365 Days of Climate Awareness 158 – 2012 State of the World Climate

2012 World Climate Data

• Global atmospheric CO₂ concentration: 392.65 ppm, +2.02 ppm from 2011
• Surface air temperature anomaly: +0.63°C/1.13°F, 15^th all-time 1880-2021
• Precipitation near 1961-1990 global average
• Global mean sea level 23.93 mm above 1993-2008 average, +10.89 mm from 2011
• Antarctic ozone hole: max. area 21.1 million km²; minimum O₃ 124 DU (Dobson Units)
• ENSO: Weak La Niña early 2012, neutral the rest of the year
• NAO: Negative (weak pressure difference north to south: colder in eastern US & northern Europe, warm in southern Europe)

Larger Version

Global Conditions

• Above-average temperatures: South America eastern, western & southern Africa; Indian Ocean islands;  Europe; the Middle East; northern Russia; India; Micronesia; Western Pacific; Australia
• Below-average temperatures: North Africa; central Russia; Mongolia; Northern China; Korean peninsula
• Above-average precipitation: Northern South America; England; Scandinavia; Mongolia; China
• Below-average precipitation: Brazil, southern South America; southern France; northern Italy; Hungary; Iberian Peninsula; Middle East; central India

Despite it being a neutral ENSO year, neither La Niña or El Niño, sea surface temperature was 0.45°C/0.81°F above the 20th century average of 16.1°C/60.9°F, the 10^th warmest annual SST at the time. The other nine were El Niño years, implying that SSTs throughout the rest of the world oceans were significantly higher (and in fact, throughout the northern oceans, some temperature anomalies were extreme). It is also borne out by the huge increase—over 1 cm—in sea surface elevation from the year before, due largely to global thermal expansion in the ocean after an extended and strong La Niña.

Though we do have the rough outlines of a global budget for thermal energy, beginning with the incoming 1360 W/m² of heat from the Sun, how and where that energy is sequestered on earth, especially as greenhouse gases increase the planet’s overall heat content, is one of the large-scale questions climate scientists are addressing. The ocean contains an estimated 90% of all heat added to Earth’s climate system through man-made climate change, which makes measuring its heat content and understanding the influxes and effluxes that much more important.

Tomorrow: 2013 State of the Climate, North America.

Be brave, and be well.