The University of Maine in the United States has put online a tool that is both super interesting and particularly distressing since it allows you to follow the evolution of the Earth's temperature: Climate Reanalyzer.
Regularly used by the media and other whistleblowers, this tool from the Climate Change Institute is really very well designed to highlight temperature anomalies for a given year.
What is the Climate Reanalyzer tool used for?
Climate Reanalyzer is not an official government tool, but its use is increasingly common in climate studies. climate change because of the accuracy and accessibility of its data. This platform has been collecting freely accessible climate information since 1979 and offers a visual and detailed representation of the evolution of temperatures over the years.
In the context of climate change, each year seems to surpass the previous one in terms of average temperatures. 2022 was the warmest year on record, but projections for 2023 already show a significant increase. Although the increase appears to be only 1°C, this extra degree can cause extreme weather events, accelerate the melting of ice caps and increase ocean temperatures.
How the Climate Reanalyzer website works
The Climate Reanalyzer website provides time series visualizations and maps of daily mean air temperature measured at 2 meters above ground level, obtained from publicly available data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System (CFS). The versions of CFS used are: the 2 Version (from April 2011 to today) and the CFS Reanalysis (from January 1979 to March 2011).
The CFS/CFSR is a numerical climate and weather modeling framework that ingests surface, radiosonde, and satellite observations to estimate the state of the atmosphere with hourly temporal resolution starting from January 1, 1979. The horizontal grid resolution is 0,5°x0,5° (approximately 55 km at 45°N).
Temperature anomalies are taken with reference to the 1979-2000 climatology for each specific day of the year. Therefore, the daily mean temperatures presented here are estimates calculated from the NCEP CFS/CFSR dataset, and any apparent record values should be considered in that context. For monthly and annual global temperature averages from 1880 to the present, reference can be made to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climatology at a Glance.
Understanding the Earth's Temperature Graph
At the very top of the Climate Reanalyzer page, you will find a time series graph showing the average day-by-day temperatures for the current year for a given area (Worldwide, Northern or Southern Hemisphere, Tropics, Arctic or Antarctic). This average is visualized in comparison to all the average temperature curves since 1979, the average temperatures over the entire period and 2 curves delimiting an interval constituted by +2/-2 standard deviations.
Below the graph, the legend with all the curves allows you to display or hide all or part of the years and curves by clicking on them. To go faster, "Hide all" buttons (Hide All) and “Show all” (Show All) are positioned at the bottom right of the graph.
Below the graph, a temperature map shows all the temperatures on Earth for the given day. A "Show T2 Anomaly Map" / "Show T2 Map" button allows you to switch between a temperature anomaly view and a temperature view.
Another interesting element is an “Export Chart” button that allows you to save your chart in various formats (PNG, JPG, PDF, JSON, SVG).
In conclusion, the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer tool provides an invaluable perspective on how Earth’s temperatures have changed since 1979. Although non-governmental, it is increasingly recognized for its accuracy and accessibility, helping to raise awareness about global warming. Its use continues to gain traction among researchers, media outlets, and climate activists, who use it to highlight annual temperature anomalies and upward trends.
As we continue to navigate an era of record temperatures, Climate Reanalyzer remains an invaluable resource for informing and warning about the impacts of climate change.
