Extreme Temperature Diary- Saturday January 25th, 2020/ Main Topic: Putting Two and Two Together…Global Temperature Averages and Global Record Ratios

Saturday January 25th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😉

Main Topic: Putting Two and Two Together…Global Temperature Averages and Global Record Ratios

Dear Diary. As time goes by this century the global average temperature, barring a big up tic in volcanic activity, will increase from present levels usually by no more than one twentieth of a degree Celsius per year. That does not seem like much but will have big consequences as far as extreme temperatures are concerned. We will be seeing less cold records and more hot records with time, many of which will be life threatening during the summers in both hemispheres. Today I will be showing what took place record wise in 2019 and correlate that with global temperature averages.

Oh, and by the way:

Yesterday we noted that Gavin Schmidt did a great job forecasting 2019 global averages, which came in as second warmest next to those of 2016. Let’s report 2019 global averages as Spock would from Star Trek, down to the nearest hundredth of a degree:

Here is Gavin’s chart as presented yesterday, noting that 2019 averages came in at 1.18°C above preindustrial conditions:

Now let’s pictorially depict extreme temperatures or records that occurred across the globe during 2019 using Robert Rohde’s data. (just click on the arrow to see a neat animation):

It’s too bad the NCEI record count site does not save and catalog global totals for each year back to at least 1950. I had the forethought to save a snapshot of totals at the end of 2019 just for such a post as that written today:

As far as the ratio of global daily record maxes and mins go we saw 1.79-1 for 2019. That’s in a world which saw 1.18°C above preindustrial conditions.

(Of note, Robert’s database has a minimal cutoff of 40 years or period in which stations need to be operating to qualify for record counts, while NCEI’s POR is just thirty years, thus the discrepancy with overall numbers.)  

These are fairly nerdy stats but are important concerning the long term health of our environment. Researchers can use these statistics to get a good idea for what the world will be facing as far as dangerous record heat goes in the near future, passing this information along to aid planners accordingly.

It’s no wonder that the United Nations have set 1.5°C above preindustrial conditions as the first benchmark we should not cross to keep a livable climate in tact. Even at +1.18°C we saw hundreds of heat related deaths in Europe and an all time record hot December in Australia leading to unprecedented fires in that country. Our civilization, supposedly, can take the proverbial slings and arrows from a climate between +1.2°C and +1.5°C, but we are about to find out the hard way during the 2020s. Heat waves won’t be pretty this decade but probably will not be devastating enough to end civilization as we know it. These will, I hope, spur us onto keeping additional carbon out of the atmosphere for the sake of all generations to come.

Please consider donating through the Paypal widget on this site. I need everyone’s support to continue my work, especially that of processing NCEI record count data for scientific research.

Here is some more weather and climate news from Saturday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have  put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity.)

Here is an “ET” set in the last 24 hours from Japan:

(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.) 

The Climate Guy

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