Racefans Ramblings: 2005 second hottest year in modern times

I then found this from last year...

Looks bad really!

ABC Science Online

Friday, 16 December />

The past decade has probably been the hottest decade since human agriculture began thousands of years ago, say researchers (Image: iStockphoto)

This year is shaping up to be planet's second hottest in 1000 years, according to the latest figures.

The World Meteorological Organization's figures show a clear warming trend in global temperatures that can only be explained by human activity, says Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

"Nine out of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 10 years," says Coughlan. "We've never had it as warm as this in the modern era."

He says preliminary evidence suggests that 2005 will be second only to 1998 in terms of temperatures in the past 1000 years.Scientists have compared 1998 to previous years using instrumental records going back 150 years, from land and sea surface temperatures measured by thermometers, and with proxy records from tree rings, lake sediments and the like going back 1000 years.

And palaeoclimate evidence from further back suggests this decade is the warmest since human agriculture began thousands of years ago, says Coughlan.

The El Niño factor

Coughlan says if there had been an El Niño event this year, temperatures could easily have equalled or exceeded those of 1998. El Niño, a periodic warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean, generally increases global temperatures. Record global temperatures in 1998 coincided with a strong El Niño, whereas the El Niño in 2005 was weak. Australia will undoubtedly have the warmest year on record this year, says Coughlan, despite a weak El Niño and despite there being no change in rainfall, which tends to keep temperatures down.

"So there's something going on," he says.

Natural variability?

Coughlan accepts that Earth may have had hotter temperatures before the Holocene but says it's not really relevant to the human experience.

"You're talking about an Earth that was not what we have now," he says. "Humans were not trying to grow food and there were not 6 billion of us on the planet." Coughlan says the recent hot period can only be explained by human activity sending greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

"If it is natural variability, where did the warmth come from? Did it come out the oceans, did it come out of volcanoes, has the Sun suddenly heated up?" he says. "There's no evidence from any of those sources that can explain why the Earth, in the past few decades, has increased in temperature."

The World Meteorological Organization report says that October 2005 was the warmest October on record with significant above-average temperatures in large areas of Africa, Australia, Brazil, China and the US. The report also details areas that suffered prolonged drought, flooding, a record number of deadly hurricanes, an intensification in the decline of Arctic sea-ice and greater ozone depletion in both the Antarctic and Arctic.