The Earth has chills and fever, and spots, or something

Here in Eastern Australia it is the Earth’s runny nose that is giving us problems.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/03/flannery-out-of-his-depth-as-flooding-rains-return/

Thus motivated I went off in search of the “hot stations” and the “cold stations” from the Hadley/CRU station data.

Did you find the stations covering the oceans (+70% of the Earth)? The poles? Oh, never mind.

I forgot to mention that Al Gore is a hypocrite and a liar. He has at least 2 large houses (one of which has 6 fire places) near the ocean front. I could go on about how his family got rich on Oxidental Oil but I will stop her for now. (He has the ‘carbon footprint’ of King Kong).

From the article:
“The map above shows all stations with an anomaly increase before 1960 greater than 0.4 deg.C in red. The blue points show all those stations with cooling or zero change since 1960.”
Why is the positive anomaly of 0.39 considered cooling? Or am I reading things incorrectly? If this is the case, then I would have to call this a bit deceptive. If not, my bad.
Cheers
JE

damn….it’s from that guy in Europe selling light bulbs as heaters……….
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg

Would be interesting if someone could overlay that with a map showing population concentrations.

Anybody else notice the “HADCRUT v4 will fix those deniers/skeptics” meme starting to circulate in the blog comments?
Clearly this type of analysis is just v3ry wrong (/sarc)

Excellent! I asked about this somewhere about 6 months ago, and got the reply that a ‘warming’ and a ‘cooling’ station could be sited virtually next door to one another (is that microclimate or ‘differential GISS adjustment’?).
So it seemed likely that there were ‘hot spots’ and ‘cold spots’ over the continents. Just blinking at the map, it looks like the warming is concentrated in Eurasia, and has left the ROW well alone.
Not so sure about your explanation though. Parts of E.Europe and Russia are in population decline, and ‘rapid industrialisation’ in this area masks a switch from Soviet-style heavy industry to more consumer-orientated light industry and services.
Also, S. America is still an area of comparatively rapid population and industrial growth, yet is a ‘cold spot’.
There just seems to be something about the N. Hemisphere vs the South, and the Arctic vs. the Antarctic. I’d love to see a simple, comprehensive explanation of this.

John Eggert says:
March 7, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Why is the positive anomaly of 0.39 considered cooling? Or am I reading things incorrectly?
It seems to me that anything between 0.01 and 0.40 is simply not shown by any dot. So ‘slight’ warming is not shown.

Are these figures before or after GISS adjustments?
We all know that GISS data adjustments/manipulations/torturing are essential for any temperature chart/trend/anomaly to be approved by the Team.
And without Team approval where would bad science be?

But Mosh said there is no UHI…

Something I have wondered in relation to UHI is about the spotting of thermometers that goes beyond UHI. I was reading a study about agriculture because gardening is a hobby of mine and was reading about how temperatures can vary by up to 5 degrees (F) and up to 10 in some cases depending on where you plant the crops and the floor beneath them.
This is all old research, and if this is the case, I would think this is a much larger systematic bias then UHI since most thermometers are sited in similar conditions, IE either at airports or for instance around parking lots or grassy fields or perhaps at people’s homes.
I have rarely seen one that is in a hilly location etc or around trees and those that are I would suspect are the outliers that are just thrown out for instance on weather underground as being 10 or more degrees off at times from other thermometers.
Just a hunch, but a systematic bias such as this would be more expected in industrialized countries where the town grows up around a station and the station is never moved. Perhaps its a version of UHI, but the ground is flattened over time to build the city etc, and unlike UHI and direct effects such as A/C vents, its much harder to point a finger at…..

cui bono said @ March 7, 2012 at 5:21 pm

There just seems to be something about the N. Hemisphere vs the South, and the Arctic vs. the Antarctic. I’d love to see a simple, comprehensive explanation of this.

Northern hemisphere CO2 is anthropogenic; Southern hemisphere CO2 is natural 😉

Location: Kiribati
Number of months of record ……89
Sea level trend (mm/year)…… -11.0

Sorry…..no reported rationing of land….yet. Meant “ratio”,

@benfrommo.
I have said before, that until someone goes out and systematically studies the history of EVERY land temperature site, both at the site itself and in the neighbourhood, and upwind (prevaling at the time measurements are taken), then the use of land temperatures over a time where we know there was a considerable amount of urbaniisation (1970-2000) is basically MEANINGLESS !!!
There is simple no way of knowing just how much the urbanisation has affected the measurements at any particular station unless you go out and look at its history over that period.. even then it would be very hit and miss.
And when warmists say that there is no UHI signature in the calculations.. I just laugh.
I suspect that a large proportion of the increase in the calculated value of the land-base ‘global average temperature’ over the period 1976 – 1996 is due to UHI effects and the so-called “loss” of data acquisition from many remote sites, (where did they all go ??). Odd that this happened just when the AGW bretheren were trying to make their case, and that once satellite measurements became accepted, the so-called “global temperature” stopped going up….just coincidence… I doubt it !!!

steven mosher said:

if it were uhi then uha and rss would not match the land trend as they both do.

You keep repeating that ad nauseum, yet those who’ve been keeping watch the last 25 years remember the “greenhouse effect” meme back then. Has the “theory” been amended?
According to AGW “theory”, the surface over land should not match satellite; it should be significantly lower.
Per Dr. Roy Spencer (I don’t recall where I quoted it from, but am sure Dr. Spencer will confirm 🙂 )

if the satellite warming trends since 1979 are correct, then surface warming during the same time should be significantly less, because moist convection amplifies the warming with height.

I don’t understand the significance of 0.4C as a measure of warming. One can produce a gridded color coded map using the GISS temperature data to determine which areas have warmed and how much.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=1&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=01&year1=1960&year2=2012&base1=1950&base2=1970&radius=250&pol=reg
It shows that a number of regions in the northern hemisphere have warmed between 1C and 4C. Are Scandinavia, Alaska, and Siberia which have a great deal of warming really places of rapid population growth and industrialization compared to other areas of the globe? Why hasn’t the US, Mexico and Southern China, which have had substantial industrialization and population growth seen warming, if urbanization is the reason for warming.
Climate models actually predict that the Southern Hemisphere, which has a larger fraction of ocean area will get warming much later than the northern hemisphere.

Inspired by the old 20:80 phenomenon, where 20% of X is often responsible
for 80% of Y, I’m wondering what the situation is regarding temperature
stations (TS) and land surface area. Can someone fill in the figures?
90% of TS cover 10% of the land area? Something like that?
To which I might add that all the talk about confidence levels and margins
of error are so much piffle, as they implicitly assume that the TS matrix is
some kind of survey. It’s not. It’s a dog’s breakfast, and no amount of
statistical jiggery-pokery will make it otherwise.

More on Kiribati.
From the Telegraph yesterday:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/kiribati/9127576/Entire-nation-of-Kiribati-to-be-relocated-over-rising-sea-level-threat.html
But they obviously don’t read their own back issues (03/06/2010)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/tuvalu/7799503/Pacific-islands-growing-not-shrinking-due-to-climate-change.html
Never let facts get in the way of a good headline…

Mike Smith, the speed you quote is just 0.6% of the speed of light.

A recent Japanese study (http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/41060.html) showed that the less industialised countries were emitting more CO2 than industrialised ones.
If this is true and CO2 is a cause of higher temperatures, shouldn’t Africa and South America have more red dots that the Northern hemisphere?
Perhaps the disparity is due to CO2 NOT being a well-mixed gas but it instantaneously migrates from the SH to the NH to cause them to have the red dots.
/sarc

Here we define “hot stations” as those yielding an average anomaly since before 1960 of more than 0.4 degrees C. “Cold stations” are defined as those showing a zero or a negative temperature anomaly since  1960.
————–
Would anyone like to justify the asymmetric temperature range? The only ones I can think of involve cheating.

So the author biased his study towards cold by his definition what is cold and what is hot:
“Here we define “hot stations” as those yielding an average anomaly since before 1960 of more than 0.4 degrees C. “Cold stations” are defined as those showing a zero or a negative temperature anomaly since 1960.”
I suppose “since before 1960” is a typo and should read “since 1960”.
Anyway, the blue/red dotted map has no value, it is total BS. It would have been interesting to see a map which shows for example those stations with more than 0.2 degree anomaly as a red dot and those stations with more than -0.2 degree cooling as a blue dot. Then the red/blue dots could be compared.

There is also an interesting relationship between the land area and temperature change which matches the pattern in this post and may suggest a solar contribution.
Using the satellite measures of Lower Troposhere Temperature changes and the area of land within 10o latitude bands the relationships are:
1) Mean Satellite Trop0sphere Temperature Trend as a Function of Land Area Centred on 10o Latitude bands (90S to 90N): y = 2.3717x – 0.0361 R2 = 0.4115
2) Mean Satellite Troposphere Temperature Trend as a Function of Land Area Centered on 10o Latitude bands (70S to 70N): y = 2.7006x – 0.0776 R2 = 0.8808
3) Mean Satellite Troposphere Temperature Trend as a Function of Land Area Centered on 10o Latitude bands (60S to 60N): y = 2.493x – 0.0577 R2 = 0.9087

It is possible for the world’s average tempertature to increase by one degree and the world become less hospitable to man. It is possible for the world’s average temperature to increase by two degrees and the world become more hospitable to man. It all depends on where the heating occurs and whether it is a matter of the lows being less low or the highs more high and when.
Throw in the fact that the inhospitality of the Earth’s ‘inhospitable parts’ is not a natural given but is a cultural got. The resources of the Earth are nothing until human resourcefulness and ingenuity sees what they are good for and how to get them. It’s all been said by Julian Simon.
We are in no position to know whether a little warming, whatever the cause, is to be feared or welcomed.

“Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Argentina all appear to be cooling.”
Since the blue can represent 0°C anomaly you can’t make any such claim from your research. A fairer test would be calculate all stations showing >+0.09°C anomalies in red (I see no good reason fror excluding sations showing between +0.1°C and +0.3°C, if you are reasoning that instumental accuracy renders them invalid then it follows you should also exclude stations showing anomalies between -0.1°C and -0.3°C), all showing <-0.09°C anomalies in blue and ignoring those showing no anomalies or showing them in a neutral colour. But you won't, because if you use all the data, not your cherry pick, you won't get a result you like.

Whilst I am unsure as to the quality of this article, the thrust of the article is of utmost umportance.
It is viatally important to consider in detail local not global variations.
First because of a practical issue, what effect ‘global’ warming may have on a country is bound up by its local response. If a country is warming and getting wetter, or warming and getting drier, or cooling and getting wetter, or cooling and getting drier, or if there is no significant trend at all, the effect on that country and the response needed to cope with ‘new’ conditions will be different.
Second, it may shed considerable light on the CO2 radiative theory. If CO2 is a well mixed gas, if half (or whatever percentage it is) of the global stations show no warming or even a cooling, why is this? The so called basic physics is clear. Any increase in CO2 levels MUST result in more DWLWIR which MUST increase temperature.Does DWLWIR play a part only at some latitutes/longitudes, if so why? Does more CO2 effect the air circulation patterns?
There is a great deal to be learnt by examining mtters on a local basis and on a max/min basis and on a diurnal basis. The world data that we possess is of questionable quality but it has not been sufficiently analysed to tell us how each country is responding on an average response basis, a min.max response basis, a diurnal basis etc. We would have a much better grasp of what is going on if we were to more thoroughly scrutinise the record.
As I have said numerous times before, it is for political reasons that noone is examing the record at regional basis. The claims that we are all in it together and a global response is required would fall apart, if the record were to be looked at regionally. If the record was examined regionally, there would be a greater prospect that each country would be minded to act on the basis of its own self interests.

@steven mosher says:
March 7, 2012 at 5:26 pm
“if it were uhi then uha and rss would not match the land trend as they both do.”
His second conclusion was this:
“2) Warming is observed in the Northern Hemisphere since 1950. This is concentrated in regions where rapid development and urbanisation are also occurring. It is therefore probable that some of these “hot stations” are affected by urbanisation warming rather than AGW. ”
After all it is seldom the truth that stuff is either or, so the conclusion is probably probable which he concludes. :p

Werner Brozek says:
March 7, 2012 at 9:43 pm
“steven mosher says:
March 7, 2012 at 5:26 pm
if it were uhi then uha and rss would not match the land trend as they both do.
Please explain why the land only slopes (red and purple) are steeper than the total slopes (green and blue).”
The heat capacity of the ocean is huge compared to the land. So the land will warm up faster then the ocean as a result of any heat flux imbalance.

davidmhoffer says:
March 7, 2012 at 10:02 pm
‘Eric Adler;
Are Scandinavia, Alaska, and Siberia which have a great deal of warming really places of rapid population growth and industrialization compared to other areas of the globe? Why hasn’t the US, Mexico and Southern China, which have had substantial industrialization and population growth seen warming, if urbanization is the reason for warming. >>>>>>>>
1. Nobody said that UHI was the EXCLUSIVE influence on the temperature trend. This look at the data suggests however that it is a SIGNIFICANT influence on the trend.
2. High latitude regions show a larger temperature fluctuation because P (watts per square meter) varies with T^4 (T*T*T*T). So, it takes a LOT of watts to influence temperature in warmer areas and very FEW watts to influence temperature in cold areas. So, for any given increase in w/m2 on a global basis, not much change in the tropics, and even less to summer highs and even less to day time highs. Much change however to high latitudes, much more to winter lows, and more still to night time lows.”
1. If you look at the GISS temperature map I linked in my post, showing negligible temperature increases in southern china and the US, where there is close to zero warming, compared to the region close to the Arctic circle, one would not conclude that the UHI was a signiicant contibutor in the southern part of the NH. So why would it be significant in the region near the Arctic circle where the warming is much greater.
Also, studies, published in the peer reviewed literature, have shown that elimination of urban stations from the data base, makes a negligible difference in the global temperature average. I don’t understand why this is still regarded as an issue by anyone familiar with the facts.
2. A great deal of the warming in the far north occurs during the winter time. It can’t be due to the solar input, because the sun isn’t in the sky above the Arctic circle in winter. It must be due to suppression of outgoing radiation. Since the north is very sparsely inhabited, such large changes in temperature cannot be due to urbanization. Certainly the loss of sea ice which is a feedback mechanism, is not going to be a result of urban heat Island effects.
REPLY: Ah ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? Love that numbering system. for your #2 #2, everyone of those places where temperature is measured is a pocket of humanity, dependent on energy to stay alive and live during the winter. With the advent of the airplane and the Arctic bush pilot, even small communities have grown in population. Look at Nuuk Greenland for example,
The Wikipedia entry for Nuuk states:

With 15,469 inhabitants as of 2010, Nuuk is the fastest-growing town in Greenland, with migrants from the smaller towns and settlements reinforcing the trend. Together with Tasiilaq, it is the only town in the Sermersooq municipality exhibiting stable growth patterns over the last two decades. The population increased by over a quarter relative to the 1990 levels, and by nearly 16 percent relative to the 2000 levels.

Yeah, with people come energy use:

Nuuk population growth dynamics in the last two decades. Source: Statistics Greenland
And yet the boneheads at GISS think it is OK to cool the past there, and rewrite temperature history.

So not only is there a warming trend due to UHI/population growth, GISS dishonestly changes the past via homogenization and increases the temperature trend for Nuuk, and this goes on all through the Arctic. Recently such examples of blatant data dishonesty have been shown in New Zeland with the 7ss series, in Iceland with their data and in Australia where there’s a lawsuit build against BoM for this very reason.
If a stockbroker or investment firm pulled crap like this with performance data they’d be in jail.
Mr. Eadler, you can take and cite all the peer reviewed studies you want until you are blue in the face, but the fact is that data manipulations are going on, and the result is a trend greater than it would be due to lack of properly dealing with UHI issues, sattion issues, and homgenization. It stinks, and you are too weak minded (like many researchers) to care enough to look at what is being done to the base data, you are only interested in the results that fit your per-conceived notions. I’ve tossed you off WUWT before for constant mind-numbing trolling repeating the same things over and over again just like you are doing now. Why should I waste any more time on you, becaue I predict you won’t embrace any of what I’ve just shown you.
-Anthony

Eric Adler says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:28 am
The heat capacity of the ocean is huge compared to the land. So the land will warm up faster then the ocean as a result of any heat flux imbalance.
That makes an excellent argument for just using sea surface temperatures to see what is going on with global temperatures lately. See the graphs below that shows no warming for 15 years and cooling for 10 years.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1990/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.08/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002.08/trend

My relatives in Helsinki will dispute that “warming” thing.

A big thank you to all who responded to my question.It seems human nature never changes,those that scream the loudest, get the most attention.

Werner Brozek says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:08 am
“Eric Adler says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:28 am
“The heat capacity of the ocean is huge compared to the land. So the land will warm up faster then the ocean as a result of any heat flux imbalance.”
That makes an excellent argument for just using sea surface temperatures to see what is going on with global temperatures lately. See the graphs below that shows no warming for 15 years and cooling for 10 years.”
You cherry picked a short period of time, so that internal variability will obscure a trend.
On the other hand if you look at the 30 year trend the sea surface temperature has an increasing trend of about 0.13C/decade.

Eric Adler says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:54 pm
See the graphs below that shows no warming for 15 years and cooling for 10 years.”
You cherry picked a short period of time, so that internal variability will obscure a trend.
On the other hand if you look at the 30 year trend the sea surface temperature has an increasing trend of about 0.13C/decade.
I would not call 15 years short. Did not Santer say 17 years was all that was needed? But why stop at 30 years? That 15 year period perfectly explains the 60 year cycle in the following that goes back 130 years:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg

Werner Brozek says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:47 pm
“I would not call 15 years short. Did not Santer say 17 years was all that was needed? But why stop at 30 years? That 15 year period perfectly explains the 60 year cycle in the following that goes back 130 years:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg ”
The 60 year cycle is a curve fitting exercise with no physical basis presented as justification. Recovery from the little ice age is an empty meme.
Physical mechanisms, not curve fitting are the proper way to understand the science behind climate change. Measurements of the driving forces underlying climate, and an understanding of the physical equations which dictate the evolution of the parameters of climate, including the sources of internal variation of surface temperature, have been increasingly successful at explaining the recent evolution of climate observed in modern times. In recent studies have shown that pauses in the increase of surface temperatures are associated with the transfer of heat into the deep part of the oceans during La Nina cycles.
https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5364/deep-oceans-can-mask-global-warming-decade-long-periods

One of those hotspots is Perth and I happen to know that when the Perth station was relocated from a position opposite an irrigated park to a non-irrigated field the nighttime temperatures went up by 1.5C.
The urban irrigation effect – spray water into the air and you greatly increase its thermal capacity and temperatures drop.
The UHI enthusiasts don’t take into consideration the urbanisation of hot dry places.
And as for Mosh, I’m still waiting for an explanation of how BEST isn’t derived from min/max temps.

From Eric Adler on March 9, 2012 at 4:10 am:

If you look at the graph of statistics of trends in the BEST paper in figure 3 on page 8,

The BEST papers were made for peer review and publication, trumpeted on their release as soon to be published, and have not yet cleared peer review nor been officially published in a peer-reviewed journal. Thus they haven’t even passed the standards the BEST team themselves set for those papers to be cited authoritatively. Thus functionally they don’t even exist. Thus they shouldn’t be cited as proof of anything, except perhaps mistakes and other errors that should be corrected before publication.
From Eric Adler on March 9, 2012 at 4:46 am:

The 60 year cycle is a curve fitting exercise with no physical basis presented as justification. Recovery from the little ice age is an empty meme.

The physical basis of the 60 year cycle is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a real and measured phenomenon. There’s a noted pattern of warm periods, notably the Minoan, Roman, Medieval, and Modern ones, with periods of colder temperatures between them as with the Little Ice Age being between the Medieval and Modern Warm Periods. Temperatures go down, they return to the high periods. There is nothing “empty” in referring to a recovery from the Little Ice Age.
You have trouble accepting obvious reality. Perhaps you should seek psychiatric help.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
March 9, 2012 at 7:52 am
“The BEST papers were made for peer review and publication, trumpeted on their release as soon to be published, and have not yet cleared peer review nor been officially published in a peer-reviewed journal. Thus they haven’t even passed the standards the BEST team themselves set for those papers to be cited authoritatively. Thus functionally they don’t even exist. Thus they shouldn’t be cited as proof of anything, except perhaps mistakes and other errors that should be corrected before publication.”
By that standard, I should ignore a large majority of the blogposts on this web site, including the one we are commenting on now. Do you agree?
“The physical basis of the 60 year cycle is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a real and measured phenomenon. There’s a noted pattern of warm periods, notably the Minoan, Roman, Medieval, and Modern ones, with periods of colder temperatures between them as with the Little Ice Age being between the Medieval and Modern Warm Periods. Temperatures go down, they return to the high periods. There is nothing “empty” in referring to a recovery from the Little Ice Age.”
There is no evidence that the PDO is 60 year cycle. The data is quite irregular and only 90 years worth of data exists.
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/ca-pdo.cfm
“You have trouble accepting obvious reality. Perhaps you should seek psychiatric help.”
Insulting posts are a sign of a weak argument.

From Eric Adler on March 9, 2012 at 4:26 pm:

By that standard, I should ignore a large majority of the blogposts on this web site, including the one we are commenting on now. Do you agree?

Your lack of reading comprehension is noted. You even quoted the relevant qualifications of my comment in your reply:
“The BEST papers were made for peer review and publication, trumpeted on their release as soon to be published, and have not yet cleared peer review nor been officially published in a peer-reviewed journal. Thus they haven’t even passed the standards the BEST team themselves set for those papers to be cited authoritatively.”
Said blog posts are not made for peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed journal, thus they are not judged by that standard. They are made for publishing on the internet, and as seen on skeptic sites such as WUWT the peer review occurs after publishing. The results of the crowdsourced peer review determine the suitability for citing authoritatively.

There is no evidence that the PDO is 60 year cycle. The data is quite irregular and only 90 years worth of data exists.

And because there are only 90 years of data, the following site can display 111 years of data with a PDO graph currently showing 1900 to 2011, with links to PDO reconstructions from 1856 to 1991.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
This information and site is found by clicking on “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” at the very start of the very first sentence at the link you provided. Indeed, that sentence is:
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a climate index based upon patterns of variation in sea surface temperature of the North Pacific from 1900 to the present (Mantua et al. 1997).
There it is, from the link you provided. From “1900 to the present” you have deduced there only exists 90 years of data?
The PDO is not a fully independent phenomenon, there are other confounding factors, the determining of the exact stages of the index is problematic. Yet “60 years” is a good approximation of the cycle. Try reading this for information as to how it correlates with many other things.

Insulting posts are a sign of a weak argument.

You have clearly shown difficulties with comprehension. You have shown you didn’t understand the first sentence of a source you linked to. Modern psychiatry also diagnoses and treats functional issues such as reading comprehension problems. My point and my suggestion stands.

Eric Adler says:
March 9, 2012 at 6:59 pm
From 1996 to date is 16 years and not 15. For exact times see the following:
Following is the longest period of time (above10 years) where each of the data sets is at least slightly negative (or flat for all practical purposes). NOTE: * There are no February values yet for 2, 5 and 6. Once these are in, I expect AT LEAST one month to be added to each of the times below.
1. RSS: since December 1996 or 15 years, 3 months
2. HadCrut3: since March 1997 or 14 years, 11 months*
3. GISS: since May 2001 or 10 years, 10 months
4. UAH: It never quite reaches a negative value but I expect it to with the March numbers.
5. Combination of the above 4: December 2000 or 11 years, 2 months*
6. Sea surface temperatures: February 1997 or 15 years, 0 months*
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.16/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.33/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.91/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.08/trend

Thank you Matt. Some may argue that RSS and GISS measure different things. However Hadcrut3 and RSS seem very much alike in many ways. I know that some people are expecting Hadcrut4 and BEST to overturn some things, at least with respect to 1998 versus 2010. I just cannot believe that everything that may have been missed with Hadcrut3 was much warmer on the average. We may have to keep our pencils sharp when they finally come out!