Climate Change - The Warmest Winter - December 2015 to February 2016
The northern hemisphere winter , December 2015 to February 2016, was the warmest in the records.
The average temperature, taken for northern land and ocean surfaces, was
1.13°C above the 20th century average.
This was the highest for December, January and February in the 1880–2016 record, passing the previous record of 2007 by 0.29°C.
December 2015–February 2016 also marks the highest 3-month departure from average for any 3-month period on record.
It is interesting to note that there were some 'cold spots'.
There is an obvious 'blue blob' in the North Atlantic.
Some scientists have linked this to melt-water from Greenland.
“It is conspicuous that one specific area in the North Atlantic has been cooling in the past hundred years while the rest of the world heats up,” says Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The average temperature, taken for northern land and ocean surfaces, was
1.13°C above the 20th century average.
This was the highest for December, January and February in the 1880–2016 record, passing the previous record of 2007 by 0.29°C.
December 2015–February 2016 also marks the highest 3-month departure from average for any 3-month period on record.
It is interesting to note that there were some 'cold spots'.
There is an obvious 'blue blob' in the North Atlantic.
Some scientists have linked this to melt-water from Greenland.
“It is conspicuous that one specific area in the North Atlantic has been cooling in the past hundred years while the rest of the world heats up,” says Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The accumulated monthly total mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet measured from satellites, relative to June 2006 (dotted line). This curve ends in April 2015 at the end of the accumulation season. Source: Barletta et al. 2013.
Greenland is losing mass at about 250 bn tonnes per year.
