Envirocast® On-Line Feature of the Week -- February 23, 2007

2006 Fifth-Warmest Year on Record

The images in this Envirocast® Bulletin are from satellite measurements and show that compared to the long term average, 2006 was a very warm year.  On February 8, 2007, climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) announced that 2006 was the fifth-warmest year in the past century.

 

2006 Temperature Anomalies

This image shows temperature anomalies during 2006, blue being the coolest and red being the warmest.  Areas with cooler-than-average temperatures appear primarily in the northern Pacific Ocean and Southern Ocean, as well as the interior of Antarctica. The very warmest regions appear in the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula.  The red colors that dominate the image reveal the overall warmth of 2006 compared to the long-term average.

Environmental Impacts:

  • The five warmest years on record were, in descending order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2006.

  • According to NASA GISS director James Hansen, 2007 is likely to see warmer temperatures than 2006 and could prove to be the warmest on record, thanks to an El Niño and continued emissions of greenhouse gases.

  • The very warmest regions appear in the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula, which is consistent with climate predictions that global warming will occur more quickly and dramatically in high latitudes.

  • Days before NASA GISS announced 2006’s warm temperatures, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new assessment of climate change.  The report predicts continued warming of 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade for the next few decades.

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