The first major meteorology group has announced that 2014 was the hottest year on record.
The Japan Meteorological Agency declared 2014 the hottest year on record for the planet. Other official groups were still going through and verifying data but there is little doubt they will come to the same conclusion very soon.
This is important for several reasons. First, the trend is relentless toward warmer temps for the planet. Since robust record keeping in the late 1800s for most locations the trend has been rising. Sure, you might get some cold years or even a decade, but the trend overall is up.
Second, it's important to recognize that these are global averages we are talking about. Regional difference matter in the short term, but have little impact on the global scale.
Let's go back to the famous Polar Vortex cold temps of last year. It was the first of many waves of cold weather affecting about half of the USA. If you live in that area it's tough to acknowledge that the planet was experiencing very warm temps. That was one exception to the rule however, and most places were very warm in 2014.
Over time the temps gradually came up for the Eastern USA and the entire planet was warmer than average except for one small blue area for Eastern USA by the end of the year.
Finally, we have a major flaw in our thinking about warming temps. We tend to focus and highlight land temps because that's where we live after all.
What is troubling is that most of the warming is taking place in the oceans and the more we look, the more we find to support that theory.
The image to the left shows the temperatures compared to average for the top layer of the ocean. There are areas of cooler temps but for the most part they are warmer than average. This map also shows much more mixing than the last few months with many more pockets of cooler water.
The problem is that when we look at depth we see warmer water setting the trend. Water takes much longer to heat up than air. Land temps are much more variable, but ocean temps keep with the trends much longer. Ocean surface is also 2/3rds of the planet and that should keep the warm trend around for a long time.
2014 was the warmest year on record, and there may be many more to come.
