Temperature in Moscow in January - is there a global warming?

Recently, people constantly talk about climate change, global warming and other events, lamenting that every year the severe Russian winter is getting closer to the European, and the mild summer is more like a tropical one. Let's try to figure out if everything is bad with our climate. And as a material for analysis, we will be served by the temperature in Moscow in January.

general information

According to its geographical location, the capital belongs to the temperate continental climate zone, so according to all the laws of meteorology, the air temperature in Moscow in January should be no more than twenty degrees with a minus sign. Absolute maximum, by the way, fixed by scientists, is minus nineteen, whereas the average minimum is minus seventeen Celsius.

In addition, the temperature in Moscow in January after the winter solstice does not drop below fifteen degrees. The historical maximum, incidentally, was plus four - not at all what you expect from the harsh Russian winter. So, in principle, we can not say that the first month of the year is as cold as it is commonly believed. Nevertheless, it is foolish to argue with dry statistical data.

Cases of bygone days

But back to the specifics. Analyzing the period from 2002 to 2012 (a decade in fact quite a long time), we can say that the average air temperature in January in Moscow was minus five degrees. The coldest year for the study period was 2010, then the average monthly temperature dropped to the canonical minus fifteen. In 2006, the second in the "coldness" year, the thermometer dropped to minus ten.

The warmest were 2007 and 2005 with minus one and minus two degrees respectively. So what is this - global warming or a banal coincidence? Let's try to get to the last information.

And what today?

In the period from 2012 to 2016, the situation has not changed significantly. Temperature in Moscow in January was an average of minus seven degrees. At the same time, the year 2015 was the warmest year with a record minus three. Of course, many will now notice that this year there was no winter at all, but at the same time January-2016 was characterized by a rare instability: at the beginning of the year the weather pleased us with frosts to minus twenty, in some cases fixed even minus twenty six, but by the end Month, the temperature rose to the most record plus four, thereby exceeding the norm of recent years by thirteen degrees.

conclusions

So what is it - the temperature in Moscow in January? It is one thing - documented information, certain meteorological canons and other scientific data, and the other - the reality that we face every day. It is possible to say with certainty that in recent years the temperature is definitely much higher than normal. And than it is possible to explain it - to tell very much and it is very uneasy. The only thing that remains for us is to wait for the next winter to either make sure there is a tendency to increase the average monthly temperature in January, or to disprove its existence, writing off everything not on global processes, but on the influence of various factors like cyclones and sea currents.