Thanks to Ian George for noticing this recent large change in the ranking of 2009 compared to 1998 in the BoM chart of annual mean temperature anomalies.
The charts come from the BoM Annual Australian Climate Statement 2011 and Annual Australian Climate Statement 2012.
Animation of the graphs for two years.
Seems there are more ‘adjustments’ visible with the use of the ‘blink map’. The decadal shading for the 1980s has even dropped (I suppose it will be corrected again shortly).
Another anomaly.
The 1998 summary says that the mean temp for that year was 0.73C above the 1961-90 average.
‘The Acting Director of Meteorology, Dr. Doug Gauntlett, said today that the Australian mean temperature for 1998 was 22.54 C, 0.73 C higher than the average for the 1961 to 1990 reference period.’
Yet the 2005 summary says:
‘The previous record of +0.84°C was set in 1998.’
So which is it? The 2001 summary graph still shows 1998 at 0.73C but this disappears within the next few years.
The 2011 and the 2012 graphs show it at around 0.8C (it appears higher in the 2012 graph than 2011).
There are so many ‘adjustments’ it would take much work to actually know what’s going on.
The Time Series Graph seems to confirm that 1998 was warmer than 2009.
www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmean&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=5