UAH: Global Temperature Dives in May

3 06 2008

Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting, (here and here), the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008.

It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.

The global ∆T from April to May 2008 was -.195°C

UAH
2008 1 -0.046
2008 2 0.020
2008 3 0.094
2008 4 0.015
2008 5 -0.180

Compared to the May 2007 value of 0.199°C we find a 12 month ∆T is -.379°C.

But even more impressive is the change since the last big peak in global temperature in January 2007 at 0.594°C, giving a 16 month ∆T of -0.774°C which is equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon “global warming signal” of the last 100 years.

Click for a larger image
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data

I’m betting that RSS (expected soon) will also be below the zero anomaly line, since it tends to agree well with UAH. HadCRUT will likely show a significant drop, I’m going to make a SWAG and say it will end up around 0.05 to -0.15°C. GISS; I’m not going to try a SWAG, as it could be anything. Of course anomalies can change to positive on the next El Nino, but this one seems to be deepening.

Update 06/05/08: Per MattN’s suggestion, changed link above for snow melt to news stories from previous link to National Snow and Ice Center


Comments : 230 Comments »

Categories : Science, climate_change

Another record month!

3 06 2008

Ah, bet you thought I was talking about temperature didn’t you?

Nope, I’m talking about you folks – all my readers that have helped make this blog what it is. Thanks to you I’ve hit another traffic high with over 402,000 unique page views for the month of May.

At the same time, I find myself the #1 blog on all of WordPress.com today, something else that have never happened.

I’ve put together the traffic graph and the screencap from the WordPress Global Dashboard that ranks the blogs below:

Thanks to all of you who visit and contribute comments. I’m honored to have you visit my home on the Internet. – Anthony


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Categories : Uncategorized

NASA Press Office Is Criticized on Climate Reports – Hansen news trend still postive

3 06 2008

From the New York Times a story on a GAO report looking into “interference” with public releases of climate science at NASA:

Two years after James E. Hansen, the leading climate scientist at NASA, and other agency employees described a pattern of distortion and suppression of climate science by political appointees, the agency’s inspector general has concluded that such activities occurred and were “inconsistent” with the law that established the space program 50 years ago.

In a 48-page report issued on Monday as a result of a request in 2006 by 14 senators, the internal investigative office said the activities appeared limited to the headquarters press office.

No evidence was found showing that officials higher at NASA or in the Bush administration were involved in interfering with the release of climate science information, the report said.

Read the complete article here

Even with a reluctant NASA press office, it seems Jim Hansen has had no trouble making the news. The trend appears to be about 5000 articles/decade upwards. It seems to mirror the GISTEMP global temperature anomaly trend quite well.
Source: Roger Pielke Jr. Prometheus

Here’s a thought, maybe with Hansen spending so much time with the press, perhaps the press office just became a little bit numb to it all and spent “too much” time on getting the word out on other important science news from the agency?

In any event, Dr. Hansen has been heard far and wide.


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Categories : Uncategorized

Army Chief Scientist: “Sun’s turbulent dynamics” driving climate

3 06 2008

http://www.armytenmiler.com/Upload/images/Army-Logo.gif
From Wired Magazine:

The Army is weighing in on the global warming debate, claiming that climate change is not man-made.  Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research Office, argues that “changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to … the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles.”

In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West, the chief scientist of the Army Research Office’s mathematical and information science directorate, wrote that “the Sun’s turbulent dynamics” are linked with the Earth’s complex ecosystem. These connections are what is heating up the planet. “The Sun could account for as much as 69 percent of the increase in Earth’s average temperature,” West noted.

It’s a position that puts West at odds with nearly every major scientific organization on the planet. “The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling,” Science magazine observes. So has the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, for their work on global warming.

West acknowledges that the IPCC and other scientific groups have “conclude[d] that the contribution of solar variability to global warming is negligible.” He argues that these groups have done a poor job modeling the Sun’s impact, however, and that’s why they have “significantly over-estimated” the “anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”

In recent days, the science and politics of climate change have once again taken center stage. NASA’s Inspector General just issued a report, acknowledging that political appointees “reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.” Yesterday, the Senate began debating a bill that would cap carbon dioxide emissions — considered one of the leading causes of man-made global warming.


Comments : 30 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized