May was 3-way tied for 3RD warmest on NASA's 128-year record!

"The sustained rate of increase in radiative forcing from
CO2, CH4, N2O over the past 40 years is larger than at
any time during at least the past 2000 years."
-- IPCC WG1 AR4 TS.6.1 Robust Findings

Meanwhile, global mean surface temperatures also continue to rise.

These globally averaged temperature data come from NASA:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ta...LB.Ts+dSST.txt
They represent the results of tens of millions of readings
taken at thousands of land stations and ships around the globe
over the last 128 years. Yes, the land data are corrected for
the urban heat island effect. The sea data do not need to be.
There are few urban centers in the sea.

The last 127 yearly means of these data are graphed at:
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Glob...ean%20Temp.jpg

The Mean May temperature over the last 128 years is 13.958 C.
The Variance is 0.06158.
The Standard Deviation is 0.2482.

Rxy 0.80086 Rxy^2 0.64137
TEMP = 13.611355 + (0.005379 * (YEAR-1879))
Degrees of Freedom = 126 F = 225.335257
Confidence of nonzero correlation = approximately
0.99999999999999999999999999999 (29 nines), which is darn close to
100%!

The month of May in the year 2007,
is linearly projected to be 14.300,
yet it was 14.51. -- Above projected
The sum of the residuals is 15.30436

Exponential least squares fit:
TEMP = 13.61482 * e^(.0003838 * (YEAR-1879))
The sum of the residuals is 15.26074

Rank of the months of May
Year Temp C Anomaly Z score
1998 14.61 0.652 2.63
2002 14.57 0.612 2.47
2005 14.55 0.592 2.38
2007 14.51 0.552 2.22 --
2003 14.51 0.552 2.22
2001 14.51 0.552 2.22
2006 14.43 0.472 1.90
2004 14.37 0.412 1.66
1990 14.37 0.412 1.66
1988 14.37 0.412 1.66
1997 14.32 0.362 1.46
1983 14.30 0.342 1.38
1984 14.30 0.342 1.38
MEAN 13.958 0.000 0.00
1923 13.67 -0.288 -1.16
1898 13.66 -0.298 -1.20
1903 13.66 -0.298 -1.20
1910 13.66 -0.298 -1.20
1885 13.64 -0.318 -1.28
1893 13.64 -0.318 -1.28
1904 13.61 -0.348 -1.40
1909 13.61 -0.348 -1.40
1911 13.60 -0.358 -1.44
1913 13.60 -0.358 -1.44
1890 13.56 -0.398 -1.60
1918 13.56 -0.398 -1.60
1907 13.51 -0.448 -1.81
1917 13.46 -0.498 -2.01

The most recent 159 continuous months, or 13 years and 3 months,
on this GLB.Ts+dSST.txt data set are all above the 1951-1980
data set norm of 14 C.
There are 1529 months of data on this data set:
-- 645 of them are at or above the norm.
-- 884 of them are below the norm.
This run of 159 months above the norm is the result of a warming
world. It is too large to occur by chance at any reasonable level
of confidence. A major volcano eruption, thermonuclear war, or
meteor impact could stop this warming trend for a couple of years,
otherwise expect it to continue.