The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on February 13 issued a press release claiming “January 2020 was Earth’s hottest January on record.” Predictably, mainstream media trumpeted the news. ABC’s treatment was typical.
Some thoughts on ABC’s report—which are generally applicable to the press release and other media coverage as well:
- For an indication of just how sloppily people think about this issue, compare the URL (“https://abcnews.go.com/US/january-2020-hottest-earths-history-noaa/story?id=68912465”) with the headline (“January 2020 was the hottest in modern recorded history, NOAA says”) with the tagline (“There has never been a warmer January in 141 years of climate records.”). So which is it—hottest in earth’s history? hottest in modern recorded history? hottest in 141 years of climate records? Those don’t all mean the same thing.
- “The global land and ocean surface temperature in January was the highest on record for the month at 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing a record set in 2016, NOAA scientists said in a press release Thursday.” More sloppiness. No, global average surface temperature in January wasn’t 2.05˚F. If it had been, people everywhere would have been shivering! That would actually have more likely been the coldest global average surface temperature in all the time since the earth was formed. Rather, the global average surface temperature was 2.05˚F above the mean for 1981–2010. That is, the anomaly from the mean for that period was 2.05˚F. Amazing that the reporter who wrote the story didn’t detect this problem. After all, she later wrote, “The average temperature [for the continental United States] over the 20th century was 30.12 degrees Fahrenheit.” Even that wasn’t actually true. What she meant to write was that the average temperature [for the continental U.S.] for January over the 20th century was 30.12 degrees Fahrenheit. For the globe as a whole, average temperature for the whole 20th century—every month of every year—was more on the order of 59˚F. Again, if it’d been 30.12˚F, we’d have been in a really deep ice age.
- “The four warmest Januarys documented in the climate record have all occurred since 2016, while the 10 warmest have occurred since 2002. January 2020 also marked the 44th consecutive January and the 421st consecutive month overall with temperatures above the 20th century average, according to the release.” As if somehow that were shocking? When you’re in a warming period, recent years will be warmer than years in the distant past. That has nothing to do with what’s causing the warming or whether the warming will continue.
- Now, was January 2020 warmer than January 2016? Not according to the most reliable (because the most truly global and the least subject to contamination by urban heat island effect, improper instrument siting, and inconsistent instrument and data handling, among other reasons) data we have: the satellite data. According to that, global average temperature’s anomaly from the 1981–2010 mean was 0.56˚C in January 2020, and 0.56˚C in 2016—the same. Meanwhile, many other months of the year were more than 0.56˚C above the 1981–2010 mean, as you can discover by clicking on the link to the satellite date and reading down the third column.
- Finally, a point about rhetoric. “Hottest” sounds like something we’d be able to detect with our unaided senses. But a difference in temperature of 0.56˚C (1.008˚F) is slight enough that most people wouldn’t feel it even if that were to characterize the “average temperature” of the room in which they were standing. (That there’s actually no such thing as “average temperature” might surprise—if so, I highly recommend that you read the book Cornwall Alliance is offering for free this month while our supply lasts, Taken By Storm: The Troubled, Science, Policy, and Politics of Global Warming, as our way of saying thanks for a donation of any kind. To request yours, just make a donation of any size and ask for Promo Code 2002 and mention Taken By Storm. But remember, the offer ends at midnight February 29.) But when that’s the average not for a single room but for the earth as a whole—well, nobody, but nobody, can feel that with unaided senses, and it makes no difference to ecosystems or human wellbeing.
So what we’re seeing is more of the typical journalistic fearmongering, driven by politicized science in government agencies like NOAA.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
Dennis Perry says
I think it’s interesting to note, as was mentioned in the above report, that the worldwide global average temperature is 59 degrees F at sea level. I have been a pilot for over 40 years and have flown numerous aircraft over that time, and have read all of the Operating Handbooks for each. Aircraft performance is based on that exact number – 59 degrees F at sea level. It hasn’t changed and all aircraft performance is still based on that number, despite continual weather research to validate the performance and of each new (or old) aircraft. The numbers are critical even to those who believe the world is warming beyond our imagination. I note this because those same people, in their ignorance, continue to utilize thIs tremendously expanding and growing industry, whose safety record is exemplary of the continual efforts to update and upgrade. Indeed, a flight from Miami to Anchorage, Alaska, is exponentially safer than traveling the same distance in an automobile. The aircraft industry has subtly been confirming the exact opposite of the “rush to judgment” Greta Thunberg’s of the world. Your efforts and devotion to the Creator and your compassion for the poor and weak (including alarmists) are confirmation you are doing God’s work!
Paul Truax says
I never believed the theory CO2 was causing the planet to get hotter. There is something that should concern all of us though, it is called geoengineering, solar radiation management, or weather modification. Geoengineeringwatch.org has much convincing evidence of what is happening in plain sight that most people just ignore. It is very important we are all aware of what is happening to us.
Rick says
URL’s are generally shortened to save space so removing some words does happen. The article does mean recent history and is based on those written records that have been made since
On top of that there are ice core samples that give a good indication of the atmospheric make up before written records
What that means is there is evidence of what planetary temperature was like going back a good few tens of thousands years
The following illustration covers the last circa 22,000 years of earth average temperature and also shows along the way what the earth was like – e.g. Boston being buried under a layer of ice so thick it dwarfs the modern day skyline
As you scroll down you can see the average temperature inching up and what that meant at the time, e.g. glaciers receding to the poles
(It may be a cartoon but the data is spot on)
https://xkcd.com/1732/