Honey, We Broke the Graph

Greg Laden’s blog:

We’re gonna need a bigger boat. Well, actually we’re gonna need a bigger y-Axis. This has been happening for a while.

NOAA has just published September’s global surface temperature, which turns out to be 0.90C above their baseline (20th century average). According to NOAA, this is the highest value for September on record, 0.12C higher than last year, which was also a record. The graph above shows the year to date average, though September, for NOAA’s entire data set.

Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, recently tweeted a graph he produced to show global surface temperatures since 1850, noting that 2015 year to date broke his graph.

Using NASA GISS data, climate scientist John Abraham broke his graph too:

Using the NOAA data, I made the following chart, showing annual surface temperature measurements for their entire record through 2014. Then, I added an estimate for 2015, based on year to date numbers.

NOAA:

Global highlights: September 2015

The September average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F (0.90°C) above the 20^th century average&mdash. This was the highest September temperature on record, surpassing the previous record set last year by +0.19°F (+0.12°C). September’s high temperature was also the greatest rise above average for any month in the 136-year historical record, surpassing the previous record set in both February and March this year by 0.02°F (0.01°C).