Temperature Percentiles
The numbers for June 2016 have just been published and various prominent media outlets are quite rightly reporting it. Here are a few examples …
- The BBC reports … Hottest June ever recorded worldwide – NOAA
- USA Today reports … June was Earth’s 14th straight record warm month
- The UKs Guardian … Hottest ever June marks 14th month of record-breaking temperatures
But also we have these stories as well …
- Scientific American … First Half of 2016 Blows Away Temperature Records
The raw data, the ultimate source for all this, is the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and so going back to their global summary gives you the definitive version because everything else is (including this posting) is a distillation of that.
The summary they have breaks down into two parts, so lets look at each in turn, (via the miracle of cut and paste).
Global highlights: June 2016
They break this down into various viewpoints such as the temperature of the land of ocean surfaces, just the land surface temp, just the sea surface temp, the lower and also mid-troposphere temp, and finally arctic and antarctic sea ice extent. Here is how that all pans out …
- The June temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F above the 20th century average of 59.9°F. This was the highest for June in the 1880–2016 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 by 0.04°F. June 2016 marks the 40th consecutive June with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th century average. June 1976 was the last time June global land and ocean temperatures were below average. June 2016 tied with March 2015 as the ninth highest monthly temperature departure among all months (1,638) on record. Overall, 14 of the 15 highest monthly temperature departures in the record have all occurred since February 2015, with January 2007 representing the one month prior to February 2015.
- The June globally averaged land surface temperature was 2.23°F above the 20th century average of 55.9°F. This value tied with 2015 as the highest June global land temperature in the 1880–2016 record. This was the 34th consecutive June with global land temperatures above the 20th century average.
- The June globally averaged sea surface temperature was 1.39°F above the 20th century monthly average of 61.5°F—the highest global ocean temperature for June in the 1880–2016 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 by 0.05°F. June 2016 was the 10th highest departure from average among all 1,638 months in the record. June 2016 marks the 40th consecutive June with global ocean temperatures above the 20th century average. Much warmer-than-average temperatures engulfed most of the world’s oceans during June 2016, with record high sea surface temperatures across parts of the central and southwest Pacific Ocean, northwestern and southwestern Atlantic Ocean, and across parts of the northeastern Indian Ocean. The 12 highest monthly global ocean temperature departures have all occurred in the past 12 months.
- The June temperature for the lower troposphere (roughly the lowest 5 miles of the atmosphere) was the third highest in the 1979–2016 record, at 0.67°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by the University of Alabama in Huntsville* (UAH) using UAH version 5.6. It was also third highest on record, at 0.72°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by Remote Sensing Systems* (RSS). Both analyses rank June 1998 as the warmest June in the satellite record.
- The June temperature for the mid-troposphere (roughly 2 miles to 6 miles above the surface) was the fifth highest for June in the 1979–2016 record, at 0.50°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH. It was fifth highest on record, at 0.49°F above the 1981-2010 average, as analyzed by RSS. After removing the influence of temperatures above 6 miles in altitude, the University of Washington, using data analyzed by the UAH and RSS, calculated temperature departures from the 1981–2010 average to be 0.67°F and 0.65°F, respectively, both fourth highest in the record. All analyses rank June 1998 as the warmest June in the satellite record.
- The average Arctic sea ice extent for June was 530,000 square miles (11.4 percent) below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June extent since records began in 1979 and 100,000 square miles smaller than the previous record set in 2010. According to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center based on data from NOAA and NASA, sea ice cover was below average in the Kara, Barents, and Beaufort Seas. June Arctic sea ice extent is decreasing at an average rate of 3.6 percent per decade.
- The Antarctic sea ice extent for June was 40,000 square miles below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June Antarctic sea ice extent since 2011 and the 13th smallest on record. June Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing at an average rate of 1.7 percent per decade.
Global highlights: Year-to-date (January–June 2016)
They then look back at all of 2016 and look across the various viewpoints once again. This is what they report for that …
- The year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.89°F above the 20th century average of 56.3°F. This was the highest for January-June in the 1880–2016 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 by 0.36°F.
- The year-to-date globally averaged land surface temperature was 3.17°F above the 20th century average of 45.0°F. This was the highest for January-June in the 1880–2016 record, exceeding the previous record of 2015 by 0.70°F.
- The year-to-date globally averaged sea surface temperature was 1.42°F above the 20th century average of 60.9°F. This was the highest for January-June in the 1880–2016 record, besting the previous record of 2015 by 0.25°F.
- The January-June temperature for the lower troposphere was the highest in the 1979–2016 record, at 1.22°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by the University of Alabama in Huntsville* (UAH) using version 5.6. It was also highest on record, at 1.10°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by Remote Sensing Systems* (RSS).
- The January-June temperature for the mid-troposphere was the second highest for January-June in the 1979–2016 record, at 0.97°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH. It was also second highest on record, at 0.94°F above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by RSS. After removing the influence of temperatures above 6 miles in altitude, the University of Washington, using data analyzed by the UAH and RSS, calculated temperature departures from the 1981–2010 average to be 1.21°F (highest on record) and 1.13°F (second highest on record behind 1998), respectively.
Selected Climate Events & Anomalies for June 2016
The following also illustrates some of the rather unusual events that they noted for just June 2016
Links
All of the above is simply a summary, you can find it on the NOAA site here. At that link you can also select other previous months as well.
The full NOAA report for June 2016 global numbers is here.
A few Scary Numbers
If you look back over all the years that they have records for which is basically everything since 1880, there here are 15 most unusual months. By “unusual” I mean a month that stands out because it is distinctly different than the average …
| RANK 1 = WARMEST PERIOD OF RECORD: 1880–2016 |
MONTH + YEAR | ANOMALY °C | ANOMALY °F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | March 2016 | 1.22 | 2.20 |
| 2 | February 2016 | 1.20 | 2.16 |
| 3 | December 2015 | 1.12 | 2.02 |
| 4 | April 2016 | 1.08 | 1.94 |
| 5 | January 2016 | 1.05 | 1.89 |
| 6 | October 2015 | 0.99 | 1.78 |
| 7 | November 2015 | 0.96 | 1.73 |
| 8 | September 2015 | 0.92 | 1.66 |
| 9 (tie) | March 2015 | 0.90 | 1.62 |
| 9 (tie) | June 2016 | 0.90 | 1.62 |
| 11 (tie) | January 2007 | 0.88 | 1.58 |
| 11 (tie) | February 2015 | 0.88 | 1.58 |
| 11 (tie) | May 2016 | 0.88 | 1.58 |
| 11 (tie) | June 2015 | 0.88 | 1.58 |
| 15 | August 2015 | 0.87 | 1.57 |
Notice that it all, except 11, is in 2015 and 2016.
If that does not grab your attention, then perhaps this will. It is a chart that shows the Global Monthly Land and Ocean Temperature Departures from average …
What should truly worry you is that right now we are sitting on top of that spike on the right-hand side.