Dreamstime: Meryll
The National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its global average temperature figures for June 2014. The NCDC reports:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for June 2014 was the highest on record for the month, at 0.72°C (1.30°F) above the 20th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F).
The global land surface temperature was 0.95°C (1.71°F) above the 20th century average of 13.3°C (55.9°F), the seventh highest for June on record.
For the ocean, the June global sea surface temperature was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the highest for June on record and the highest departure from average for any month.
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–June period (year-to-date) was 0.67°C (1.21°F) above the 20th century average of 13.5°C (56.3°F), tying with 2002 as the third warmest such period on record.
This is in contrast with the global temperature trends reported by University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer who find that June 2014 was the fourth warmest in the satellite record. They note:
The global average temperature for June was 0.30 C (about 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for the month, warm enough to tie June 2013 for fourth warmest. (The warmest June was in 1998, during the "El Niño of the century." Global average temperatures in June 1998 were 0.51 C [about 0.92 degrees F] warmer than normal.)
Below is a comparison of global temperature trends through May 2014 between the two satellite datasets (UAH and RSS) and the three leading surface datasets including the NCDC one.
climate4you
For more background, see my article, "Did Federal Climate Scientists Fudge Temperature Data to Make It Warmer?"
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