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NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) reports (full article)
that
the globally averaged temperature for 2009 was the second warmest on
record, and that the decade 2000-2009 was the warmest on record. It has
been widely noted that the decade has shown little temperature trend,
and some have claimed that this refutes concerns about global
warming. Many factors can contribute to short-term variations in global
temperatures. Perhps the largest of these is the El Nino-La Nina
cycleof Pacific equatorial ocean temperatures. A very strong El Nino
(warm) cycle in 1998 and a strong La Nina (cold) period in 2008 may
thus have contributed to the apparent pause in warming. These can be
seen in the figure below (from the NASA article) in which the black
annual points suggest a lull in the past decade, but the 5 year average
shows a flattening that is no more pronounced than several in the past.
Because another El Nino is expected to continue through much of 2010,
GISS researchers believe that there is a good chance that 2010 will
prove to the the warmest year on record. The winter of 2009-2010 has so far been colder than normal over the U.S. and much of Europe. This is attributed to another major global weather cycle, the Arctic Oscillation, which has produced a strong high pressure center over Greenland that has deflected the jet stream southward and allowed cold polar air to move southward in concert. |
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