Debating the True Rate of Global Warming: Is 1998 or 2005 the Real Indicator?

Speculations of the actual rate of global warming had been contradictory to the least. In fact, there have been arguments that the year 1998 and not 2005 is the warmest year recorded. However, based on the global climate simulation models, warming considerably larger in the Western Equatorial Pacific than in the East Equatorial Pacific. The authors also suggested that the increased East-West temperature gradient may have also increased the likelihood of El Nino such as those in 1983 and 1998. Global temperature is a gauge used for measuring and summarizing the state of global climate.

Although the effects on climate are normally felt locally, its distribution nonetheless is congruent with that of the climate models. According to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Analysis, the estimated uncertainty of global mean temperature implies that we can only state that 2005 was probably the warmest year. This conclusion was based on satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982, a ship-based analysis for earlier years and documented procedures for data over land.

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Also, this analysis has a 95 percent confidence.

As mentioned earlier, 2005 is noted for its warmth and this is not due to the contribution of the El Nino phenomenon contrary to the one recorded in 1998 wherein 0. 2° C was lifted from the trend line and considered to be the strongest in the century. Hence, global warming is tallied to be at 0. 6° C in the past decades and 0. 8°C higher than in the past century. Contrary to what was speculated before, it is now incorrect to say that most global warming occurred before the 1940s.

This may be attributed to the large fluctuations and yet slow warming over the century until 1975 which was then followed by a rapid warming, noted at 0. °C per decade. Hence, global warming is not just a concocted artefact due to the measurements in urban areas and used to scare people into being earth friendly but a real climate change. It is confirmed by surface temperature change inferred from borehole temperature profiles at remote locations, the rate of alpine glaciers around the world and progressively earlier breakup of ice on rivers and lakes. (10). Moreover, the fact that there is indeed a geographical distribution of warming gives proof that there is a real climate change.

The largest warming recorded occurred not in urban areas but in remote regions including high latitudes. Furthermore, warming has also been documented in ocean areas, which are considerably far from the direct effects of humans. On the other hand, calculations made through the first global climate model, presented in the congressional testimony in 1988 was allegedly 300 percent wrong. However, further analysis indicated that the first transient climate simulations proved to be quite accurate and certainly not wrong by 300 percent.