UAH global temperature, down significantly

If the right to left order of the measurements are right, it looks like the southern hemisphere is the lowest temperature at 0.087 degrees vs 0.119 for the NH.

We surely felt these strong cooling trends for the four months of 2013 here in New England.
But how should we understand the unusually high anomaly in January 2013 (for Global, NH, SH and Tropics)? As noise in the measurements, or as something meaningful (e.g., related ENSO, sun’s output, etc)?,…….but yet so very brief?

ThinAir says:
May 4, 2013 at 2:58 pm
“But how should we understand the unusually high anomaly in January 2013 (for Global, NH, SH and Tropics)? As noise in the measurements, or as something meaningful (e.g., related ENSO, sun’s output, etc)?,…….but yet so very brief?”
Let me hazard a guess. The main effect of a quiet sun is to remove the temperature inversion at the winter pole. This allows arctic air to move southward, guided over the continental land masses by blocking from the high pressure systems over the oceans. The oceans themselves and the tropics are not much affected (may see some compensating warming). An active sun produces increased UV which heats the stratosphere which produces the temperature inversion. Under active conditions this has the effect of bottling up the arctic air and preventing it from moving southward. The overall radiation balance is approximately maintained, but the northern land masses get a few degrees colder.

The cold isn’t done with the US / NA just yet either ; if you have access to the ECMWF, check out the latest run – for May 13th – 14th time slice, sub 5100m on the 500-100 Mb thickness ; that is really cold for mid May! Will be interesting to see if it verifies – that will certainly break some more cold temp records if it does.

In reply to pochas & ThinAir,
pochas says:
May 4, 2013 at 3:32 pm
ThinAir says:
May 4, 2013 at 2:58 pm
“But how should we understand the unusually high anomaly in January 2013 (for Global, NH, SH and Tropics)? As noise in the measurements, or as something meaningful (e.g., related ENSO, sun’s output, etc)?,…….but yet so very brief?”
This paper explains the mechanisms by which the solar magnetic cycle changes affect planetary cloud cover. In general, all else being equal for a simple typical solar cycle (solar cycle 24 is a special cycle that occurs roughly once in 1450 years.) when the solar magnetic cycle is very active, there are fewer low level clouds over the ocean and the albedo of the low level clouds over the ocean is less in the higher latitudes. Less clouds and clouds with a lower albedo causes the planet to warm. As noted in the paper due to mechanisms this affect occurs at higher latitudes.
In addition when the solar cycle is active there are more cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds are the high wispy clouds. The cirrus clouds warm the planet particularly in the winter at very high latitudes due to the green house affect particularly in the winter.
It is interesting that attached paper notes that changes to solar magnetic cycle also changes the Rossby waves that affect path of the jet streams (we observed this in 2012/2013) and also changes the severity of winter storms (We will likely start to experience the super winter storms next winter.) The sudden and unexplained change to the jet streams that we are observing is consistent with the mechanisms.
If you have a look at the attached I can explain the mechanisms in more detail. If I understand the mechanisms we are going to experience either the cooling phase of a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle or a Heinrich event due to abrupt stopping the solar magnetic cycle. A solar observation to support the assertion that we are going to experience the cooling phase of D-O cycle or a Heinrich event would be the abrupt and unexplained termination of the solar magnetic cycle. (i.e. No sunspots and the solar magnetic cycle is flat lining.)
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Atmospheric Ionization and Clouds as Links Between Solar Activity and Climate
Observations of changes in cloud properties that correlate with the 11-year cycles in space particle fluxes are reviewed. The correlations can be understood in terms of one or both of two microphysical processes; ion mediated nucleation (IMN) and electroscavenging. IMN relies on the presence of ions to provide the condensation sites for sulfuric acid and water vapors to produce new aerosol particles, which, under certain conditions, might grow into sizes that can be activated as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Electroscavenging depends on the buildup of space charge at the tops and bottoms of clouds as the vertical current density (Jz) in the global electric circuit encounters the increased electrical resistivity of the clouds. Space charge is electrostatic charge density due to a difference between the concentrations of positive and negative ions. Calculations indicate that this electrostatic charge on aerosol particles can enhance the rate at which they are scavenged by cloud droplets. The aerosol particles for which scavenging is important are those that act as insitu ice forming nuclei (IFN) and CCN. Both IMN and electroscavenging depend on the presence of atmospheric ions that are generated, in regions of the atmosphere relevant for effects on clouds, by galactic cosmic rays (GCR). The space charge depends, in addition, on the magnitude of Jz. The magnitude of Jz depends not only on the GCR flux, but also on the fluxes of MeV electrons from the radiation belts, and the ionospheric potentials generated by the solar wind, that can vary independently of the GCR flux. The roles of GCR and Jz in cloud processes are the speculative links in a series connecting solar activity, the solar wind, GCR, clouds and climate. This article reviews the correlated cloud variations and the two mechanisms proposed as possible explanations for these links.

Wow, NH down but less than 2/10 degree C after such a winter and record cold spring in the NH. To knock it down 0.5C I guess we have to have NY harbour freeze over as it did in 1780 and the early 19th Century. In the earlier freeze, heavy cannon were hauled across the ice from Jersey City to NY. How far away are we from that kind of “ice extent”?
I see explanations for NH temp in Jan 2013 at 0.55 C – the whole globe is away up for that month. This has got to be spurious. I see some 1000 word explanations above – a little too wordy to convince me.