Dear Diary, Unsurprisingly, Autumn 2022 [SONSONMeteorological Autumn - September, October and November] ended up the third warmest since 1659 in Central England, with a mean temperature of 12.4°C, which was +2.4°C above the 1659-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. There were only a few colder than average spells with warm spells dominating for long periods.
Dear Diary, November 2022 was the joint fifth warmest in Central England since 1659 with a mean temperature of 9.2°C which was 2.8°C higher that the 1659-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. November was the eighteenth month with above average mean temperature in Central England.
With regard to global temperature the IPCCIPCCThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change.
It was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, and later endorsed by United Nations General Assembly. uses the reference period 1850 to 1900 to represent pre-industrial temperature to measure the degree of global warming that has occurred. They say about this reference period in their 2018 report:-
In principle, ‘pre-industrial levels’ could refer to any period of time before the start of the industrial revolution. But the number of direct temperature measurements decreases as we go back in time. Defining a ‘pre-industrial’ reference period is, therefore, a compromise between the reliability of the temperature information and how representative it is of truly pre-industrial conditions. Some pre-industrial periods are cooler than others for purely natural reasons. This could be because of spontaneous climate variability or the response of the climate to natural perturbations, such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun’s activity. This IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C uses the reference period 1850–1900 to represent pre-industrial temperature. This is the earliest period with near-global observations and is the reference period used as an approximation of pre-industrial temperatures in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
I thought I would look and see how the CETCETCentral England Temperature series was doing and see if it was getting close to the magic +1.5°C. The daily mean maximum and minimum only began in 1878 so it’s not possible to calculate mean values using this data, but daily mean temperatures are available back to 1772, and so it’s possible to calculate a mean for 1850-1900. It’s also possible to go back further and calculate a mean from 1772-1900, or better still calculate a mean for the period 1772-1850, which in my opinion is a better start for the dawn of the industrial era or the industrial revolution.
The anomalies in the bar chart are larger than you would normally see because I’ve based them on a long-term average for the period 1851-2000. Annual mean anomalies nearly exceeded 1.5°C back n 1949, and in recent years the 1.5°C barrier has been breached at least six times including this year (2022) which looks likely to become the warmest year on record. So we’ve not quite reached the +1.5°C mark globally but we are not far off in central England. I wonder what Gordon Manley would make of it all?
What caused the cooling between 1950 and 1980 in global as well as temperatures in central England? Maybe it was the airborne testing of thermonuclear weapons that followed the second world war and which continued till around 1976 according to Wikipedia. Natural variability or man made? My money’s on the latter in this case.
The year 2022 is still currently the warmest year in the CETCETCentral England Temperature series that started back in 1659. I make the mean temperature up to the 13th of November 12.08°C a massive +1.97°C above the 1961-1990 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. It’s closest rival is the year 2014 with a mean of 11.72°C. I can’t see 2022 being beaten now, the only thing that might stop it is if we get a repeat performance of December 2010, which to be honest looks highly unlikely.
I can count at least twelve new daily maximums that have occurred this year (red diamonds), and another seven new daily high minimums as well. If you like me like snowy winters this graph does make pretty bleak viewing, with few in the way of air frosts.
