Global Average Temperatures 1880-2015

Global average temperatures, departure from average. 1880-2015. Source: NOAA.

11,300 global average temperatures

An 11,300 year global average temperature reconstruction using proxies from 73 worldwide sites, from Marcott et al., Science, 2013:

Combined land/sea surface temperatures since the late 1800s

Land and sea surface temperatures since the late 1800s. Data, from 1880 on, is broken down into high, low, and southern latitudes:

Source: NASA GISS data set

Global Average Temperatures since 1880

Global average temperatures over a 131 year period from four different sources:

The year 2010 is essentially tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record, both warmer than 1998. This was the 34th consecutive year of above average temperatures. The last time the globe was below average was 1976.

Sunspots and global temperatures

The presence or lack of sunspots has been correlated in the past with fluctuations in Earth's average temperature. More sunspots can often be correlated with increased temperatures here on Earth, while the lack of sunspots can cause cool periods. How about in recent decades?

Source: NASA

All-time high temperature record falls in Russia in 2010

Russia set its all-time record high on July, 11 2010 with a temperature of 111.2°F in Yashkul, which is in the European portion of the country. The previous record was 110.8°F set in 1940.

All-time high temperature records fall in Asia, Africa, Middle East in 2010

Africa, Asia, and the Middle East all saw their all-time high temperature records broken in May and June of this year - 2010:

- Pakistan: 128.3°F, May 26
- Myanmar: 116.6°F, May 12
- Iraq: 125.6°F, June 14
- Saudi Arabia: 125.6°F, June 22
- Chad: 117.7°F, June 22
- Niger: 118.8°F, June 22

Bahrain, Kuwait, and Quatar tied their high-temperature records in June 2010.

12-month, 60-month Global Average Temperatures since 1880

12-month and 60-month running mean global land-ocean average temperatures since 1880 from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

12-month average temperatures since 1950 correlated with El Nino and La Nina events, as well as recent major volcanic eruptions:

Greenland Temperatures

Temperatures from one station in Greenland since the late 1800s:

Mean Temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska

Mean minimum temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska. 105 year record:

New Zealand Average Surface Temperatures

New Zealand average surface temperatures for the period from 1908 to 2006, from the Ministry of the Environment; National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research:

Volcanic Eruptions

A chart comparing the strength of global volcanic eruptions (which have a cooling affect) to El Nino events (which have a warming affect) and GISS satellite temperature averages since 1970:

Australian Temperatures

Average mean temperatures from Canberra, Australia plus an average for all of Australia from the Bureau of Meteorology:

Looking at just the outback, two stations out there yielded maximum temperature data since 1952:

January Temperatures in the Alps since 1860

A graph from the Switzerland meteorology office illustrating average January temperatures in the Alps since 1860:

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)

A 65 million year old temperature record as told by oxygen-18 isotope measurements (left scale) from fossil ocean microorganisms. During the PETM, the Earth's average temperature was much warmer than today with approximately 550-600ppm CO₂ in the atmosphere. The warmer temps were the result of an estimated 1,000 - 2,000 gigatons of carbon released into the atmosphere, resulting in a 5 degree Celsius temperature increase planet-wide in as little as 10,000 years. Even though ecosystems at the time had thousands of years to adjust to the change, there were still extinctions and a turnover of mammals on the planet, in addition to radical changes in ocean currents, among other things.

Climate scientists estimate that humans have put 810 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere to yield a 100ppm increase in carbon dioxide to its current level of 380ppm. The thing about geologic time is understanding the rate and scale of change relative to today. The current rate at which carbon is entering the atmosphere is faster than when it was released into the atmosphere during the PETM. Ecosystems can adapt to changes that occur over a 1,000 year to 20,000 timeframe. And some of the changes you see on the graph below happened over million year time scales. Can Earth's current ecosystems adapt to potential changes on a much shorter time scale, say as little as 100 years? That's one of the questions.

El Nino Effects on Global Temperatures

El Nino events bring warm ocean water to the surface off the west coast of South America, and this has been linked to periodic increases in sea-surface and lower-tropopause temperatures. Here are recent ENSO (El Nino) events graphed along with satellite tropopause temperature data:

The following trend emerges if you remove the ENSO effects from the UAH satellite data:

Other researchers play around with statistics to show that ENSO is responsible for all the recent warming. In this recent graph, you can see the effects of mid-latitude El Ninos and cold La Ninas about every 7 years:

Satellite Temperatures

A visual graph of satellite temperature anomalies since 1975, grouped by latitude. Note the warm area in 1998 attributable to a strong El Nino that year and a more recent cool area resulting from a strong La Nina:

Global Temperatures via Sediment Proxies

A 2000 record of global average temperatures as told by sediment proxies:

Global Average Temperature Reconstructions

The most famous temperature reconstruction graph is that done by Mann, 1999. But there are many other, independent reconstructions:

A quick note about the Medieval Warm Period. Temperatures around 1000AD were at similar levels to today in northern Europe across to Greenland. Recent data indicates that the MWP was a local phenomena and mostly confined to that region, rather than a global temperature increase. Current temperature reconstructions from other parts of the globe show no such warming.

Global Temperatures

Average global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution: