Global Temperature Update: November 2017

NOAA released its monthly global temperature analysis for November 2017 this morning. 

Over land and ocean surfaces combined, it was the 5th warmest November on record, tied with 2016. Records go back to 1880. Some highlights:

• November was 1.35°F (0.75°C) above the 20th century average of 55.2°F (12.9°C)

• The global ocean temperature was the 4th warmest on record for November, even with La Niña in the Pacific

• Over land surfaces only, it was the 9th warmest November on record

• September through November (meteorological fall in the northern hemisphere) was the 4th warmest on record

2017 year-to-date:

• The global average temperature over land and ocean surfaces was 1.51°F (0.84°C) above the 20th century average of 57.2°F (14.0°C), the 3rd highest since records began in 1880. Only 2015 and 2016 were warmer.

NOAA calculations resemble the analysis released by NASA today, indicating that November was the 3rd warmest on record globally. This small difference reflects the fact that NASA’s calculations are extended to account for temperature changes at the poles, where there are far fewer monitoring stations, whereas the NOAA calculations exclude this extrapolation.

To better gauge how much warming has taken place since the early industrial era, and with reference to the 2°C warming threshold agreed upon at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, we have combined the NASA and NOAA analyses and compared them to a 1881-1910 baseline (enclosed bar chart). Using these calculations indicates that November 2017 was 1.06°C (1.91°F) above that early industrial baseline.