The State of the Climate in 2006 report summarizes the year’s weather and climate conditions, both globally and regionally. In addition, the year is placed into a long-term climatological context. Furthermore, notable events are also discussed. Overall global temperatures were fifth or sixth warmest on record, depending on the dataset, continuing an upward trend in temperatures. Many countries and regions experienced their record warmest year (or tied for warmest), including Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and China, as well as parts of Australia and Canada. In many regions, the warmth in 2006 is statistically indistinguishable from the record warmth in 1998. However, 1998 was influenced by the unprecedented warming associated with the record 1997/98 El Niño, whereas 2006 was marked by a 2005/06 La Niña that transitioned into a weak-to-moderate 2006/07 El Niño. Consistent with the warming, sea ice extent in both polar regions reached record or near-record minima. In addition, Antarctic ozone concentrations reached an all-time minimum. Also, carbon dioxide measurements increased in the atmosphere by 2.3 parts per million (ppm) in 2006 to reach a global average of 381.1 ppm. In the global oceans, sea levels were above average for ~80% of the ocean. The global mean sea level anomaly change of +6 mm from 2005 was the highest increase since the altimeter record began in 1993. Relative sea level change was also the highest ever recorded. Significant heat flux and current anomalies were observed in the regions of the 2006 El Niño and Indian Ocean dipole mode event. Despite the warmth around the globe, tropical cyclone counts were near average. However, Tropical Cyclone Larry made landfall in northern Australia as one of the most intense storms in decades. Following the record Atlantic hurricane season of 2005, the 2006 season was very quiet.
The climate of 1996 can be characterized by several phenomena that reflect substantial deviations from the mean state of the atmosphere persisting fro...
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is a major contributor to the observed year-to-year variability in the Pacific Ocean and in the glo...
The global climate during 1998 was affected by opposite extremes of the ENSO cycle, with one of the strongest Pacific warm episodes (El Niño) in the ...
The global climate during 1997 was affected by both extremes of the El NiÒoñSouthern Oscillation (ENSO), with weak Pacific cold episode conditions p...
From a global perspective, the annual average surface temperature in 2004 was the fourth highest value observed since regular instrumental records beg...
Neutral ENSO conditions at the beginning of 2002 gave way to a strengthening El Niño episode during boreal summer. Weather patterns in many areas of ...
The global mean temperature in 2008 was slightly cooler than that in 2007; however, it still ranks within the 10 warmest years on record. Annual mean ...
The combined land and ocean surface temperature in 2007 fell within the 10 highest on record, while the average land temperature was the warmest since...
The global climate during 1999 was impacted by Pacific cold episode (La Niña) conditions throughout the year, which resulted in regional precipitatio...
The possibility of long-term climate change continues to be a concern and focus for scientific investigations and for the development of government po...
The possibility of long-term climate change continues to be a concern and focus for scientific investigations, development of government policy, and p...
This report is designed to present a timely summary of recent observations of the global climate system and an early assessment and interpretation of ...
The year was characterized by a transition from a waning La Niña to a strengthening El Niño, which first developed in June. By December, SSTs were m...
Several large-scale climate patterns influenced climate conditions and weather patterns across the globe during 2010. The transition from a warm El Ni...
The State of the Climate 2005 report summarizes global and regional climate conditions and places them, where possible, into the context of historical...
The publication of this annual Climate Assessment is the second time we have attempted to summarize contemporary climate data and statistics on the st...
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