Tuesday, NASA released a blockbuster claim that 2009 tied for the second warmest year in recorded history! And Wednesday, NOAA details the warming we’ve seen in January 2010. While the majority of the United States was unequivocably cold, the majority of the world was very warm (or hot in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer).

Here are some excerpts. You can read the entire story here.

Global Highlights

• The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). This is the fourth warmest January on record.
• The global land surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.83°C (1.49°F) above the 20^th century average of 2.8°C (37.0°F)—the twelfth warmest January on record. Land areas in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record for January. In the Northern Hemisphere, which has much more land, comparatively, land surface temperatures were 18^th warmest on record.
• The worldwide ocean surface temperature for January 2010 was the second warmest—behind 1998—on record for January, 0.52°C (0.94°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.8°C (60.5°F). This can be partially attributed to the persistence of El Niño across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC), El Niño is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.

In the Fargo area according to the NWS monthly climate data:

 JANUARY 2010 AT FARGO BEGAN EXTREMELY COLD WITH A RECORD MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF 33 BELOW SET ON THE 2ND…A DEGREE COLDER THAN THE 32 BELOW SET IN 1885. TEMPERATURES MODERATED AFTER THE FIRST WEEK AND ENDED UP AVERAGING 8.4 DEGREES WHICH IS 1.6 DEGREES WARMER THAN NORMAL.

What are you thinking?? Are you a climate change believer?

-Meteorologist Hayley LaPoint