While there’s wailing and gnashing of teeth over the US CONUS surface temperature being the “hottest ever” a cursory review of the sea surface temperatures in U.S.Coastal waters shows no cause for alarm, as they aren’t even close to record levels. It’s just one more reason to suspect that UHI and thermometer siting issues are a major forcing component of the surface temperature record. – Anthony
Are July 2012 Sea Surface Temperatures for U.S. Coastal Waters Also At Record Levels?
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
The map in Figure 1 shows the July 2012 sea surface temperature anomalies, based on NOAA’s ERSST.v3b dataset, for the coordinates of 24N-50N, 130W-65W.
Figure 1
We’ll use those coordinates for the sea surface temperatures (not anomalies) of the U.S. Coastal Waters in the following two graphs. Figure 2 illustrates the July sea surface temperatures for those coordinates from 1854 to 2012, and Figure 3 shows the annual (ending in July) sea surface temperatures for U.S. Coastal Waters from 1855 to 2012. I’ve also plotted the July 2012 value in Figure 2 and the value for the period ending in July 2012 in Figure 3 to simplify your task of comparing the most recent temperatures to the earlier values.
Figure 2
HHHHHHHHHHH
Figure 3
The sea surface temperatures of U.S. Coastal Waters are nowhere close to being at record levels for the month of July 2012 or the 12-month period ending in July 2012. I’ll let you decide (speculate about) what that means with respect to the claims of unprecedented U.S. land surface temperatures in July 2012.
My priority is finishing my book about ENSO and its multiyear aftereffects. I’ve only got a few more chapters to write and then I’m done with the first draft of Who Turned on the Heat? The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño Southern Oscillation. Then I have to go back and read the 500+ pages to see what I wrote.
SOURCE
The map and the data presented are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer.
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Thanks, Anthony.
July UAH?
This figure # 3 amazingly shows the 60-year Scafetta-cycle :1860-80 T-rise,
1880-1920 T-decl.,1920-40 T-rise, 1940-80 T-decl, 1980-2000 T-rise, from
2000 T-decl……
Not bad, mate, as the saying goes…This will make a good paper next year…JS
It would be instructive to actually look at the historical relationship between land temps and SST.
You will of course be surprised.
The other thing that would help you is to look at MAT
REPLY: Another incomplete crypto-comment from Mosher. -10 points for not saying what MAT is or why we should look at it.
– Anthony
Anthony, Bob,
I can’t help but think that the “unprecedented” temperatures and “record breaking” drought are related, but not in the sense that the alarmists would have us believe. Because of the drought, the actual heat content of the air is likely to be low despite the “unprecedented” temperatures. This report on the coastal SST’s seems to corroborate that we aren’t seeing much heat build up despite the temperature “extremes”.
Well, one might expect water and land temps to have some correlation? The mid west coast seems cooler in general this summer, though perhaps more variable – some very hot days (not by mid west coast standards that is – easterners and southerners put down your coffee cup before I say that hereabouts 30C is a hot day ;-).
OTOH, the oceanography center on the coast of OR told us that the ocean water nearby is colder in summer than
Mr, Watts,
Up with that is the NASA folks now, just saw on yahoo’s open page a new NWS photo put together of a huge low center storm up in the artic just now. Ya, they seem to be going to use that storm as a “sea ice killer”. A quote from a NWS guy,,”Very strong storm” it may cause damage to the ice up there due to the “current thin condition of the ice” this could be a problem.
You might see what they are up to, as when they do this they use things like yahoo and google main pages to make it look like real news.
How can we have any confidence with temperature data points over 30 years old? There would have been very few stations and what depths with what current in the place at that time. Just the California seas change season by season depending on the Japanese current and then the el nino/la nina effects which are not predictable.
No one can convince me that the 1800 and early 1900 have any accuracy during the early days they had the devil of a time just using the Gulf stream to aid shipping . . so How do they address these issues?
Question for Bob. Is the Great Lakes data masked out in this analysis?
PDO
The middle of the Pacific warm – the edges of the Pacific cool:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif
Unusually Strong Arctic Storm Spied from Above.
http://news.yahoo.com/unusually-strong-artic-storm-spied-above=135552493.html
Well, obviously the seas are doing their own thing(s) in line with not-always predictable patterns, depending on current and weather but I find it interesting to note that in both graphs 2 and 3 the temp. of your seas at 1895 was exactly the same as 1995. This is the 100 year cycle that I estimated from the maximum temps. (parabolic plot)
So here is an idea for your book: plot the maxima – it seems for reasons that apparently no one can explain I am the only one plotting them.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm
It would be instructive to actually look at the historical relationship between land temps and SST.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It would also be instructive to consider the physics involved.
(I could just stop writing right there, and leave you with a remark no more helpful than your’s, but that’s just not me.)
At decadal time scales natural variability will dominate long term trends. Atmosphere over land will heat up and cool off much faster than sea surface does, and with far greater variability due to the tiny heat capacity of air versus the ocean. Over the long term however, the ocean with a mass 1400 times that of the atmosphere dictates just how far atmospheric temps over land can stray. The ocean is like a large adult dragging a tiny child by one hand through the mall. It is the screaming, crying, and kicking of the child that we notice, but these have little to do with the direction of the child’s motion.
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm
It would be instructive to actually look at the historical relationship between land temps and SST.
You will of course be surprised.
The other thing that would help you is to look at MAT
Steven, you are becoming a bigger prat day by day. What on earth has happened the Mosher of 2-3yrs ago. Are you for real. For crying out loud, mon ami, pull yourself together. We miss you.
Anthony asked, “Is the Great Lakes data masked out in this analysis?”
Nope. I had the map-making feature at the KNMI Climate Explorer on the “Contour” setting because it produces a nicer looking image. Here’s the same map using the “Grid” setting. Except for a chunk of Lake Michican, ERSST.v3b appears to capture the Great Lakes.
http://i49.tinypic.com/w7kiuv.jpg
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of KNMI explained the difference between the “contour” and “grid” settings to me a couple of years ago, but I don’t recall the specifics. Based on his email, I use the “grid” setting when I present which grids have data. Phrased another way, I use it whan I want to show how sparse the source data is.
Regards
RE Mosher
**REPLY: from Anthony- Another incomplete crypto-comment from Mosher. -10 points for not saying what MAT is or why we should look at it.**
I suspect Mosher is suggesting that the sea temperatures lead the land temps. That would put comments such as “the heat is being hidden in the depths of the ocean” to rest. If the sea temps start dropping expect the land to do so as well.
And via the Hockey Schtick we have the following.
“New paper finds ocean off US West Coast has cooled significantly over past 30 years”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-paper-finds-ocean-off-us-west-coast.html
The oceans around the US is what global warming looks like. 😉
I think there is a back story developing at the ENSO prediction page. I have been following the three combined predictions, dymanical, statistical, and what they call the “consensus” prediction model statistic. The consensus model prediction, over the year, has been getting closer and closer to the statistical model prediction. Have the majority of the dynamical models lost favor with the “consensus group”? Why? It should be noted that the majority of the dynamical ENSO models have a warming CO2-related fudge factor built in, probably ? from the days when scientists felt that CO2 would cause more frequent and more severe El Ninos.
hmmmm.
Stephen Richards says:
August 10, 2012 at 1:21 pm
+1
Caution: Blocking highs (a stationary high pressure system) can bring up warm temps from the South and cook us even though sea temps are below normal. These weather events make up the noise overlayed on the general patterns we get from oceanic and atmospheric oscillations.
Steven Mosher says: “It would be instructive to actually look at the historical relationship between land temps and SST.”
Sounds like a great idea for a post, Steven. You’re more than welcome to it. I, on the other hand, presented precisely what I wanted to present in the above post.
Regards
Anthony,
I have wondered, “Is it really ‘warmer’ on CONUS (Continental US), or do we have more reporting sites?”
I guess I could phrase that as, “Does ‘warmer’ compare the same reading sites to each other? Or, are they using ‘city’ sites with concrete warming obscuring the true temps?”
Ghost.
mods, I’m not finding anything at this link near top of post:
Are July 2012 Sea Surface Temperatures for U.S. Coastal Waters Also At Record Levels?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/10/not-hot-ocean-sst-around-the-usa-not-anywhere-near-record-levels/bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/are-july-2012-sea-surface-temperatures-for-u-s-coastal-waters-also-at-record-levels/
REPLY: Thanks. Learn to fix links in your browser and I will too. – A
Moshers cryptic comment is about the low SSTs during the 30s dust bowl I suspect.
No surprises there Mosh, dry ground will always be warmer than damp ground given the same insolation. CO2 has nil to do with it.
My guess for MAT is Marine Air Temperature. Its mentioned in this link:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/