Statistically Speaking: 2008’s Place in Warmest Years Sweepstakes
Initial temperature rankings are in, and overall, 2008 has not been a cool year.
With a little over a week to go in 2008, the World Meteorological Organization has released an estimate of the year’s average temperature. Now 2008 is officially …
the tenth warmest year on record. See graphic below.
January and February of 2008 were quite cold, prompting a chorus from the climate skeptics’ community that we were headed for global cooling and that all the warming of the past century had been wiped out in one year. Well, that statement was based on a couple of months in the middle of a La Niña. Now, with almost the entire year behind us, we have a more complete picture of 2008's place temperature-wise. And that place turns out to be #10 in the all-time warmest years’ list.
The 10 Warmest Years on Record By Rank
1. 1998
2. 2005
3. 2003
4. 2002
5. 2004
6. 2006
7. 2007
8. 2001
9. 1997
10. 2008
2008 pushed 1995 out of the top ten list. And the 10 warmest years on record all occurred in the last decade with one exception: 1997 appears in the #9 slot.
10 warmest years?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
The winner is 1934, by a hair over 1998. 2006 was tied with 1931.