UAH global temperature, down slightly for November 2012

2012 in Perspective so far on Six Data Sets
Note the bolded numbers for each data set where the lower bolded number is the highest anomaly recorded so far in 2012 and the higher one is the all time record so far. There is no comparison.
With the UAH anomaly for November at 0.281, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.134 -0.135 + 0.051 + 0.232 + 0.179 + 0.235 + 0.130 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.333 + 0.281)/11 = 0.156. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.42. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66.
With the GISS anomaly for November at 0.68, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.32 + 0.37 + 0.45 + 0.54 + 0.67 + 0.56 + 0.46 + 0.58 + 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68)/11 = 0.54. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.89.
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for October at 0.486, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.217 + 0.193 + 0.305 + 0.481 + 0.475 + 0.477 + 0.448 + 0.512+ 0.515 + 0.486)/10 = 0.411. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less.
With the sea surface anomaly for October at 0.428, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.241 + 0.292 + 0.339 + 0.351 + 0.385 + 0.440 + 0.449 + 0.428)/10 = 0.336. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555.
With the RSS anomaly for November at 0.195, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.060 -0.123 + 0.071 + 0.330 + 0.231 + 0.337 + 0.290 + 0.255 + 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195)/11 = 0.200. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857.
With the Hadcrut4 anomaly for October at 0.518, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.288 + 0.209 + 0.339 + 0.526 + 0.531 + 0.501 + 0.469 + 0.529 + 0.516 + 0.518)/10 = 0.443. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.54. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.818. The 2011 anomaly at 0.399 puts 2011 in 12th place and the 2008 anomaly of 0.383 puts 2008 in 14th place.
On all six of the above data sets, a record is out of reach.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 8 years and 2 months to 15 years and 11 months. NOTE: WFT is down at the moment so I can only give you the latest I have.
1. UAH: since September 2004 or 8 years, 2 months (goes to October)
2. GISS: since March 2001 or 11 years, 8 months (goes to October)
3. Combination of 4 global temperatures: since December 2000 or 11 years, 9 months (goes to August)
4. HadCrut3: since April 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to October)
5. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
6. RSS: since January 1997 or 15 years, 11 months (goes to November) But see * below.
RSS is 192/204 or 94% of the way to Santer’s 17 years.
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 11 months (goes to October.)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.1/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/uah/from:2004.66/trend
*In light of the importance of the 16 years lately, I would like to elaborate on RSS. If you hate nit picky stuff, just ignore this part. The slope for 15 years and 11 months from January 1997 on RSS is -4.1 x 10^-4. But the slope for 16 years and 0 months from December 1996 is +1.3 x 10^-4. So since the magnitude of the negative slope since January 1997 is 3 times than the magnitude of the positive slope since December 1996, I believe I can say that since a quarter of the way through December 1996, in other words from December 8, 1996 to December 7, 2012, the slope is 0. This is 16 years.

I’m sure it’s just me, but reporting anomalies seems to lose information about the data set. In this case, I don’t know what the base value is (I could look it up), so I really don’t know the magnitude of the anomaly. Is it ~0.2 % of the base number? What is its relative magnitude?
This prevents the reader from really understanding the problem. I understand the convienence for the cognizant, but showing anomalies to civilians or (gasp) politicians can really bias their perspective.

D.I.,
Good question. The alarmist crowd likes to use 0.1ºC increments because it makes the y-axis look scary, when it is just a small temperature fluctuation.
Here is a chart with a normal y-axis. Not so scary, eh?

Thanks for the replies,Anthony said, “It is an anomaly graph, where zero represents the baseline period normal”
What is the ‘normal’?,why do these graphs not show it?
If I was to draw a graph at school with no ‘Legend’ It would be a ‘Fail’.
Thanks D Boehm,the X,Y, Scam I am aware of but not the 0.0 with no reference.
Thank you for replying.

D.I.,
You might be interested in this chart. They lie with charts by using the zero baseline trick.
Study the bottom two charts in the link for a minute or two, and you will see how they show a scary acceleration in temperature. But it isn’t real, it is an artifact of a zero baseline chart. The trend line chart at the bottom shows reality: the globe is warming steadily along its long term warming trend line, with no recent acceleration.
NOAA, GISS, and the other government agencies constantly use zero baseline charts to fool the eye into believing that there has been recent acceleration in global warming. But that is wrong, as the past sixteen years of no warming confirm.

Thank you for your replies,
Anthony said “It is an anomaly graph, where zero represents the baseline period normal”.
But what is the ‘Normal’? It’s no good drawing Graphs if some of the Information is missing,If I drew a graph when I was at school without a ‘Legend’ it would be a Fail.
Thanks D Boehm,I am aware of the X,Y,Scam and I see it is applied to many a Graph, but this so called ‘non-reference’ to 0.0 really gets me down,as a ‘layman’ that is.
Thanks again for your Input on this.

Thanks D Böehm,
I am well aware of the Skull-duggery of the so called ‘Graphs’ with just that little bit ‘Missing’, i.e. ‘Legend’, no reference to Baseline ect, but for so called Scientists to put out Graphs with no full explanation is (In my opinion), a disgrace.
Thanks for links.

Thanks to all who responded to my original request,
so what Is 0.0 on the Graph and who determined it?

Werner, Its guys like you, Anthony, and quite a few others who keep me from feeling like there might be something wrong with me. Your kind of analysis of this data can be used to refute the nonsense of CO2 induced warming. Thank you for tying it all up in an easy to understand analysis.

I agree that a temp anomaly chart should never be published, posted, or otherwise broadcast without a note providing the baseline period, such as “Baseline = 1980-1990 avg.” It is unscientific. If I ever use data from elsewhere, I add that info. I have no idea why otherwise scientifically-minded skeptics fail to do this.

garymount says:
December 12, 2012 at 6:40 pm
I don’t know the temperature from where this data set is taken, but for surface temperature anomalies the 0.0 is approximately 288 Kelvin.
That would be the average, although July is about 2 C warmer than January even though Earth is closest to the sun around January 4. The reason is because the land heats up faster than the ocean, despite being further away in July. See AQUA05.
P.S. Thank you Mike and ossqss!

Even my Eyeball Mark I-sensor can detect a wonderful underlying Sine wave with a 23-year-wavelength in the Graph Willis depicts here.
The low point of the Sine wave was around 1987, while the high crest of the Sine wave went by in 2010.
Today, the Sine Wave is definitely on a downswing again, to bottom out 23 years after 2010, i.e. in 2033.

Where I live, and it’s more or less the same thing all over the planet, temperature changes, summer maximums – winter minimums flactuate some 35C: We sweat it out in summer and then switch on the heaters so as not to freeze in winter.
I say, should we be worried about a rise of 0.25C in the the global average temp?. Surely the end-of-the-world 4C rise scare is off, the temp seems to have settled at just an irrelevant fraction of a degree above the invented average, with the possibility (probability?) of a cold Maunder-like phase in the offing, according to solar scientists. I prefer the positive anomaly rather than the negative one solar scientists are predicting. Hope they’re wrong, but considering the current freeze in Europe, the fourth year in a row, they may just be correct…brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

D.I. says:
December 12, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Thanks to all who responded to my original request,
so what Is 0.0 on the Graph and who determined it?
Immediately below the graph it says:
“The hemispheric and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for 2012 are:”
This seems pretty clear, and easy to understand
– if I had a student in class who repeatedly couldn’t read or understand what was in front of them, I would have given them a fail!

Gee peeps have short memories. 0.0 baseline was the first year of satellite data which was 1978. Therefore +0.281 means that the global satellite temperature for November 2012 is +0.281 degrees higher then November 1978.

Steve B says:
December 13, 2012 at 2:58 am
Gee peeps have short memories. 0.0 baseline was the first year of satellite data which was 1978.
Unfortunately that isn’t true. The baseline is the average of 1980 to 2010.

NotTheAussiePhilM says:
Immediately below the graph it says:
“The hemispheric and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for 2012 are:”
This seems pretty clear, and easy to understand
– if I had a student in class who repeatedly couldn’t read or understand what was in front of them, I would have given them a fail!
So what’s your guess at 0.0?

No. 0.0 degree anomaly is 1978. There is no averaging at all e.g. Check the instances where anomalies are -ve. You cannot get a -ve average

SteveB says:
December 13, 2012 at 3:59 pm
No. 0.0 degree anomaly is 1978.
Check the graph. The first entry is at about -0.26 for 1979.
Or check:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
The first number says -0.28 for December 1978.

So can anyone tell me what 0.0 represents as a temperature on this Graph?
A simple question to my teachers but no definitive answer.
‘NotTheAussiePhilM’ is a fail on his reply on his ‘It’s obvious’ duck out.
I need to know what 0.0 actually is as a temperature otherwise the graph to me and many other ‘Laymen’ is pointless.
It’s no good saying It’s an anomaly Graph of temperatures around the globe unless the Graph states what it is anomalous to,and gives a reference to 0.0.
Is this understood?

Werner Brozek
Yes the first entry is -0.26. Since the first satellite was launched in 1978 how did they get an average? Answer, they didn’t, it was -0.26 degrees lower in Dec 1979 than 1978.
However I see from the readme file that they calculate a 30 year running mean which is a useless number.

So can anyone tell me what 0.0 represents as a temperature on this Graph?
Since the first satellite was launched in 1978 how did they get an average?
The above is from two different people. I will give it my best shot and if others wish to improve on my answer, be my guest!
Apparently there has been a recent change to the official average global temperature. But let us for the moment assume the average is 15.0 C. Let us assume that globally, December is coldest and July is warmest. So let us now assume the average December global temperature is 14.0 C and that the average July temperature is 16.0 C.
So in December, 1978, the satellites measured an average temperature of 13.72. The 14.0 is the “0” for December, so a reading of 13.72 would get recorded as -0.28 since it is 0.28 below the average of 14.0.
In July, 2012, the anomaly was 0.13. If the average temperature in July is 16.0, then an anomaly of 0.13 means the average temperature was 16.13 or 0.13 above the “0” for July.
So it is entirely possible for the July anomaly to be -0.50 and for the December anomaly to be +0.50, yet the globe would be a degree warmer in July since the average temperature in July would have been 15.5 but it would have been 14.5 in December.
Now it gets tricky when different data sets use different base lines. In one thirty year period, the average range may have been 14.0 to 16.0, but a different 30 year period could have had an average range of 14.5 to 16.5. So an anomaly of 0.7 for one data set is the same as 0.2 in another data set, yet both could be measuring exactly the same temperature.

Werner Brozek says:
December 13, 2012 at 7:41 pm
So can anyone tell me what 0.0 represents as a temperature on this Graph?
Since the first satellite was launched in 1978 how did they get an average?
The above is from two different people. I will give it my best shot and if others wish to improve on my answer, be my guest!
Apparently there has been a recent change to the official average global temperature. But let us for the moment assume the average is 15.0 C. Let us assume that globally, December is coldest and July is warmest. So let us now assume the average December global temperature is 14.0 C and that the average July temperature is 16.0 C.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Except for 1 eensie teensie problem. The UAH measures the temperature at 8000 to 9000 meters above sea level which is about -50 to -70 degrees.

Steve B says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:33 am
Except for 1 eensie teensie problem. The UAH measures the temperature at 8000 to 9000 meters above sea level which is about -50 to -70 degrees.
Although Aqua05 seems a bit different, it would be interesting to see how they arrived at their very first value out at the higher altitudes. I do not know, but perhaps they took readings for a number of years before determining where the 0 point was up to that point in time.

D.I. says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Thanks for the replies Teachers,
So to come up with a baseline, someone, somewhere, must have decided where to start and after averaging all the monthly temperatures decided on a starting value of ?= 0.0.
What was it?and does it move?
If the answer to the latter is yes then I think we should refer to ‘Climatology’ as ‘Climastrology’
no other ‘Science’ would get away with it.
Scientists on both sides of the AGW debate are perfectly happy to use anomalies relative to a given baseline period since it offers the most appropriate way of analysing changes in temperature over a period of time. The fact that you have problems with it suggests you lack the mathematical skills to understand how to interpret the data being presented.
As for your comment that “no other ‘Science’ would get away with it” I can assure you that many other sciences use similar methods to present data.
Remember this – Fahrenheit and Centigrade are effectively arbitrary scales which are used to represent temperatures experienced on earth. The Kelvin scale is the one that should be used as it represents all possible temperature extremes. On this scale the average temperature of the earth would be around 287K. Clearly, recent (last 30 years) warming would be barely distinguishable on any graph using this scale. This might appear attractive to those who wish to argue against catastrophic AGW (of which I am one). However, it should be recognised that a small relative decrease ( ~2%) on this scale represents a cooling of almost 6K which, on a global scale, would be enough to result in mile high ice sheets crashing tinto New York.

Only Joking, I do know what you mean,but no one ever gave me a definitive answer to 0.0=?,some say 288K you say 287K which is a big difference when people are fighting over tenths of a degree.
It’s neither 287K nor 288K – certainly not as far as the UAH measurements are concerned at least. The 0.0 baseline is the mean 1981-2010 temperature for a given month. The monthly anomaly is the departure from the mean 1981-2010 temperature for that particular month. November 2012 was 0.28 deg warmer than the mean November temperature for the 1981-2010 period as measured by orbiting satellites in the lower troposphere (LT).