"The 00s" the Hottest Decade on Record

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 12. 8.09
Science & Technology, TreeHugger.com

One of the biggest problems with the years 2000-2009 is that there was no agreed-upon, easy-to-say decade name. No 'nineties' or 'twenties.' No, instead, some people argued for the 'aughts' or, occasionally, the 'zeroes' (lame), but we pretty much came up nil. But just eclipsing that--just barely though--is another one of the decade's biggest problems: it has been confirmed that it will have been hottest on record.

Here's the news, via Climate Progress and the New York Times:

it is official from the World Meteorological Organization, in their news release today "2000-2009, The Warmest Decade":

The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989).

The NYT story was based on the WMO release early today, but NOAA's National Climatic Data Center also reports today:

The 2000 - 2009 decade will be the warmest on record, with its average global surface temperature about 0.96 degree F above the 20th century average. This will easily surpass the 1990s value of 0.65 degree F.

As for data on 2009, turns out it's been a pretty exceptionally warm year as well:

As for 2009, it is on track to be the 5th warmest the way WMO calculates global temps, which figures in the Hadley/CRU data. But 2009 could easily be as high as the second warmest in the NASA dataset, which is almost certainly more accurate than the Hadley/CRU dataset

And let me reiterate that NONE OF THE NOAA DATA WAS COLLECTED BY THE CRU. The data supporting the charge that the 00s was the hottest decade on record was collected by two different, completely separate sources: the World Meteorological Organization, which figures in CRU data, and the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center--which is free from whatever perceived taint there might be by the 'climategate' non-controversy. And guess what? Both data sets arrive at the same conclusions.

I wish anthropogenic climate change weren't happening, I really do. But there's more evidence than ever that it is, and it's getting worse. It's time to stop the bickering and to start taking it seriously again.