A Mild Start To 2014
By Paul Homewood
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
While the eastern half of the US freezes, Britain has enjoyed a remarkably warm start to the year. The CET is currently running at 2.06C above normal (the 1961-90 period).
What is most striking, though, is that no month yet has been anywhere near being a record, or indeed in any way remarkable. The rankings, etc , are shown below. (Remember, the CET series goes back to 1659).
| 2014 Temp C |
2014 Rank |
Year of Record High |
Record Temp C |
|
| Jan | 5.7 | 30 | 1916 | 7.5 |
| Feb | 6.2 | 32 | 1779 | 9.2 |
| March | 7.6 | 19 | 1959 | 9.2 |
| April | 10.2 | 8 | 2011 | 11.8 |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Up to the end of April, the CET this year has worked out at 7.43C. A year ago, it ran at 4.22C, a turn around of 3.21C.
This figure dwarfs most forecasts of increases in temperature over the next century. I wonder how we have survived it!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I noticed a similar thing. April was warm but not as warm as others the past few years. I read somewhere we have still not hit 25C yet, which is later than recent years but not unprecedented by any means. It has not been that warm but the lack of frosts is telling. It does look like this year will be positive (having said that one year ago as you say we were quite below) but how much the later months bring the average down, or up, is hard to tell. Seems to be a 9-12m oscillation going on the USA. It’s been mostly above average months since July 13 (westerly qbo?) but that should change…eventually.
My only ‘fear’ looking back is wet periods lasting for periods of time. The 1929/30 looks to have had a hiatus but then above average precipitation returned – although not on the same scale (going from the great MetO monthly reports you highlighted and the booty accounts of wet circa 1870-80 before the late Victorian dry priod kicked in).
Yes, all relatively warm but nothing out of the normal range.
I suspect that the reason for the relatively mild start to the year in the UK is the same as the relatively cold start in the U.S., the position of the Jet Stream.
Some places on the globe are relatively warm and some relatively cold and neither have any real significance as far as the global temperature is concerned which is determine by the net difference between the two, assuming that the temperature calculations are correct.
Maybe not just as Even-Steven as that QV?
NASA just posted the 3rd warmest April on record for the northern hemisphere (2nd warmest globally).
It’s not just the UK that’s warmer than average. Check out northern Russia. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=04&year1=2014&year2=2014&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=rob
But on RSS, April globally 11th warmest since 1998. Such monthly variability is not unusual.
http://data.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt
It’s marginal and then the are the error margins.
The current Nasa error margins for monthly data are +/- 0.15c.
I think that most of the monthly changes are within those limits.
The point I was making is that you can’t tell the global temp. by concentrating on the warm bits.
Paul,
Yes, RSS is still running low, and UAH has been below NASA for a couple of months now (base line adjusted to 1981-2010).
I think I read recently that lower troposphere is slower to respond to Tropical Pacific heat release; though that contradicted my previous understanding.
Perhaps someone here knows?
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
There is a post here: http://daedalearth.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/part-1-central-england-temperature-timeseries-and-manley-papers/ concerning the CET which appears to cast doubt on its accuracy.
Since October, the cold anomaly in the US upper Midwest is probably unprecedented, at least since the Weather Bureau started in 1871. More record cold in many US cities likely over the next several days. Places in Oklahoma that were well over 100 degrees a week ago are today only in the 50’s.
Re the rank table above: while only one of the individual months so far in 2014 has been inside the top 10 warmest for its respective month, collectively Jan-Apr 2014 is the 3rd warmest such period in CET. It’s just 0.1 C behind 1990 and 0.4 C behind 2007, which was the warmest Jan-Apr period in the record.
Hard to know how May will go as yet. Should pick up for a few days if forecast is correct; but some projections are for a return to low pressure by early next week. May could struggle to remain positive in CET this year.
11.1 C or over for May would keep 2014 ‘year-to-date’ in a tie for 3rd place. It would need 12.6 or over to tie second, which looks unlikely at this stage.
I have often wondered what the recent CET figures would look like were they to be adjusted for the UHI effect.
According to the MO website: “Since 1974 the data have been adjusted to allow for urban warming.”
CET is based on only measurements at 3 observing stations, Rothamsted, Malvern and Stonyhurst, although these have changed over the years.
It’s not as simple as you might think.
You can find more about this in the papers linked to on this site:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/index.html