365 Days of Climate Awareness 150 – 2008 State of the World Climate

 2008 World Climate Data

• Global atmospheric CO₂ concentration: 385.02 ppm, +2.12 ppm from 2007
• Surface air temperature anomaly: +0.54°C/0.97°F, 21^st all-time 1880-2021
• Precipitation 3.5 mm (0.3%) above 1961-1990 global average
• Global mean sea level 7.35  mm above 1993-2008 average, +2.25 mm from 2007
• Antarctic ozone hole: max. area 27.0 million km²; minimum O₃ 101 DU (Dobson Units)
• ENSO: La Niña through July; neutral through November; La Niña through year’s end

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Global Conditions

• Above-average temperatures: Northern Europe, northern Asia, Australia
• Below-average temperatures: Colombia
• Below-average precipitation: Hawaiian Islands, southeastern Africa, southern Europe, northern India, southeastern South America, southern Australia
• Extreme precipitation: western Africa, northern South America, southeastern Asia

Methane (CH₄) content in the atmosphere increased 7.5 ppb between 2006 and 2008, likely because of burning biomass (which releases methane as well as carbon dioxide). Temperature-related release of methane hydrates from the ground and sea floor is unlikely to lead to such a spike, though that is not impossible. Carbon monoxide (CO) content also rose during this time, also likely due to biomass burning in the tropics and far north. CO itself is not a greenhouse gas but interacts chemically with hydroxide (OH^-) ions in the atmosphere, impeding the breakdown and lengthening the residence time of methane. For this reason, emissions of CO are considered, in terms of radiative forcing, equivalent to CH₄.

To quantify the contributions of greenhouse gases to Earth’s climate, NOAA monitors them worldwide. The IPCC and other scientific groups estimate how much radiative forcing—the additional energy, in the form of watts per meter squared (W/m²)--changes in greenhouse gas, among other factors, contribute to Earth’s climate. These data streams, along with temperature records from around the world, are the foundation of climate change monitoring.

Ice loss around the world continued the trend of recent decades, with mountain glaciers in sustained retreat. Greenland’s glacial melt season was 8 days longer than in 2007, and the melt index (number of melt days multiplied by area undergoing melting) 300% the 1979-2007 average. Though sea ice did reach a record maximum for late austral summer (early 2008), the Wilkins ice shelf underwent rapid melting and collapsed.

NOAA's global climate monitoring network

Tomorrow: 2009 State of the Climate, North America.

Be brave, and be well.

NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index