A Supposedly "Colder" 2017 Turned Out To Be Globally Near Record Hot

Both NOAA and NASA made it official today.

Red planet? Global temperature map shows for 2017
almost the entire planet was warm. (pink and red depicts
warm. Blue is cool, grey is no data.)

Depending upon how you measure it, the year 2017 was either the second or third hottest year on record for Planet Earth.

I wouldn't quibble too much on whether it was actually second or third hottest. The difference in measurement comes out to a tiny, tiny fraction of a fraction of a degree, and the data from both agencies is in strong agreement.

Both NASA and NOAA agree that Earth's five warmest years have all taken place since 2010. That's pretty damn recent history.

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, 2017 ended up being the third hottest on record, behind 2016 and 2015.

What's most notable about the 2017 data is there was no El Nino last year. El Ninos tend to warm up the Earth's atmosphere. The combination of El Nino and human-caused global warming were the two biggest drivers making 2015 and 2016 the hottest.

The inference to this is that 2017 should have cooled down more than it did.

By the way, if you are under 41 years old, you've never seen a year globally that was at least a tiny bit cooler than the the 20th century average. Starting in 1978, each year has been warmer than normal.

Despite the chill in our tiny little corner of the globe here in the Northeast U.S. December, 2017 on a global basis was the fourth warmest on record, says NOAA.

There's still a La Nina going on, which tends to cool the Earth's atmosphere on the whole a little bit. So we'll see if 2018 continues a subtle global "cooling" trend, such as it is, or not.

Geeky But Wicked Cool NASA Video Shows Sea Salt, Smoke And Hurricane Interaction

An image from NASA's visualization of aerosols in the
atmosphere during the hurricane season. The blue and
white swirls over the oceans are hurricanes and other
storms concentrating sea salt in the atmosphere. The ghostly
white stuff in western North America is smoke from wildfires.

I just came across a cool visualization video that shows how aerosols in the atmosphere such as sea salt, smoke from wild fires and dust from the Sahara Desert interact and move around the world.

I know, I know, it sounds just a bit dull and science-y, but definitely watch the video at the bottom of this post. It's mesmerizing. Even to people who aren't weather geeks.

Says NASA:

"This visualization uses data from NASA satellites, combined with mathematical models in a computer simulation (that) allows scientists to study physical processes in our atmosphere. By following the sea salt that is evaporated from the oceans, you can see the storms of the 2017 hurricane season."

That is perhaps the most striking feature of the video. You can see high concentrations of salt gathered up in strengthening and strong hurricanes like Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia.

A unique feature of Ophelia that you can see in the video is how it sucked up sea salt, like all hurricanes do, but also Saharan dust and smoke from deadly wildfires in Portugal, and that helps explain the odd smoky skies over Britain as Ophelia and its post-tropical remnants blustered through.

Another fascinating part of the video is how you can see wildfires break out in western and northern Canada, and in the western United States, then watch the smoke blow across the continent and over to  Europe and Asia.

The erupting wildfires are seen as dense pinpoint plumes of smoke before the smoke and ash disperse over wide areas.

The video sure helps explain why the sky was so often hazy and smoky over Vermont in August and September. A lot of wildfire smoke blew our way.

Smoke from the increasing trend of wildfires is raising health concerns as all the additional smoke from longer and more intense fire seasons is affecting human health, especially in areas relatively close to the fires.

You'll probably want to watch the video repeatedly to catch all the activity going on with the hurricanes, salt and smoke.

Here's the video: