2016 Set Another Global Temperature Record

This global map provides a snapshot of regions of the Earth that exceeded long-term average temperatures. Areas in deep red set new high temperature records. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Each January, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) releases national and global temperature data for the previous year. That data for 2016 was released this morning.

NOAA has led the world in collecting and disseminating global temperature data and maintains the longest dataset of such data—so the release of new data is always highly anticipated by climate scientists.

This week’s release of that data is of particular interest, as there has been growing concern within scientific circles that the U.S. Government, with the incoming Trump Administration, may stop collecting or releasing climate data. As that concern has grown, efforts have sprung up to archive that data on non-government websites.

I will be surprised if the Trump Administration blocks the continued collection and dissemination of climate change information, but we should soon find out.

In the mean time, presented here are some of the newly released data of temperature trends.

Temperature anomalies through 2016 showing global data and data for Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Another year of record temperatures

The bottom line is that global temperatures have continued to increase. 2016 is the third year in a row that set global temperature records. The January-December average land and sea temperatures were 0.94°C (1.69°F) above the 20^th Century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This surpassed the previous temperature record (2015) by 0.04°C (0.07°F).

Various ways to show these temperature anomalies are shown in the graphs and maps that accompany this article. All are from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (previously the National Climatic Data Center).

In the contiguous Unites States, 2016 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2012.

This chart shows the 12 warmest years on record globally. All of these years have occurred since 1998. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

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Along with founding the Resilient Design Institute in 2012, Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed. To receive e-mail notices of new blogs, sign up at the top of the page.

David W. Orr, Ph.D

David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies & Politics, Emeritus. He also served as “Counselor to the President” of Oberlin College for ten years. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016) and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and co-editor of three others. He has authored over 220 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past twenty-five years he has served as a board member or adviser to ten foundations and on the Boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, Bioneers, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

He is currently a Trustee of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Children and Nature Network, and the WorldWatch Institute. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, leadership awards from the U.S. Green Building Council (2014) and from Second Nature (2012), and a lifetime achievement award from Green Energy Ohio and the North American Association for Environmental Education. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He headed the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an AIA panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past thirty years,” as “one of thirty milestone buildings of the twentieth century” by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as one of “52 game-changing buildings of the past 170 years” by the editors of Building Design +Construction in January, 2016. He was instrumental in the design and funding of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. He is the founder of the Oberlin Project and a founder of the journal Solutions. His current work is on the state of American democracy.