2011 to April: A Cool Year

Global averaged temperature data is now available from some of the global temperature databases for a third of the year. HadCrut3 is not yet available into April but NasaGiss and NOAA are, and they make interesting reading following our report on the first three months of the year.You will recall that according to NasaGiss 2011 up to March was cooler than 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 1999, 1998, 1995, 1988 (aprox equal). That made 2011 the 12^th warmest start to the year on record.Adding April makes little difference as it is cooler than 2010, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 (equal to 2002 and only slightly warmer than 2004 and 2000 and 1998.)The NOAA database shows the same pattern but adds a bit more detail.In this database April was the 7^th warmest for combined ocean and land measurements. However, I am growing wary of such combined measurements. Individually April was the 11^th warmest on record for the ocean and the 6^th for the land.This makes 2011 the 14^th warmest start to the year.It is interesting to look at the north and south hemispheres. In the north the ocean and the land combined April was the sixth warmest. Individually the NH land was the 4^th and the ocean the 12^th. The SH combined was the 13^th warmest with ocean being 10^th and the land the 25^th.It seems that the influence of the La Nina is declining.2011 continues consistent with the view that, for whatever reason, the annual global average temperature has not increased since 2001. Last year it was an exceptional NH spring that contributed to the year’s warmth (although not a record.) This year the fact that the data is outside the top ten years suggests very tentatively that it might turn out to be cooler that any year of the past decade. We will have to see what happens when the La Nina has declined.Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com