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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (922194)

2/19/2016 2:28:09 PM

From: Wharf Rat

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J_F_Shepard

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1576751

Global average temperature isn't measured.

Why use temperature anomalies (departure from average) and not absolute temperature measurements?
Absolute estimates of global average surface temperature are difficult to compile for several reasons. Some regions have few temperature measurement stations (e.g., the Sahara Desert) and interpolation must be made over large, data-sparse regions. In mountainous areas, most observations come from the inhabited valleys, so the effect of elevation on a region's average temperature must be considered as well. For example, a summer month over an area may be cooler than average, both at a mountain top and in a nearby valley, but the absolute temperatures will be quite different at the two locations. The use of anomalies in this case will show that temperatures for both locations were below average.

Using reference values computed on smaller [more local] scales over the same time period establishes a baseline from which anomalies are calculated. This effectively normalizes the data so they can be compared and combined to more accurately represent temperature patterns with respect to what is normal for different places within a region.

For these reasons, large-area summaries incorporate anomalies, not the temperature itself. Anomalies more accurately describe climate variability over larger areas than absolute temperatures do, and they give a frame of reference that allows more meaningful comparisons between locations and more accurate calculations of temperature trends.

ncdc.noaa.gov

=
Sixteen Warmest Years (1880–2015)The following table lists the global combined land and ocean annually-averaged temperature rank and anomaly for each of the 16 (two tied at #15) warmest years on record.

RANK
1 = WARMEST
PERIOD OF RECORD: 1880–2015 YEAR..............................ANOMALY °C ............ ANOMALY °F

1	2015	0.90	1.62
2	2014	0.74	1.33
3	2010	0.70	1.26
4	2013	0.66	1.19
5	2005	0.65	1.17
6 (tie)	1998	0.63	1.13
6 (tie)	2009	0.63	1.13
8	2012	0.62	1.12
9 (tie)	2003	0.61	1.10
9 (tie)	2006	0.61	1.10
9 (tie)	2007	0.61	1.10
12	2002	0.60	1.08
13 (tie)	2004	0.57	1.03
13 (tie)	2011	0.57	1.03
15 (tie)	2001	0.54	0.97
15 (tie)	2008	0.54	0.97