Will 2014 be the warmest year on record? Watch this space #climate2014 pic.twitter.com/6kF4rZDs7M
— WMO | OMM (@WMOnews) January 2, 2015
To the surprise of all (... not really), the Earth continued warming. At the beginning of December, the WMO issued a press release that stated that, if 2014 continued the same trend in November and December as what was observed from January to October, it would be among the hottest - if not the hottest - year on record. Global air average temperature (Jan-Oct) was 0.57°C higher than the 1961-1990 reference period. Over land average air temperature was 0.86°C higher.
Average temperature over land will continue warming faster that over the sea. Figure 1 shows the change in surface temperature per degree Celsius of global mean change, as projected for the 21st century (IPCC, 2013).
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| Fig. 1: mean surface temperature increase per °C of global mean temperature increase. Source: IPCC, AR5 |
This means that the average global temperature is just that, an average. A warming in 2°C is not distributed equally around the globe, but there can be cooler areas and other areas that are much warmer. While the globe may increase 1°C, the continents will be around 1.25-1.5°C warmer. The figure also shows that the warming will be even higher in the Arctic regions, because the localised ice-albedo feedback will allow an increase in absorbed radiation.
The final verdict on 2014 is still to come, but it will likely not be a surprise.
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