"Will Hand" wrote in message
...
|
| "David Buttery" wrote in message
| ...
| On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:24:28 -0800, Dawlish wrote:
|
| http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...20091210b.html
| snip
|
| I can't say I'm too fond of the phrasing of this bit, dealing with 2009:
|
| "Recently released figures confirm that 2009 is expected to be the
fifth-
| warmest year in the instrumental record that dates back to 1850."
|
| I seem to remember saying this last year, but I really do wish the Met
| Office would wait until 1 Jan 2010 before telling us how warm 2009 was!
|
|
| I wonder if the very cold conditions over a lot of Europe/Russia expected
in
| the next half of the month will make a difference or do the El Nino SSTs
| dominate? I would prefer to see land figures only when talking about
| warmest/coldest as that's where humans live - on land. Are there any
| datasets available for land only?
|

Remember your spherical geometry. Half of the earth's surface is within 30
degrees north and south of the Equator and a substantial part of that is in
the Pacific Ocean (where El Nino lives). Only 15% of the earth's surface is
north of 45 degrees north and how much of that is Europe and west Russia?

This is why the tropics often dominate in such matters. There is just so
much more surface area there.
--
- Yokel -

"Yokel" posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.