April another record

Yet another record month.  Global temperatures have now risen 1C above the 20th century average.  That increase has all happened in the last 40 years.

Source

The chart shows the 12 month average to April each year.  Note the obvious spike.  There were similar spikes in previous strong el niño years--1997, 1982.  But notice (a) that each major el niño is higher than the previous one and (b) even though temperatures fall for a couple of years after the el niño year, they soon get back to the same levels again.  In any case, what happens during an el niño is that heat already absorbed into the ocean is released into the atmosphere.  Most of the heat caused by the greenhouse effect of rising atmospheric CO2 has gone into the atmosphere.  During an el niño a small proportion of that is released into the atmosphere.  So saying the temperature spiked is caused by an el niño and that therefore we don't have to worry about it ("global temps are not rising") is wrong.  Note the strong uptrend since the late 1970s.  The el niños are just fluctuations around that trend.

Very depressing.  

To balance this, I'll have some good news in the next post.