NOAA: Hottest April and hottest Jan-April on record

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly State of the Climate Report. It pretty much matches the NASA data. An emeritus physics professor writes me cautioning against the use of the word ‘anomaly’ since, “In many people’s mind, the word ‘anomaly’ means something unusual that is a temporary phenomenon.” He suggests “change,” which is probably better. Certainly for those who are communicating to the general public, like NOAA and NASA, ‘anomaly’ is a confusing word as used in these charts. And that is especially true because the recent temperature trend is anything but an anomaly — it is in fact a prediction of basic climate science. Indeed, besides the record April and record Jan-April, NOAA itself explain:

This was also the 34th consecutive April with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average.

So, yes, that isn’t really an anomaly any more — unless of course you are in the anti-science crowd, in which case the whole thing is one big mysterious deviation from the norm. …