says.
Whether the warmer temperatures are signs of global warming is a trickier question.
While the temperatures are “not inconsistent” with climate models that project planetary warming, short timescales such as a month, a year or even several years are not enough to draw conclusions about climate trends, Arndt said.
“What our group does is take a snapshot of the globe every month,” he said. “Month to month, if you look at the Earth’s climate, it doesn’t lend itself well to sweeping statements about climate.”
And the temperature spread across short timescales, or smaller areas of the planet, can show plenty of ups and downs.
While warming occurred in the northern parts of Asia and Europe, North America and western Asia were cooler than normal in the time studied, he said.
The January-through-April period of 2009, with a combined ocean and land-surface average of 55.8 degrees, tied with 2003 as the sixth warmest on record; worldwide record-keeping began in 1880.
Global land surface temperatures alone for April averaged 48.3, 1.8 degrees above the 20th century average of 46.5 degrees.
April 2009 also was the 33rd consecutive April with global average land and surface temperatures above the 20th century average.
Other measurements focused on polar ice. Arctic sea ice cover of 5.6 million square miles was the 10th lowest in April since satellite measurements began in 1979 — 2.8 percent below the 1979-2000 average. On the other hand, April sea ice in the southern hemisphere covered 3.2 million square miles, 13.5 percent above the 1979-2000 average.
The report also includes a map of extreme weather events (below).
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No. It’s not a sign of global warming. Last year it was snowing in some parts of Oregon well into April. There was some of the worst ice storms in years across the country for the last couple years.
That doesn’t mean anything though. “Global Warming” doesn’t refer to only a rise in temperature but the myriad effects it would have on our climate.
Yeah, I realize that, and that’s why I made my comment. Having Snow in April is no more a sign of global climate change than one day of record heat. People also need to stop calling it “Global Warming”. It’s Global Climate Change and it’s natural. Ask the Polar Bears what they went through 10,000 years ago during one of our other periods of climate change.
There were times when the surface of the earth was twice as hot as it is now, and there were periods when the earth was one big snow ball. It’s natural and has been happening since before Henry Ford was born.
Global warming, we’re all going to die!!!
Sign of global warming? Maybe (Those in Minneapolis this year probably would say no).
Sign that humans have caused global warming? No. Pure Algore religion causing that. The earth has had warming and cooling trends over the 1,000s of years. Its natural. Perhaps we are in a warming trend. So what. We need to be much more responsible earth citizens but we aren’t causing global warming. Sorry Al.
I like the way the blog calls it global warming (natural) vs. man made global warming or anthropogenic global warming [AGW] which is closer to political science.
You need to be careful of the data sets. Constant adjustments makes for bad results. NOAA has gone political.
I think the whole debate over global warming is a waste. Clearly, the climate has and is constantly changing. Whether humans are responsible for the most recent changes is debatable.
Meanwhile, we continue to pollute our air and water and devastate ecosystems locally and around the world. Can’t people on both sides agree that we should be working to protect natural resources, as well as plant, animal, and marine life? It’s in our best interest and it shows that we are taking responsibility for our actions.
The very basis of this ongoing argument implies that some people are against protecting the environment? Do these people actually exist? Who is not in favor of protecting what we have today so that we can continue to enjoy it in the future and so that our civilization can also continue?
This is frustrating! This is the same website that predicted a heat wave over the past weekend, WHERE WAS IT? Global Warming, NOT, all it is is propaganda! Fear tactics!
Guess what, I can show you the cover of a Time Magazine from the 70′s. Record floods, Ice storms in August, record heat in London, etc. The main article was all about Global Cooling and how we were doomed for another Ice age.
Get out of here with this BS. Our planet goes through cycles that mainly revolve around the same cycles our Sun tends to follow. Weather in one local area of the globe does not even get close to explaining the full picture.
…don’t tell Mark Landsbaum about this story.
headline sign of retard science hack.
Well this is interesting! Looks like if we were to take a pole today most of the people if not all would say NO were not adding to the global warming cycle. That’s a good thing. Now if we can only get the dumb asses in Washington to realize this as well. O yeah if we don’t have global warming we can’t add new taxes to the hard working people of this country.
Some day well finally be out of the ice age and then nature will do another twist to this planet.