This year, Russia experienced its warmest winter since records began, with temperatures in most regions of the country six to eight degrees centigrade higher than average. Reading about this a few days ago made me less anxious about the accuracy of the Koltsovo data. The station in Yekaterinburg recorded running average mean temperatures 7°C above Pre-Industrial throughout March. Each week since then has been cooler than the one before, an experience largely shared by the other four northern hemisphere stations.

Even with the cooling in the last seven or eight weeks, the Northern Five are still over twice as warm as last year. The IPCC has projected a global temperature of 1.065°C above P-I at year-end, (based on an even rise of 0.0217 degrees per annum from 2017). The math is simple and yields a notional warming rate of 92 times greater than the IPCC projection in 2020 to date. Last year’s warming rate was a tenth of that.

How are the Southern Five faring?

I have mentioned before how much cooler the south is this year. There has been a slight rise and levelling over the last four weeks but overall the “warming rate” is negative, expressed in the chart as x 24 “cool rate”. The southern hemisphere last year was warmer than the north (at the 5 stations), though not by much. Unless something remarkable happens, the south will not climb above the IPCC’s 1.065 degrees above P-I by the end of November.

Combining North and South gives the 10 station globe at Week 24 a running average mean temperature of 1.81°C above P-I, a warming rate of x34. Last year ended at 1.35°C, warming 14 times more than the IPCC projection. The noticeable global cooling from Week 16 has become less steep recently  but I don’t think we’ll reach my “mini globe’s” 2.2 degrees above P-I peak, experienced in the first week of March.

Flower 16 · Leopard’s Bane

Slowly spreading up the ravine after wildflower seeding following post-flood restoration about 11 years ago. (With red campion, cow parsley and hogweed.)