Place your bets: Make your call on 2010 global average temperature

Year end wrap up:

Real science? Nah.

Recall in Post 1, this thread was a bet on whether or not the NASA GISS series would break the annual record for global temperature anomaly. From post #1:

"So, do you think 2010 will break the record? That's based on the NASA GISS combined land-sea index as cited above? Yes or no, and if you want to offer a reason, please do, I'd like to hear it. I'll refresh this thread from time to time, and in January 2011, God willing, we'll see how the predictions fared.

Oh, my bet: It's a horse race. Objectively, we're at the peak of the El Nino and we're only marginally over the all-2005 average (the warmest year in the instrumental record). But yes, I'll bet that it breaks the record."

We've been all over why this isn't very smart, why it's not good science, why it does and/or doesn't matter, and so on. All that's left is to keep score.

One more preliminary: Those of you who are scientists or have some common sense (or both) will understand why I had to specify the series of record up front, not pick it after the fact.

Yes, it looks like the GISS series (barely) made a new record. The data may be revised up to a couple of months later, and NASA does a better average than I do (I just average the 12 monthly readings.) So that's not absolutely certain. But as of this writing (1/12/2011), this appears to be the warmest year on record, per the GISS analysis.

Of the other series:

Tthe RSS satellite series (which ignores the poles) clearly did not hit a new high. I discussed above why omitting the poles matters.

The UAH satellite series barely did not make a new high (2010 is the second warmest year per that series). Something I have never quite figured out is that RSS says the data from the poles is not reliable enough to be used, but ... UAH appears to use it. (Aside: UAH rebased their series this month, so all the numbers will change when compared to last month.)

The NCDC data have not been published at this time, and will likely either be a new record or very close to one.

And the Brits? The Hadley series (not shown) is very far from their record. As with RSS, this is plausibly attributable to their omission of the poles from their data.

EDITS:

NOAA/NCDC calls it a tie with 2005 (although they have not posted the monthly data yet):

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2010/13

And although 2010 is slightly higher, NASA GISS is also calling it tied with 2005, because the difference is less than the uncertainty in the estimate:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110112/

As stated in the original post, the rule for this year-long bet is that a tie goes to the runner, i.e., 2010 counts as the warmest year on record, per the GISS series.