Temperature Updates for January 2018 - Surface Data

A quick update on global temperatures for January 2018, focusing on surface data - specifically that for NASA's GISTEMP, and the Met Office Hadley Centre HadCRUT.

Anomalies

GISTEMP gives the anomaly for January as 0.78°C, compared with the 1951-1980 base period. This makes January 2018 the 5th warmest January in their data set.

HadCRUT gives the anomaly for January as 0.553°C, compared with the 1961 - 1990 base period. This makes 2018 the 8th warmest January.

These graphs show the monthly data, a 12 month rolling average and the trend since 1970 (the period I use for the predictions). They also show the current month as a red dot.

Comparisons

Here are all the anomalies for January 2018. For each data set the temperature has been adjusted to show the anomaly against the common base period of 1981 - 2010.

GISTEMP	+0.325°C
HadCRUT	+0.229°C
NOAA	+0.260°C
BEST	+0.365°C
UAH 6	+0.260°C
RSS 4	+0.401°C

Predictions for 2018

As we only have one month so far these predictions are not likely to be too meaningful. They are based on extrapolations from previous January figures, and a linear trend since 1970, but as January only makes up 1/12 of the year, the predictions are going to be very close to simply looking at the linear trend. As a result both predictions have 2018 finishing warmer than January, which seems unlikely. The trend is probably inflated slightly by the recent succession of very hot years.

For GISTEMP the prediction is for 2018 to be 0.813 ± 0.139°C.

For HadCRUT the prediction for 2018 is 0.64 ± 0.156°C.