2019 Global Temps Prediction: The Entries Are In

The Met Office says it's going to get warmer this year. GWPF readers reckon not.

Back in early February, we invited readers to submit their entries for our 2019 global temperature prediction competition. The GWPF posse had soundly beaten the Met Office in last year's competition, and you certainly seemed encouraged by your success, as there were 250 entries this time round, more than double last year's entry.

For 2019, the Met Office have once again pushed the boat out on their predictions, suggesting that we might see a temperature rise of 0.19°C by the year end.

As you can see from the graph below, GWPF readers are a lot more cautious. The graph is a histogram of the entries, so the height of each blue bar is the number of readers making a particular prediction, the temperatures being given in terms of anomalies from the 1961-1990 average. The most common prediction was therefore for a slight decline in temperature over the course of the year, down to to 0.55°C from last year's 0.6°C. The Met Office prediction is the grey band - they have given a single value this time round, rather than the range given in previous years.

Interestingly, after a warm January the value of HadCRUT4 is 0.74°C after one month, so the Met Office's 0.79°C prediction is currently looking pretty good. But will they have won back their position of preeminence by the end of the year? There's a long way to go. It will be fun to see how the full year turns out.

Thank you for all your entries. And may the temperatures be ever in your favour.