Global 2020 Temperatures Essentially Tied As Hottest On Record

The new red planet? Almost the whole world was warmer
than average in 2020, making it essentially tied as'the
warmest year on record.

 NOAA came through last Thursday with their analysis of global temperatures for 2020, and as expected, the news wasn't good.  

The just past year was essentially tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record.  To be precise, 2020 was almost imperceptibly a skosh cooler than 2016.

The year 2020 knocked down 2019 to third place in the hottest list. 

While NOAA's analysis puts 2020 at Number Two on the hot list, other scientific organizations call it a tie with 2016.  Says NOAA:

"NASA scientists, who conducted a separate but similar analysis, have determined that 2020 ties 2016 as the warmest year on record, sharing the first-place spot. 

Scientists from Copernicus also have 2020 tying with 2016 as the warmest year on record, while the United Kingdom Met Office ranked 2020 as the second-warmest year on record"

In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter whether 2020 tied with 2016 or was a teensy bit cooler.  You have to look at the multi-year trend, which isn't good. From BuzzFeed news:

"'The past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record,' said Lesley Ott, a NASA researcher. So regardless of where individual years fall, 'the consistency of the most recent ears being the warmest is very, very clear' she said. "

LA NINA/OTHER FACTORS

 By all rights, 2020 shouldn't have been that warm. Much of the year was dominated by a La Nina ocean and air pattern in the eastern Pacific Ocean.  That tends to cool the globe a little bit, climate change notwithstanding. 

Despite the El Nina, 2020 was near a record high.

This El Nina is forecast to continue well into 2021.  Since the effects of a La Nina on the global climate tend to lag, it's highly unlikely 2021 will end up setting yet another record as the hottest on record. Still, scientists are virtually certain it will end up in the Top 10 hottest. 

You can see that minuscule cooling trend starting in the December, 2020.  The month was only the eight hottest on record. That one month probably prevented 2020 from being the warmest on record. 

One thing that might have worked a teeny, tiny bit in favor of making 2020 warmer was, believe it or not, the pandemic.  It caused, among a zillion other things, fewer cars and trucks on the roads globally. That meant less auto exhaust, which meant fewer tiny aerosols in the atmosphere from that pollution.

Those aerosols reflect sunlight a little bit, so with less global auto traffic, the sun was able to heat the atmosphere a smidge.

By the way, this isn't revisionist anti global warming stuff.  The aerosols from the cars fall out of the atmosphere pretty quickly. All that carbon dioxide from the cars, which contributes to global warming, stays in the atmosphere much longer. 

The 2020 temperature analysis is yet another screaming indicator of climate change. As BuzzFeed quoted:

"'This is a clear indication that the global signal from human-induced climate change is now as powerful as the force of nature,' Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement."

At least there's going to be a renewed effort to do something about it.  Soon to be ex-president Trump backed out of the Paris Climate Accord. 

However, Joe Biden, whose first day at work as U.S. President is tomorrow, says he will move to rejoin that accord within hours of being sworn in. 

Biden is also reported to be poised to cancel the Keystone oil pipeline, which has been a lightning rod for climate activists in the United States.  That pipeline would, if completed, bring 830,000 barrels of crude oil each day from Alberta, Canada to the U.S., eventually making it to refineries along the Gulf Coast. 

 Canceling the pipeline won't do much to mute climate change, but it is a symbolic gesture toward combating the problem.