NASA Aqua Sea Surface Temperatures Support a Very Warm January, 2010
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
When I saw the “record” warmth of our UAH global-average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) product (warmest January in the 32-year satellite record), I figured I was in for a flurry of e-mails: “But this is the coldest winter I’ve seen since there were only 3 TV channels! How can it be a record warm January?”
Sorry, folks, we don’t make the climate…we just report it.
But, I will admit I was surprised. So, I decided to look at the AMSR-E sea surface temperatures (SSTs) that Remote Sensing Systems has been producing from NASA’s Aqua satellite since June of 2002. Even though the SST data record is short, and an average for the global ice-free oceans is not the same as global, the two do tend to vary together on monthly or longer time scales.
The following graph shows that January, 2010, was indeed warm in the sea surface temperature data:
But it is difficult to compare the SST product directly with the tropospheric temperature anomalies because (1) they are each relative to different base periods, and (2) tropospheric temperature variations are usually larger than SST variations.
So, I recomputed the UAH LT anomalies relative to the SST period of record (since June, 2002), and plotted the variations in the two against each other in a scatterplot (below). I also connected the successive monthly data points with lines so you can see the time-evolution of the tropospheric and sea surface temperature variations:
As can be seen, January, 2010 (in the upper-right portion of the graph) is quite consistent with the average relationship between these two temperature measures over the last 7+ years.
[NOTE: While the tropospheric temperatures we compute come from the AMSU instrument that also flies on the NASA Aqua satellite, along with the AMSR-E, there is no connection between the calibrations of these two instruments.]
Are we to assume from this that the oceans are dumping a lot of energy?
DaveE.
new bbc poll: scepticism rising
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8500443.stm
I notice that the BBC have already jumped on this by closing their latest item about the growing skepticism of the British towards AGW with the following statement:
…and scientists in the USA have announced that this January has been recorded as the warmest ever.
High sea surface temperature means: COOLING. That’s nice!
Wow!..a 0.2 net difference!, I am sure everybody felt it!
CBS!
And Sen Inhofe:
On Spencer,
By the 2nd half of the year, SST will be down again.
I’ve been following the Arctic ice cap progress this year, and my impression is that although temperatures were frigid and the ice cap has grown as usual, warm ocean water has invaded and melted ice in a number of places.
Inhofe:
Very interesting. It will be even more interesting to see if this trend continues throughout 2010. With temps from two different instruments showing record warmth from the sea surface up through about 46,000 ft. , the year is starting out exactly as it would need to to become the warmest year on record. We are also seeing arctic sea ice for January near the low levels we saw in the disasterous year 2007 for sea ice extent…and less sea ice means of course even more warming for the oceans…
SOI
-80.41
Why would Spencer be surprised, his website has been showing Channel 5 in record territory all month? Even with the caveats about drift there’d be something seriously wrong if this wasn’t reflected by the Aqua results.
Is the terminology “sea surface temperature” reading the water temp on the surface, or the air temp above the surface? I’ve heard that the satellite only reads IR down to the lower troposphere and not the water surface.
Thanks,
Dan
The warmth must be causing the extra snow doen in Antarctica.
Double the snow of the previous years…
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/hub_neumayer_station_iii/?tx_list_pi1%5Bmode%5D=6&cHash=18afce990f
h/t Dirk Maxeiner
“Sorry, folks, we don’t make the climate…we just report it.”
Absolutely no need to apologise. The whole reason for this site is, to my mind, to get accurate and reliable data on which to base our hyptheses, no matter where that might lead us. It would be the height of hypocrisy to justifiably attack NOAA and CRU for their manipulation of the date and then to try and do the same to reliable data when it is in our hands.
There is no right or wrong, good or bad raw data. There are just right and wrong, good or bad ways of handling it. As long as contributors continue to be absolutely open with their data and how they have analysed it then they shouldn’t feel they have anything to apologise for.
One question by the way. How does this measurement tie in with the previous thread about dropping ocean heat content. My first instinctive reaction as someone who is ignorant of this subject is to think the two conflict with each other. Is this right or am I misinterpereting what the ocean heat content measurement is saying?
“There is no right or wrong, good or bad raw data.”
rereading that (with an eye to the whole question of station data) I realise that it is not quite true but I hope people get the drift of what I meant.
OT but sort of temperature related.
Forecasters seem to be missing the mark lately. On the supposed to be sunny days we are still overcast with low clouds and corresponding cooler temperature. Local forecasters are usually pretty good but the past couple of weeks they have really botched forecasts on the clouds and amount of rain.
Cosmic rays having an effect?
The scatter plot is quite clear. The difference in the two swings along that slop. Would be nice to have several more previous decades to see the over all long term trends. But since we do not there is nothing one can imply with this except that climate is far more complex than we, or anyone else, thinks.
So if the oceans are giving off heat/cooling and the heat is going to to the atmosphere where it in turn will give off heat/cool to space, should we be getting ready for a prolonged cooling period?
Buy long underwear.
OT, but continuing on the BBC theme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/02/much_has_been_written.html
I never thought I’d see this statement get through the BBC firewall (and there are several other comments like it too)
….
The mounting evidence is that climate scientists and their cheerleaders are simply looking for a problem where there isn’t one. When significant warming is now shown to be an Urban Heat Island effect and when data sets have clearly been manipulated in a way that creates more warming, and scientisits hide data and refuse requests for data then we skeptics see a huge red flag! With each revelation, the skeptics shout from the roof tops – see we were right – there really is something fishy here and the IPCC, Western Governments and media are all “jumping to conclusions”.
What about the impact of El Nino? What role does it play? Would it suggest that January, 2010 should be warmer or cooler than the data indicate? I understand that the current El Nino is, while stronger than usual, weaker than the record one in 1997-1998.
R. Gates (10:58:18) :
…… We are also seeing arctic sea ice for January near the low levels we saw in the disasterous year 2007 for sea ice extent…
You can also see that currently the ice is just above the 2005 level which ended up being comparable to 2009!!
R. Gates (10:58:18) :
Very solid argument…. to extrapolate for 2010 from a single data point…
By the way, 2006 was the year with the lower sea-ice extent but was way up for the summer sea-ice extent.
The words “record” (confused with ‘on record’) and “ever” make great headlines in the media but are utterly fallacious in earth science, especially if the “record” refers to… the last few decades. There is a lot of confusion in the media and the population about the relative time scale of everything related to anthropology, geology and climate and it seems to be worsening.
This is natural climate variability. It is one measurement of a complex system. Nothing that is happening is out of the ordinary or unusual.
The basic alarmist hypothesis, that a rise in the trace gas CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, remains as baseless as ever.