2009 set to be one of the warmest on record

The global temperature is forecast to be more than 0.4 °C above the long-term average, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.

This would make 2009 the warmest since 2005 and climate scientists at the Met Office are also predicting the likelihood of record temperatures after 2009.

The forecast has been reached using a Met Office climate model and includes an updated decadal forecast.

Each January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, issues a forecast of the global surface temperature for the coming year. The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as El Niño and La Niña – which cause abnormal warming and cooling of surface ocean and land temperatures – increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the cooling influences of industrial aerosol particles, solar effects and natural variations of the oceans.

The global temperature for 2009 is expected to be 14.44 °C. The warmest year on record is 1998, which was 14.52 °C, a year dominated by an extreme El Niño.

“Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña have a significant influence on global surface temperature,” said Professor Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre, which advises the UK Government on climate change research. “Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Niña has given way to a weaker La Niña. Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Niño develops."

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, warned that global warming should not be dismissed because of cyclical changes in weather.
"The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away,” he said. “What matters is the underlying rate of warming - the period 2001-2007, with an average of 14.44 °C, was 0.21 °C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000."