State of the climate: 2020 set to be first or second warmest year on record

With the data now in for the first half of the year, Carbon Brief estimates that 2020 is most likely to be either the warmest or second warmest year on record, depending on the approach used to calculate global temperatures.  

Global surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over the first half of 2020, tying with the record warmth seen in 2016. This is particularly remarkable because El Niño conditions have been largely “neutral” in 2020 to-date, unlike 2016 which was considerably boosted by an extremely strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific.

Additionally, June 2020 was the warmest or second warmest June since records began in 1850 across most of the surface temperature datasets analysed by Carbon Brief. 

A number of extreme heat events characterised the first six months of 2020; Australia saw record heat, while Siberia has experienced staggering heat for much of the first six months of the year – with northern Siberia around 7C warmer than the preindustrial period. This level of extreme heat would have been almost impossible in the absence of human-caused global warming, scientists recently concluded.

Arctic sea ice has also been at record low levels for most of the month of July. While it is too early to know for sure where the summer minimum will end up, 2020 will likely see one of the lowest Arctic sea ice extents on record.

Record heat in first six months

The first six months of 2020 were remarkably warm, either tied with or just a bit behind 2016, currently the record warmest year. Carbon Brief has analysed records from six different research groups that report global surface temperature records: NASA ; NOAA ; Met Office Hadley Centre/UEA ; Berkeley Earth ; Cowtan and Way ; and Copernicus/ECMWF .

The table below shows the ranking of months – with “1” indicating the warmest temperature on record for that month. Months that were the warmest or tied for the warmest on record are highlighted in green.

 
NASA GISTEMP
Hadley/UEA HadCRUT4
NOAA GlobalTemp
Berkeley Earth
Cowtan&Way
Copernicus/ECMWF

Jan
2nd
1st
1st
2nd
2nd
1st

Feb
2nd
2nd
2nd
2nd
2nd
2nd

Mar
2nd
2nd
2nd
4th
2nd
4th

Apr
1st
2nd
2nd
1st
1st
2nd

May
1st
1st
1st
1st

1st

June
1st*
4th
3rd
1st

2nd

Rankings of 2020 temperatures by month across different datasets. Note that Hadley, Berkeley, and Cowtan and Way to back to 1850, NASA and NOAA go back to 1880, and Copernicus/ECMWF is only available since 1979. *June 2020 NASA data is exactly tied for 1st...